Troops were told to guard treasures

The Washington Times ^ | Paul Martin

[geedee]

Of all the things which could have gone horribly wrong in this war, all the Left has is the looting of a museum to whine about.

I'm with you. All this "priceless" artifact nonsense is is the leftist's latest attempt to muddy a great victory.

Priceless? BS! A coalition life lost trying to save a Golden Fleece that only elitist, rich guys with all kinds of indecipherable initials after their names will ever look at . . . NOW THAT, FRiend, IS PRICELESS!!!!!!!!!

[DensaMensa]

}he looting is also a travesty that could (and should) have been prevented.

If you think it was so important why weren't you there putting you life on the line to defend it?

[kabar]

Maybe so. But the looting is also a travesty that could (and should) have been prevented.

You must have some inside information I am not aware of. As some other posters suggested, this was probably an inside job. The main treasures could have been stolen before we even got to Baghdad. As far as stopping the looting, we would probably have had to shoot some of them. How would that have gone down public relations wise during the early days of our entry into Baghdad? All of this Monday morning quarterbacking is just an attempt to detract from an amazing victory, which was accomplished with minimal loss of life for us and the civilian population.

[latrans]

Did we not plan for the possibility that Saddam himself would loot this museum? Would he do that?

[Henk]

What is most ironic about the (contrived) uproar over the museum looting is that it's all loot to begin with.

Consider the history of this region. Here's a quote from a recent John Derbyshire column:

“Iraq’s ancient heritage”? In what sense do these ancient artifacts belong to Iraq’s heritage? The nation of Iraq has only existed since 1932. Prior to that, the “land of the two rivers” was a British colony. Before that, it belonged to the Ottoman Empire. Heading backwards through time beyond that, it belonged to the White Sheep Turks, the Black Sheep Turks, the Timurids (another variety of Turk), the Mongols, the Abassids (Arabs), the Seljuks (more Turks), the Buwayhids (Persians), the Abbasids again, the Umayyads (more Arabs), the Sassanids (Persian), the Arsacids (Parthian), the Seleucids (Macedonian-Greek), the Persians again, the Babylonians, the Assyrians, the Aramaeans, the Elamites, the Kassites, the Amorites, the Akkadians, and the Sumerians.

The point is all these priceless artifacts have simply been looted and pillaged from previous civilizations to begin with.

[RottiBiz]

It makes me very angry every time I hear the lefties moaning about how our troops didn't stop the looting; yet, no one, not even the interviewers, ever mentions this:

Marine killed: Despite the cries for a return to normalcy, an Army unit reported a sharp clash with Iraqi irregulars in the western part of Baghdad, in which officers said about 20 Iraqi militiamen were killed and no U.S. soldiers were lost. But a Marine guarding a hospital on the eastern side of the Tigris River was shot and killed when two Syrian men posing as gardeners sneaked up, pulled a concealed gun and opened fire at point-blank range.

From the "Wall Street Journal Sunday" 4/13/03. I can't post the URL because it is no longer working, but you can find the article at Google with "marine killed hospital looting."

I had heard it first reported on Fox News and went to Google for verification.

My heart is breaking for the Marine who was killed while guarding the hospital and for his family.

[Newbomb Turk]

Bull ! The military is a force designed to engage the enemy and KILL. Swiftly, Surely, Violently, They are not a police force.

People just think they are because Clinton and his croniies misapplied and misused the military for 8 years.

Bagdad is a city the size of LA we simply can not be everywhere to safeguard everything.

[ladyjane]

But the looting is also a travesty that could (and should) have been prevented.

Prevented by whom? You seem to be quite sure that all the 'treasures' were stolen in the past few weeks.

[mewzilla]

...told to guard treasures...

Guess human life doen't count...

[mewzilla]

doen't=doesn't

[Redwood71]

"The Pentagon's Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA), led by retired Lt. Gen. Jay Garner, sent the five-page memo to senior commanders at the Coalition Forces Land Component Command (CFLCC)."

""We asked for just a few soldiers at each building, or if they feared snipers, then just one or two tanks," said an angry ORHA official, one of several who spoke to The Times on the condition of anonymity."
_________________________________________________________

When did this office suddenly gain control over central command. But I guess it would stand to reason that it is obviously wise to station "a few soldiers" at areas where they could easily be picked off by snipers, that are still in existance to this day and use hit and run tactics, to protect artifacts. And it will be easy to go out back to the tank tree and pick 32 of them off so they can guard the museums. It must be the soldier's duty to give up his/her life for country and a Van Gogh.

And isn't it always the way that someone had to open their mouth but require not to be identified. Perhaps he/she should go over there and guard these "treasures" and when they are shipped back in the body bag, we won't put their name on it.

[VOA]

"We asked for just a few soldiers at each building, or if they feared snipers,
then just one or two tanks," said an angry ORHA official, one of several
who spoke to The Times on the condition of anonymity.

I got to watch three antiquities poobahs on McLaughlin's "One-On-One" show
weep and gnash their teeth about the museum looting event.

As bummed as I feel about the loss of some of the items, it was interesting to
hear a few factoids slip from these folks...
...as in, there was a looting of items during the 1990-1991 Gulf War I time period.

And that most of the items had probably been removed from the museum prior to
the start of bombing about a month ago...and items were probably looted mostly from
these sites that no Coalition soldier could have hoped to locate except by accident.

AND THE COLLECTION THAT WAS LOOTED...was never extensively cataloged...
so we really don't know what percentage or how many specific items the museum
possessed...or were lost by looting/theft.

Also, a LOT of sites in Iraq have yet to be fully excavated, so Iraq may yet have
MANY more great finds available...to restock their shelves.

When one of these weeping antiquities experts produces a verifiable letter that they
sent to the Pentagon (or UK/Australian) military authorities BEGGING to
be embedded with troops in order to assist in the safeguarding of antiquities...
then I'll take these tenured folks seriously.

[geedee]

Great point! Thanks.

[WOSG]

Seamole, thanks for posting the whole thing:

"The military have done a wonderful military job, but they have refused to listen to the civilians who were brought in to specifically tell them what they needed to do in order to make the civilian side of this work," the official said. "The excuse that we've got back time and time again was that their first priority was to war fight, the second priority was to look after their safety, and the third priority was to do the work that we had asked them to do. My question is: Why ask us to come here?" the official asked. He said this sense of frustration was shared by all ORHA officials. "They haven't listened to any of us. We are all equally upset."

We can take from this that our CentCom folks have not executed the post-saddam phase as brilliatnly as the kill-saddam phase, as witnessed by the more massive damage to baghdad buildings from looting than in the precision bombings themselves, by the fact that we *didnt* have the troops in there to protect vital sites, and by the fact that US military let lawlessness run in baghdad for a week or more. ideally, we would have had a tighter clampdown on the city with more troops and a curfew from day 1 (not after 5th day of lawlessness).

Moreover, the memo shows that contrary to the Leftists whining we *did* plan for this and consider it, but we just didnt execute flawlessly. the oil ministry line is just anti-american BS. The shocker to me is how close we were to getting this exactly right, even if this is fingerpointing from one set of officers about where in the chain it didnt get implemented. Hindsight is 20/20.

[WOSG]

dittos on your thinking.

I am not much into hand-wringing or blame-game just because we missed protecting the museum ... but if it indicates a hole in DoD execution that runs deeper, I'd be very scared. We NEED to be protecting Iraq's citizens and stamping out lawlessness, we need to have a professional and seamless administration. Screwups give the US a bad name and curry resentment among the very people we have liberated.

I hope they are not behind the 8-ball now.