*Ø* Blogmanac | Bush's New Iraq Order

Now that Saddam has gone, drugs, alcohol, pornography and prostitution are back on the streets of Baghdad. Paul McGeough reports.

"It’s 10am, and the crowd is pouring into the seedy Al Najah cinema on Baghdad’s Al Rasheed Street. They come for sex on a loop and there is standing room only for the fleshy scenes from a dozen B-grade movies spliced into a single program, which they watch for about 70 cents.

"In Sadoun Street, the midday temperature is 50 degrees Celsius and the pavement prostitutes tout for business from the shade of a beach umbrella. Further along, in Fidros Square — where US troops stage-managed the demolition of a statue of Saddam Hussein on April 9 — as many as 30 addled teenagers are sniffing glue and paint-thinners from rag-wrapped Pepsi cans.

"Drug dealers in the treacherous Bab al Sharqi markets, just off central Tahrir Square, are doing a brisk trade in a big range of looted prescription drugs.

"But the biggest demand is for medications that are addictive and mind altering. Each trader has a special, only half-hidden box for what he calls 'feelgood' capsules and tablets."

While the cat's away