[kalt]

This seems unfortunate.

[Verginius Rufus]

This is indeed unfortunate, but I have a feeling that the figure of 170,000 items is the total for the museum's holdings, and that the number of items taken was far smaller. With proper vigilance a lot of the items may be recovered if the possessor tries to sell them. There were reports during the first Gulf War of items disappearing from the museum(s) in Iraq.

The main problem in Baghdad at the moment seems to be that the police force has simply vanished--for the good reason that they had been part of Saddam's terror regime and feared reprisals from the citizens.

By the way, when are the French going to return the stele with Hammurabi's Law Code to Sippar? (It was carried away to Susa in antiquity, then stolen in 1901 by the French and taken to Paris.)

[sergeantdave]

The looters broke into rooms that were built like bank vaults with huge steel doors.

---

I'd guess we can find most of these treasures resting at the museum director's villas in Syria and France.

[FITZ]

Yes it does seem unfortunate ---all their history ---and those artifacts can't be replaced. That's their own culture they're looting and destroying though --- maybe they just have that little respect for it now after Saddam.

[stripes1776]

Looters Ransack Baghdad's Antiquities Museum

The political left can tolerate Saddam's torture chambers, rape rooms, genocide, living in palaces with gold toilets while he forces the majority of his people to live in slums worse than Calcutta and Haiti, but the liberals will scream bloody murder now that a bunch of old vases have been stolen by the starving masses.

[cgbg]

After most wars the troops of the victorious side would have looted the museum and returned the treasure to their home country and put a bullet hole in the head of the museum director.

This woman should count her blessings.

The treasures remain in country and will help to jump-start the economy when they are sold. ;-)

[Physicist]

This seems unfortunate.

Unfortunate? It's a damned tragedy. Securing that site should have been one of our very top priorities. Mesopotamian antiquities will be the top moneymaker for Iraq, after oil. Many of the oil fields we risked lives to protect were far less important and valuable than this.

[solzhenitsyn]

This is a huge shame. If Turkey hadn't prevented our 4th Infantry Division from entering Iraq from the north, we could have defeated Saddam even earlier, and we could have the manpower in place to maintain order in the cities. Apparently, it was worth the loss of six billion dollars to the Turks to see more Americans and Iraqis die, and to see Iraq's cities trashed.

[Risa]

I agree it seems unfortunate, yet I think this tragedy pales in comparison to the enormity of the human tragedy Saddam inflicted on his people.


risa

[lawgirl]

OH this is sad.

[FreedomFlyer]

Leaving aside issues of responsibility, this is terrible to lose so much of value. There are an enormous amount of important things in Iraq. The West hasn't been allowed to dig for decades. There is much yet to be found.

[Jerry_M]

"I hold the American troops responsible for what happened to this museum."

Huh?

Arabs loot an arab museum, but she holds our troops responsible? The article title is correct: Looters Ransack Baghdad's Antiquities Museum, not Americans. There isn't anything there worth a single American life.

[nutmeg]

read later bump

[SuziQ]

Where was the Museum staff and Security? Did they actually go to the Army or Marines and ASK for help? I doubt the military was even thinking about the Museum.

It is sad, but maybe they can appeal to the public to return things in the spirit of the country of IRAQ, making clear that those things had nothing to do with Sadaam.

[VRWC_minion]

Who writes this stuff

Looters have sacked .... They blamed U.S. troops for not protecting the treasuresHey US, make me stop before I loot again ?

[VRWC_minion]

"They have looted or destroyed 170,000 items of antiquity dating back thousands of years...They were worth billions of dollars

Can we say "Insurance Fraud" ? What do you bet this stuff is insured by LLoyds or something ?

[fella]

I can't help but wonder if a large part of these looters aren't the old regime in plain clothes, destroying evidense and gathering a nestegg.

[RightWhale]

Amin told four of the museum guards to carry guns and protect what remained.

Iraq needs to begin governing itself. They can start by recovering the stolen items and prosecuting the thieves. Many of the looters are professional.

[jetson]

I guess we should have told Sadam to put all of the antiques down in the bunkers before we kicked his ASS.

[DensaMensa]

While clearly an unhappy loss,(their fault) most or all of this stuff was well photographed and documented and it's value to history probably not lost. It would have been FAR worse if we had been forced to engage in a serious (nuclear) war which destroyed the vast unexplored regions of Iraq where new secrets lie undisturbed.

[mewzilla]

How does anyone know whether Saddamn and his cronies didn't loot it?