Hiring looters is an effective way to stop looting.
BAGHDAD – US Army officials in the eastern part of the Iraqi capital are taking a novel approach to stop looters - offering some of them a job that pays better than stealing government property.
In the three days since the experiment began, the number of looters in a massive multiacre warehouse and industrial stockyard run by the Iraqi power company has dropped from several hundred to zero.
I wonder if previous to this the US Army had the authority to hire local people in Iraq. The wages in Iraq are so low that hiring a bunch of them doesn't cost very much. It seems like a sensible cheap thing to do more widely.
By Randall Parker at 2003 May 09 02:35 AM Reconstruction and ReformationI would assume they always did. If you consider payments to RG commanders to order mass surrenders and desertions made by SpecOps troops in the country prior to the actual fighting.
Also, I read somewhere that the US dollar was going to be the de-facto currency of Iraq for a while. Since we are now formally an occupying force for at least a year..?
Posted by: Suman Palit on May 9, 2003 01:59 PM