Iraq National Museum heist

[daveleau]

Wasn't much of a heist at all... Those who resigned over this crisis still say they were right even after the true findings were revealed.

REMEMBER the Iraqi National Museum tragedy? In April it was reported that 170,000 priceless pieces had gone missing in the aftermath of the U.S. victory in Iraq. It turns out now that only 33 exhibition quality pieces are missing, along with 3,000 to 5,000 other items that were in storage. Nonetheless, two members of the administration who resigned in protest now say they would do so again if they had the chance.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Conten...2/871vgrhe.asp

At the close of our interview, Sullivan said, "The ministry of oil was the only place that got protected. I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but it doesn't look good."

Oil is a powerful motivator.

Specially if you is from Texas.

[Blueliner]

yes, the oil is an importnat national resource for the Iraqi people. And for the US. Let's be honest, we need the oil. We have to protect a way to get oil. You know sooner or later Saudi Arabia is going to turn all militant on us. Most of the muslim countries are looking that way, like SA and Egypt as examples. I'd say less than 10 years and theor govs will be over thrown, like in Iran many years ago. Now we can use Iraq to get our oil from, so when the terrorists in SA cut off our supply it woun't cripple us. Also having bases in Iraq will better position ourselves to respond to the next militant knuckleheads in the area to threaten us.

[Theophylact]

daveleau, that number (33) is false. That's the number of major treasures that are gone. The current count is about 3,000 items missing.

[Gomer]

from your article Dave:

Martin Sullivan, executive director of Historic St. Mary's City Commission in Maryland, says: "I like to keep in perspective that it is not just that museum, there are also regional museums and the national library, in addition to looting at archeological sites."

"Our presence [in Iraq] was our decision," Sullivan says. He stresses that the war was preemptive, and the President's Advisory Committee on Cultural Property had alerted CENTCOM to the location and importance of the National Museum. Therefore, he concludes, American soldiers should have been able to stop the looting. To Sullivan, the matter is easily cast in simple terms: "We had the ability to plan for consequences, and we didn't."

At the close of our interview, Sullivan said, "The ministry of oil was the only place that got protected. I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but it doesn't look good."

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/i...iquities_x.htm

No signs of bomb damage were observed by archaeologists during the National Geographic-sponsored expedition in May. Its findings were released Tuesday, reflecting military coordination with archaeologists on sensitive sites. Ground surveys of 23 sites revealed serious looting at 14 ancient cities, and a helicopter survey of 13 sites in southern Iraq found serious looting at 10 locations.

"As a result, there are many things we will never learn about the rise of urban society," says archaeologist Henry Wright of the University of Michigan.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/i...res-usat_x.htm

At the Fifth World Archaeological Congress here last week, the fate of Iraq's antiquities was a continuing topic of concern, both inside and outside scientific sessions. Conference officials issued a resolution calling for greater action by U.S. military officials to secure Iraqi archaeological sites.

"The looting is a tragedy that is current, right at this minute," says archaeologist Claire Smith, who heads the congress.

"At least 500 artifacts are moved out of Iraq every day, right now," says Joanne Farchakh, a Lebanese archaeologist and journalist who visited the site of the ancient cities of Umma and Larsa earlier this month and observed "teams" of looters. A National Geographic Society-sponsored team reported looting at 14 such sites.

"Some of the most devastating damage in the museum was not to the 'treasures,' " says anthropologist William Beeman of Brown University in Providence. Records destroyed in the looting that explain an object's origins are just as big a loss from a scientific standpoint as the objects themselves, he says.

[Gomer]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp...&notFound=true

University of Chicago archaeologist McGuire Gibson said the U.S. Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement told him June 13 that the official count of missing items had reached 6,000 and was climbing as museum and Customs investigators proceeded with an inventory of three looted storerooms.

The June 13 total was double the number of stolen items reported by Customs a week earlier, and Gibson suggested the final tally could be "far, far worse."

It now appears, however, that although the losses were not nearly as grave as early reports indicated, they go far beyond the 33 items known to have been taken from the museum's display halls. Gibson said looters sacked two ground-floor storerooms and broke into a third in the basement. Two other storerooms appear to have been untouched.

Gibson noted that there are "thousands of things that are broken" but not listed as missing. And teams of archaeologists sent by the National Geographic Society found widespread looting of artifacts from sites outside Baghdad. None of these are museum pieces, and most were simply plucked from the ground.

The museum housed 170,000 numbered items and thousands more artifacts that had either not yet been catalogued or had been set aside in a ground-floor "study collection" storeroom for researchers to examine.

Reporters and investigators arriving in the first days after the looting saw a virtually empty museum that had been thoroughly trashed. They assumed the worst, Gibson said, an impression that the museum staff did not seek to dispel.

In fact, the staff -- anticipating possible looting -- had spirited away a huge portion of the inventory, including almost everything portable in the display collection, and stashed it either in the basement or in off-site bunkers, Gibson said. Staff had also hidden a gold collection in a Central Bank vault during the 1991 Persian Gulf War and never removed it.

When U.S. authorities took their first close look at the damage, it appeared the finest artifacts had been "cherry-picked" by thieves with inside knowledge. Some U.S. officials suggested that staff members might have been complicit.

"This was unfortunate" but easily explained, Gibson said. Bitterly offended by U.S. forces' failure to protect the museum from the looters, staffers "were not going to give information on where things were," he added. Today, museum staff and U.S. investigators from Customs and the FBI have "a very good relationship," Gibson said.

[Good Companion]

Hey folks! As you all may recall, I'm in Baghdad right now (with the military) and crossed the border on the first day of the war.

One of the articles cited expresses someone's dismay that the US military didn't do more to stop the looting. Well, having seen the looting firsthand, I don't think anyone could have done anything to stop it. These folks are like locusts; they just strip everything.

I've seen them cut down power lines and melt the insulation off to sell the copper, then complain that they don't have electricity. That's been the biggest impediment to restoring services to the country.

As soon as you stop them, they go away and come back as soon as you leave.

Regards,
Dana

P.S. And I'm here to see it, not like some of those so-called reporters who NEVER stepped foot out of the Al-Rashid hotel.

[Thud]

Rock on, Dana.....hope you're out of there soon.

Weren't a lot of Journalists and US Marines caught by US Customs with looted stuff?

[sharder8]

Originally posted by shahani
Weren't a lot of Journalists and US Marines caught by US Customs with looted stuff?

Some Journalists and a couple Marines!

Even the Marines can have a couple bad apples, just don't call all of them bad

Harder