BAGHDAD, Iraq - The young looter emerged from a burning warehouse yesterday, his face smeared with grease and his T-shirt soiled with soot. "I did not burn it," he shouted. "I just came to get some things."
But Firas Zardish, 18 and slightly built, encountered an unexpected problem. An Iraqi police officer, tightly gripping the teen-ager's shoulder with one hand and holding a gun in the other, took him into custody.
One arrest will not have a noticeable effect on lawlessness in the city, but it was a significant step for American authorities wanting Iraqi police to regain some semblance of control and end a month of almost uninterrupted looting and gunfire.
"We can do this, slowly," said police officer Amad Hassan, 30, fingering the grip of the handgun tucked into the waistband of his trousers, the first weapon he has carried since the fall of Saddam Hussein. "If we don't come back, who will help the people?"
A day after the U.S. Army general in charge of the occupying force ordered more aggressive peacekeeping efforts amid widespread criticism that his troops had allowed Baghdad to descend into chaos, Iraqi police accompanied by heavily armed American soldiers deployed around the city.
It wasn't the first time joint patrols have ventured onto the streets, but their numbers increased, and Iraqi officers now are armed with weapons issued by the Americans.
It's a telling sign of the dangers, though, that the police need protection themselves. The Army Humvees with roof-mounted machine guns dwarf the Iraqi police sedans that travel in caravans through the city, and the patrols operate only from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.
"We do not go out at night," Hassan said. "It's too dangerous." Nor do they venture into perilous neighborhoods, as was demonstrated yesterday when Hassan's squad avoided the sniper-infested neighborhood surrounding the Ministry of Health.
"We are trying to help them establish a workable system," said Lt. Dionne Hannah of the 204th U.S. Military Police Battalion, whose unit protected Hassan's squad. "It's a little unstable now, but it will work out over time."
The new American administrator for Iraq, L. Paul Bremer III, said yesterday that American troops had arrested more than 300 suspected looters in the past 48 hours, including 92 arrested overnight in the first nighttime Army patrols dedicated to local law enforcement.
"There is a serious law and order problem," Bremer said in his first news conference since taking over for Jay Garner. Bremer blamed the looting on criminals released when Hussein issued a general amnesty in October. "It is time to put them back in jail, and that is where we will put them."
Suspects are in American custody. Looters will be held 20 days, and more serious offenders will be detained indefinitely until Iraqi courts are fully functioning.
The Iraqi police officers include long-time veterans and new recruits who pay little regard to previous rank. About 7,000 of the prewar police force's estimated 40,000 members have returned to work and are being paid about $20 a month.
Khatib Talib, 30, is one of them. He says his 6-year-old son was killed when a bomb destroyed part of his house during the war, but he is not sure who was responsible. Now he is working with American troops.
"When I lost my child, I became afraid for all of Iraq's children," he said. "I want to save the children. Every child in Iraq has become my son. It's hard for me to come out here, but I feel I have no choice."
Yesterday, Talib set out with more than 100 other officers in a convoy led by a white police car with its lights flashing. An Army Humvee followed, along with more police cars and another Humvee bringing up the rear.
At times, this seemed like a normal police patrol in a normal place. Officers wearing green slacks and white shirts checked suspicious cars, found a stolen police vehicle parked on a sidewalk, and questioned a man carrying a rifle who said he had been hunting birds. Sending him on his way, police allowed him to keep his gun.
They saw black smoke billowing from a walled warehouse complex that had been looted of earth-moving equipment. Two long sheds of corrugated metal were ablaze as the officers pulled up and raced inside.
They found looters scavenging for whatever had been left behind. Police drove after a youth trying to escape on a donkey cart; a man bolting across the street was caught by an Army sergeant. Those arrested, including young Zardish, were shackled with plastic cuffs and stuffed into the back of the police cars. Officers left the fire to burn itself out.
Up the street at a scrap metal yard, the caravan encountered young men hauling away metal bookcases in a blue pickup truck. The Iraqi police rounded up the men and kicked and punched a teen-ager until he squatted and put his hands in the air. Some suspects cowered on the ground while others yelled at the officers, who raced around with their guns drawn.
Meanwhile, the U.S. soldiers took out clipboards in a futile attempt to record the names of those arrested and sort out juveniles from adults.
Hannah, the American lieutenant, said soldiers were trying to train the officers "to make sure they do proper policing." Soldiers stopped an Iraqi officer from hitting the teen-ager again, and at one point an exasperated Hannah noticed a man escaping.
"Why is he running away?" she hollered. "And why is nobody chasing him?"
