Farmers Plunder Wealth of Regime's Remains

Lieutenant Colonel Alistaire Deas put his hands on his hips and surveyed the damage around him. "Well, it is not vandalism per se," he said in his Scottish accent, with just a hint of disapproval. "It is more like creative recycling."

But call it what you like, this huge oil and gas facility just on the outskirts of Basra has been well and truly trashed. Shattered glass lies everywhere and thick pools of stagnant oil blacken the sand. The smell of the crude hangs thick in the air and stings the nostrils.

Yet this advanced and highly modern plant was intact only two days ago. It survived the war unscathed. The front lines passed it by and it has suffered no air strike. Instead it is the local farmers who have begun the process of levelling it. Surrounding the huge hulking storage tanks and electricity pylons is a landscape of small farms and rural poverty. In the mindset of southern Iraq, there is no need for oil. There is a need for glass, electric wire and light fittings. So they have taken them.

The doors of the plant have been taken off their hinges. The windows have been staved in. Taps have been smashed and precious water drips unstoppably into the ground. Every light in the complex has been stolen. Soon the roofs will go. The concrete and tin transformed from a 21st century industrial complex, into a supporting wall for a farmhouse or a gate for a sheep pen.

It is deeply ironic. President George Bush and Tony Blair have made much of the aim of securing Iraq's oilfields for the benefit of the Iraqi people. But no one thinks that they meant the Iraqis to chop up the oil pipes and use them as rafters.

It is posing a problem for British troops too. As the areas behind the front lines turn to a semblance of normality a looting spree has begun. All over southern Iraq former military or government buildings that have survived the war are being reduced to scrap by an army of men and children who are carting off everything then can carry. There is little to stop them. The British simply do not have the manpower to guard every valuable resource from the people who live around it.

The trashed oil facility might be an exception so far. It is not yet completely destroyed after two days of looting. Only the superficial equipment has been taken away. The huge generators and most of the top-of-the-range German electrics are still in place. "It will be a disaster, if they destroy this. We need to put people on this base and make sure it doesn't happen," Col Deas said.

Local farmers say the men who worked at the complex were bussed in from Basra. They themselves never benefited from the jobs or the development that oil was supposed to bring Iraq so it is understandable why they want a piece of the building now. Badar al Romaith, who says he has taken nothing, does know what happens to a lot of the material. "The people take it and go to the market in Zubayr," he said "There they can sell it and get some dinars to buy some sugar, or some meat."

It is buildings associated with the former military that have suffered the most. Not far from Badar al Romaith's tomato farm lies an old military base, abandoned by troops in the first few days of the war. It was never attacked by British or American forces but now it has been almost levelled by an army of looters.

Driving on to the base, you almost have to queue behind a line of beaten-up local cars and trucks all keen to take what they can. The sound of hammers clanging on metal provides a noisy chorus for a line of young men steadily removing the tin roof of every building in the sprawling complex. Even the metal roof of the mosque has gone, leaving a skeletal outline where once it kept the summer rains off the worshippers inside. "I don't really blame them," remarked one British squaddie watching the process. "They had a tough time of the army here for so long; I think I would do the same in their position."

Donkey carts driven by small children enter the base empty and leave it laden with every conceivable shaped piece of wood or metal. There are weapons here too. Stacks and stacks of shells and bullets piled high in barracks rooms. They are open and unguarded. But these are ignored. It is the bricks of the walls and metal of the roofs that attract all the interest. Perhaps that is a good sign to emerge from the orgy of destruction. Ordinary Iraqis have had too much of weapons. Now they want things with which to build their homes. It might be stretching things to call what is happening turning swords into ploughshares, but it is on the right road.