The British view is that the sight of local youths dismantling the offices and barracks of a regime they used to fear shows they have confidence that Saddam Hussain’s henchmen will not be returning to these towns in southern Iraq.

One senior British officer said: “We believe this sends a powerful message that the old guard is truly finished.”

Armoured units from the Desert Rats stood by and watched earlier this week as scores of excited Iraqis picked clean every floor and every room of the Baath Party headquarters building in Basra after it had been raided by British troops.

Villas owned by the elite, army compounds, air bases and naval ports and even some of the regime’s former torture chambers and jails have been ransacked in the past week.

But UN officials said last night that such behaviour was against the Geneva Convention and bred a dangerous mood of anarchy. Homes and vehicles in towns such as Umm Qasr and Safwan, which have nothing to do with Saddam’s regime, have been robbed and vandalised in recent days; a UN official attributed that to the permitted level of lawlessness. One said: “The British and American armies have a duty to protect local law and order. It is not right that they promote the idea that it is permissible to steal or destroy anything owned by the Iraqi Government, their army and their party leaders.

“The worry is that it doesn’t stop here with government property alone and we are already seeing that. At the moment it appears to us that it is in danger of getting out of control and should be stopped.”

An additional risk for the coalition in permitting such behaviour is that vital intelligence is being pilfered or destroyed. By the time British units have reached some buildings they find that every file and piece of paper has been strewn across the floor or used to start bonfires.

That happened at the desert barracks used by Ali Hassan al-Majid, Saddam’s cousin known as “Chemical Ali” and who was suspected of being pivotal in Iraq’s chemical weapons industry.

Since the start of this war the allies have been desperate to find documentary evidence that Iraq has manufactured and stockpiled a chemical and biological armoury but so far they have been frustrated in their efforts to track down incriminating paperwork.

The ransacking is also destroying documentary proof of how Iraq has managed to flout UN sanctions for the past 12 years. Retreating Iraqis, Republican Guards and party officials would not have had time to destroy their filing cabinets. Their documents, which are worthless to locals, are systemically destroyed every time they enter a building as an act of revenge. Some of the equipment looted from army and government centres also shows how successfully Iraq was able to import what it needed from the West.

At the dockside in Umm Qasr a group of British soldiers watched astonished as four children manhandling a brand-new diesel ship’s engine from Switzerland on to a wooden barrow. The machine could have been of no use to them but they took away the packing case with the serial number and import documents still taped inside. Tons of other material bought from half a dozen European countries, also still in their wrappings, disappeared within minutes from the dockside office.

Some of those organising the looting gangs have been clearly seen carrying automatic weapons but they have been left unchallenged by passing Australian and British patrols.

On the outskirts of the town of Imam Anas, moments after British troops had finished searching a naval establishment a gang of 40 villagers moved in. Shortly afterwards women were seen leaving the compound carrying metal bed-frames on their heads. Their children scurried behind them, their arms full of anything they could carry. By mid-morning everything that was not nailed down had gone.

It was at that point that the men of the village moved in with crowbars, hammers and chisels and began dismantling the sleeping quarters, taking away corrugated roofing, wooden supports and doors.

British forces do not have the manpower to police every town and village in the Southern Province they control but there is no doubt that in the past week the incidents of looting have increased massively.

Ali Hassan al-Douri, a local teacher in Umm Qasr, watched 20 young men move through a business office like a plague of locusts and said: “At first it was just getting our own back on the regime but I fear if we are not careful this will get out of hand.”

Explore World News

• Iraq News

• US & Americas News

• Europe News

• Middle East News

• Asia News

• Africa News

Times Recommends

• Burma's victims and the fight for life
• Mexico in the grip of drugs carnage
• Amputee sprinter allowed to compete in Beijing