Iraqis selling Antiquities ( FLASHBACK 1996)

University of San Francisco ^ | June 23, 1996 | BARBARA CROSSETTE

[livius]

Another point that should be brought up, not only in terms of the museums and libaries, but also in terms of hospitals, is that all the head honchos of these government institutions were, naturally, Baathists. Their howls of indignation at us strike me as a little suspect. In some cases, I'm sure they hope to cover up regime misdeeds and even perhaps their own mismanagement by blaming a chaotic state of affairs on "looters" or "pillaging" or some such thing. In other cases, they probably are simply so used to defending the Party that it is unthinkable for them not to continue to do so.

Very little has been said about the complicity of "intellectuals" with Saddam's regime. Nobody gets a high-level job (such as curator or director) under a dictatorship unless they've paid their dues to the dictator and are loyal to him. This includes the people in charge of the museums.

De-Baathizing the country is going to be as difficult as getting the old Communist Party connections out of Russia. Judging by the behavior of ex-KGB honcho Putin, that still hasn't been completed. Saddam and his party were in charge for a long time in Iraq, and there are probably many people, particularly among the intellectuals and privileged classes, who are not going to be happy to see the old regime go.

[Steven W.]

I got the same point made to me by a liberal recently (they get this stuff en masse, don't they?). I reminded him of how we'd just seen & learned that the Fedayeen + Baath Party types had, in fact, taken over hospitals and schools to use as their bases and to store supplies, to the degree those places became near indistinguishable from any other government agency or ministry.

[Cincinatus]

Bump!

[browardchad]

Thanks for posting this.

[Grampa Dave]

Thanks for finding and posting this great rebuttal to the fake cries of looting!

[MizSterious]

Great find! It should be linked to every single article posted about the looting, for perspective.

[SunkenCiv]

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