Guards and bars all over

BASRA -- Being an ever-observant journalist, it took me two days here in Basra to realize why our hotel's ground floor was so dark. All the windows have been covered up from the outside with concrete blocks.

Things must have been pretty tough here just days ago. Like Baghdad, there are looted government buildings everywhere. But none of that is going on now. All we can verify personally is the occasional crackle of gunfire, usually at night; the around-the-clock patrols by British soldiers (and once we spotted a Polish patrol -- there is a joke here somewhere, but it escapes me right now); and what we have been told are thieves congregating around dusk. We've seen these alleged thieves flitting like bats across the highways and streets, around abandoned warehouses and factories where, again we are told, they break into the buildings and strip them of anything valuable.

I have seen buildings with nothing left but the roof and walls. Not just the desks and equipment gone, but everything -- right down to the bathroom fixtures and wiring out of the walls.

It's easy to see why our hotel still has its armed guards although, since Dan and I started going on the roof to file our stories late at night, the guards have been moved off the roof to a second-floor balcony.

And speaking of being observant, I also noticed that our hotel management, to complement the bricked in windows, has installed a heavy metal grill to reinforce the entrance. But, at least, they don't lock us in.