AS-SAYLIYA CAMP, Qatar, 15 April 2003 — The British military has moved to a policy of zero tolerance on looting in the southern Iraqi city of Basra, a senior British military spokesman said yesterday. Group Capt. Al Lockwood told Reuters at Central Command headquarters in Qatar that looting and violence had slowly reduced in the city in the last few days.

“The tolerance level that we had has gone. We’re very much looking to maintain law and order,” Lockwood said, adding that British forces had started joint patrols with local police in Iraq’s second biggest city. “Obviously we realize that after 25 years under Saddam Hussein’s regime there was going to be this sort of exuberance which you saw turned into them taking what they believed they deserved from the regime’s buildings and some members of the regime’s houses,” Lockwood said.

“But that time is now past. The general looting that followed in subsequent days will now no longer be tolerated. Law and order will be maintained.” Lockwood said the highest priority now was to make the city safe enough for aid to start flowing and for hospitals and other essential services to start operating properly again. “We are looking to citizens of Basra who were doctors, nurses in the hospitals, to come back to work now to get these vital pieces of the organization within the city up and running as quickly as possible,” Lockwood said.

He brushed off criticism that British forces have been slow to restore the water supply which is now operating at about 60 percent of full working order. “The water supply at the moment ... is just as good if not better than it was under the days of Saddam Hussein’s regime where there was always a shortage of clean drinking water,” Lockwood said.

British troops and Iraqi police began patrolling the streets of Basra side by side yesterday. “It’s part of our effort to get things back to normal,” a military official said. About 300 Iraqi policemen have volunteered to return to work and have started manning the many checkpoints that have sprung up around Basra. Initially, there will be joint military and Iraqi police patrols, and later the police will patrol slightly ahead of the British units.

The goal is for the military to withdraw to a fall-back position from where they will react only if called upon. “We have put the word out that we want police to come back to their jobs but they will be vetted. We have to make sure they are acceptable to the public they are policing,” the British military official said.

A group of around half a dozen uniformed police were checking vehicles alongside members of the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards in a trial at a post on the southern outskirts. “We are trying to train some of these guys who have been involved in security before in some of the techniques used by us,” Capt. Harry Jameson told AFP.

“What we are trying to get across to the people of Basra is that they are not going to get away with looting vehicles, stealing goods, water tankers — all the kind of vehicles which will help a city get back on its feet.”