For now, the American military in Baghdad has mainly seemed to ally itself with the remnants of Saddam's police in its efforts to restore order. They tend to compare the Iraqi capital to Berlin in 1945. "Everybody was a member of the [Nazi] party or collaborated in some way with the regime," says Capt. Joe Plezner, spokesman for the First Marine Division command, which has set up shop in the Palestine Hotel, along with the remaining contingent of international journalists, in the city center.

Plezner explains that the allies used the old Nazi police force to keep the order in the German capital in 1945, and the same will have to happen now in Baghdad because there is nobody else. And restoring law and order and bringing back security to the increasingly restless population is the highest priority of the Marines.

The old Iraqi police officially started patrolling together with the Marines on Monday. At least in one instance, they ran into some fierce resistance on Tuesday, from Fedayeen Saddam "irregulars," who now see the police as turncoats, say the locals. For most of the people, though, the police represent the old regime of Saddam Hussein. Plezner says he is aware of the mistrust. "We will watch these guys," he says. "We know that some of them were involved in oppressing the population." For now, the only Iraqi officers on the beat will be traffic cops and auxiliary forces that were involved only in maintaining public order, says Plezner.

But in Thawra, the mosques jumped quickly into the power vacuum, even before they tried to establish a local council. For several days, Sheik Gharawi set up a roadblock in front of his mosque that forced people to turn in stolen goods. Looters are easy to identify because their booty consists of the most unlikely objects, such as huge air conditioning units or gilded chandeliers, carelessly thrown into the back of pickup trucks or tied to the roofs of rickety cars. More recently, though, the sheiks have tried persuasion; they have distributed a fatwa from Najaf, the Shiite holy city, that urges people not to fall into the sin of theft.

At the Hadj Razak mosque, a mountain of useless returns are piled up in the courtyard. Office chairs, planks and torn carpets -- nothing of value is evident. But some of the believers' guilt may have been assuaged. All the returned goods will be given back to the original owners, a mosque official says. And if they can't be found, it will be given to the new government or to the poor.

That may be the most likely outcome, since much of the loot comes from the homes of the senior officials of the old regime -- "original owners" who aren't likely to come back to claim their stuff. Hospital officials have already voiced gratitude, however, for getting back some of their looted drugs through the mosques.

It has not escaped many other inhabitants of the capital, though, that most of the looters citywide have seemed to come from Thawra. "All the cars with stolen goods go to Saddam City," said one man in the city center. The rumors may be contributing to -- or attributable to -- the old rivalry between the Sunni and Shiite branches of Islam heating up. "Now the Shiites think they can be the boss -- well, we'll see about that," another man remarked. But politics is not the first concern of many Baghdad residents as long as the city continues to be robbed and set ablaze.

"Look, that is a warehouse of the Ministry of Transport and Communications," one man tells me, pointing at a burning building. "And there goes the Ministry of Higher Education," he says, pointing at a plume of smoke. "First they steal everything, and then they set it on fire." It's true that the only government building the Marines seem to have strenuously protected is the Ministry of Oil, which has been turned into something of a fortress. The nearby National Museum of Antiquities has famously been looted. Its forlorn director spends his days providing tours of the destruction that has been wrought, the priceless artifacts and years of research destroyed.

The Ibn Al Nafis hospital, not far from the center of town, had U.S. protection until Monday morning, when the armored personnel carrier parked out front pulled out. Director Mohammed Ridda has set up his own security patrols, but the sudden departure of the Americans causes a lot of trouble. "We had sent many of our people home after the Americans arrived here," he explains. "Now there's no telephone and some live very far away." In the short-handed situation, he has taken up guard duty himself.

Looters have already tried to get into the hospital, attempting to steal the EKG machine, says Ridda. "They knocked an air-conditioner into the room and got in through the hole, but we chased them off in time." He is angry that the U.S. is not providing better protection: "Only when a wounded journalist was brought here did they park an APC outside and did we get some drugs."

Like other hospitals here, the Ibn Al Nafis has a hard time coping with the war and its aftermath, and every day, more victims of the violence are being brought in. A lot of the patients who come in now suffer from gunshot wounds inflicted by looters.

Sinan Al-Bayati was shot through the cheek by his neighbors: "They robbed an arms depot and then came to steal my car." He resisted, and now he and three of his family members are in the hospital. His cousin was shot through both legs. "When I go home, I will take care of them," says Al-Bayati threateningly.

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