GROUNDHOG DAY

Looters have cleaned out bombed factories, houses and buildings, taking away industrial equipment, household appliances, and even pillows, mattresses and live chickens.

Reuters correspondent Matthew Green, with U.S. Marines on the outskirts of Baghdad, watched scores of young men make off with home generators and other booty from a factory on Monday.

"They were literally emptying the premises," he said.

--CNN, April 8, 2003

An official in the occupation authority ... cited reports that government buildings, police stations, civil defense garrisons and other installations built up by the Americans had been overrun and then stripped bare, of files, furnishings and even toilet fixtures.

--New York Times, April 8, 2004