Thursday, April 10, was bargain day at the Greater Baghdad flea market–and a day for an American military engineer to admire the retreating Iraqi army's explosive demolition expertise.

The day after jubilant crowds downtown toppled statues of Saddam Hussein as American Army and Marine units looked on, people on the outskirts of the city celebrated the tyrant's fall by liberating anything that wasn't bolted down. As the looting went on, along the Route 6 approach to the city of 4.5 million over the Diyala River, military convoys navigated through the ebb and flow of ordinary Iraqis. The rule in the street was that if you can haul it away, it's yours.