I appreciate the sentiment, but we have troops guarding oil fields and hospitals. If we can spare troops for that, we could have spared them to protect Iraq's heritage and cultural treasure. Once again, my comments should be understood as assuming these initial reports to be true. I have some doubt and hope that they are not.
The troops were already protecting the oil fields. Moving them would be a problem.
Hospitals are more important than museums. (Sad to say, we've already shown we've had problems with protecting hospitals.)
I assume the people running the museums must have figured for some time that, one way or another, their collections were in danger from looters, fires, bombs, conquerors...you name it. They've had weeks to do something with the most precious (and/or most easily moveable?) items. They've had plenty of time to consider arming the guards. Why did the museum folks assume that the moment Saddam's police were gone the US military would be there to step in?
I'll bet some items actually were quietly moved in the past three weeks (or even before then).
Once again, my comments should be understood as assuming these initial reports to be true. I have some doubt and hope that they are not.
I have to agree that we don't know the whole story. The coalition's guilt could be even be worse than the deputy director describes.
The deputy director is quoted in this article. What happened to the head director? What happened to the rest of the staff? Was this poor woman left alone in that big museum?