At the Abu Ghraib prison, a sprawling compound on the desert floor 20 miles west of Baghdad that has become a notorious symbol of fear among Iraqis for its history of mass executions and allegations of torture, the heavy steel gates gave way under the crush of a huge crowd of relatives who rushed to the jail within an hour of the amnesty broadcast. All semblance of order vanished as a cheering mob surged through the compound, in some cases joining prison guards in smashing cell-block walls to free weeping inmates. But some inmates were killed in the chaos today.
The scenes were repeated at other prisons across the country, including the Khadhemiya prison for women in Baghdad, and those in other major cities, including Basra in the south and Mosul and Kirkuk in the north.
Mr. Hussein's decree specified that committees of judges would have 48 hours to rule on individual releases, excepting only "Zionist and American spies," murderers who have not settled the "blood money" owed to victims' families under Islamic legal precepts, and debtors who have not satisfied their creditors. But the mob scenes that developed at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere appeared to have overwhelmed the prisons and caused a mass exodus.
Note the evaporation of fear. The crowds surged into the prisons—fortresses that the people usually avoid out of fear that they might end up in there, disappeared from their families. Guards and ordinary people who lost their fear rescued their family members in jail. No orderly reviews by committees of judges.
I’m grateful to have gotten the link from andrewsullivan.com after seeing a reference to it on National Review Online earlier today.
What is going on? Whatever it is, it is not generosity. Saddam must be feeling some fear to loosen his grip like this. He could not have expected this:
Once the prison gates collapsed, the mood changed. Seeing watchtowers abandoned and the prison guards standing passively by or actively supporting them as they charged into the cell blocks, the crowd seemed to realize that they were experiencing, if only briefly, a new Iraq, where the people, not the government, was sovereign. Chants of "Down Bush! Down Sharon!" referring to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel, faded. In one cell block, a guard smiled broadly at an American photographer, raised his thumb, and said, "Bush! Bush!" Elsewhere, guards offered an English word almost never heard in Iraq. "Free!" they said. "Free!"
It is perhaps too much to hope that a Romania-like meltdown will happen. But if it does, the Army and Marines better be prepared to move in fast to occupy Iraq.
Good grief, are the Iraqis losing their fear of Saddam?
