Hundreds of squatter families ordered out of public buildings in Baghdad

[JoFerret]

http://www.mmorning.com/ArticleC.asp?Article=1530&CategoryID=6iraq:

A homeless woman sitting with her daughter among their belongings last week outside a building where poor families have been squatting in Central Baghdad since the end of the US-led invasion last year


Some families packed their bags, others pledged to stay as private security contractors came last week to evict them from Iraq’s former state television building where they had been squatting since the end of last year’s US-led invasion.

Foreign security contractors working for the publicly-owned Al-Iraqiyah satellite channel told 300 families to leave their home, one of the men being evicted told reporters.
“They told us to get out. Take the 100 dollars we give you or we’ll force you out”, said Sadek Nadhi Mahmoud, 42, who stood with a bag of his clothes outside the building once home to Saddam Hussein’s propaganda machine. “I don’t know where I’ll go. This is where I live”.
Thousands of families live in abandoned state buildings and military camps around Baghdad, but now, more than a year after the launch of the invasion, Iraq’s caretaker government is pushing to reclaim property.
In one of its last acts, the now dissolved US-led occupation administration rescinded a legal order on June 28 which had allowed individual American army commanders to determine whether or not people could camp on public property.
Iraq’s new-found independence has left people like Mahmoud hanging by a thread. They fear there is no safety net to catch them as they are thrown out of empty public buildings by the Iraqi government.
Outside the state television building, five armed foreigners, employed by Al-Iraqiyah, and a few Iraqi security guards were paying out 100 dollars in compensation to all those who left.
They blocked strangers from walking inside and had an air of menace, with automatic rifles slung over their shoulders.
They refused to comment on what was happening, but one said: “It’s very dangerous around here”.
Inside the courtyard of the crumbling yellow brick buildings, heaped with trash, families wondered where they would go.

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[bluedeminredstate]

1. Homelessness

just another added benefit of the occupation.
It's 120 degrees in the daytime - where are these people supposed to go?

[yellowcanine]

2. Are they going to order the U.S. Armed Forces out of Saddam's Palaces?

After all, those are public buildings as well, no?

[Media_Lies_Daily]

5. Eventually, yes.

[Laughing Mirror]

3. We bomb them out of their homes

and ruin their lives even further as we chase them deeper into the rubble, seeking simply shelter. More violent, but similar to what we do home in America. This land is our land, and all that.

The joys of bringing democracy to heathen lands. Ranch homes down the Tigris, just like Gore Vidal envisioned.

[Sandpiper]

4. Looks like we really are bringing American "values" to Iraq

Hatred for the homeless is American as apple pie.