U.S. Forces Police City of Baghdad
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Now to Baghdad, where, like it or not, U.S. forces are being forced to do double duty as police in an effort to stop the chaos and looting that ravaged the city for days. CNN's Christiane Amanpour joins us from am the Iraqi capital with a look at the efforts to keep the peace -- Christiane.</s>CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kyra, also here in the capital, you can imagine, they are looking for a political future, too, a political authority. And that has been a big demand over the last week or so, since the Saddam regime fell. Also, a security vacuum does continue here. Today, this morning, U.S. Marines who are billeted around the hotel and who have an office inside came and searched room to room inside the hotel, at some points, having to kick the doors in, if people didn't answer them. They entered with their machine guns. They had masks on their faces and they said that they were looking for weapons and/or unfriendly people. They didn't find any weapons there, we understand, but they did in another building quite close to the hotel. In any event, the Marines are having to now step in and fill this big vacuum that exists since the Saddam regime fell.</s>AMANPOUR (voice-over): From fighting force to restoring civil order, the U.S. Marines in Baghdad are trying to make that transition and help Iraq gets back on its feet. Here, the Marines have brought together many engineers and administrators from the Ministry of Water. Restoring that basic amenity is a priority. (on camera): The U.S. Marine Corps wrote the book on restoring civil order after wars. It's called the Small Wars Manual. And they've never done anything this big before. Baghdad alone is a city of five million people. It's going to be, they say, a gigantic task.</s>LT. COL. BRYAN MCCOY, U.S. MARINE CORPS: I have no idea. I've never done this before. But we're chipping away at it. We're making great progress today.</s>AMANPOUR (voice-over): Colonel McCoy's Marines are also now stepping into some police work, here stopping a robbery at the Iraqi Central Bank.</s>LT. EDWARD LANGELLO, U.S. MARINES: These guys had brand new bills, dollars, whatever they call them over here. Dinar, I believe they call them. They had stacks of dinar in their pockets which were brand new. And they came out of the vault, which was on fire and had just recently been blown. So, two and two together, they're robbers. Basically, we are sending the message that, hey, you can't do this anymore in Iraq. It's over.</s>AMANPOUR: And that's certainly what most residents want to hear. Every day, from just about everyone we meet, we hear urgent demands for more security. Meantime, the Baghdad police force is still trying to organize itself for the first foot patrols on to the streets of their newly liberated city. Some have this message for the</s>U.S. CAPT. AHMED SALAH, IRAQI POLICE FORCE: The Iraqi people don't want the Americans to stay here.</s>AMANPOUR (on camera): But why not?</s>SALAH: They came here to liberation, OK, not to stay here.</s>AMANPOUR (voice-over): It's a message that's not lost on Colonel McCoy and his team.</s>MCCOY: One day we're a liberator. The next day, we're an occupying force, which nobody wants to be occupied. That can be six months or it can be six days. A lot of it has to do with whether we're perceived as ugly Americans, whether we try and present ourselves as authority figures. And the key to that is getting control back into the Iraqi people's hands.</s>AMANPOUR: Fresh from that robbery that continued after the Marines left, Lieutenant Edward Langello has a blunter message for the Iraqis.</s>LANGELLO: You need to get up. You, the Iraqi people, need to get up and start taking charge of your own nation. America did that a long time ago and look where we are today.</s>AMANPOUR: Perhaps reflecting the U.S. administration's vision of trying to recreate the Middle East in its own image.</s>AMANPOUR: Now, as well as doing quite a lot of security work in this city and trying to get these basic amenities restored, including electricity, which there still isn't any since about 10 days or two weeks since it was turned off, they are also billeted in various places around town, including, we found today, in the palace of one of Saddam Hussein's former wives. But even as they sit and relax off some of their duties, they are quite concerned about their personal security. The Marines today issued a statement that they have basically printed up in both English and Arabic and they are distributing it about town. It is asking for the Iraqis to stay home, stay indoors in the dusk and darkness hours, and, if they ever approach the Marine positions, to make sure they do not it in any provocative manner, to make sure that they aren't carrying anything that can be mistaken for a weapon. So there's still quite a lot of tension here out on the streets -- Kyra.</s>PHILLIPS: Christiane Amanpour, live from the Iraqi capital, where it's just past 11:00 p.m. in the evening. TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com