Why do these idiots always try to associate some sort of cost to Human Dignity beyond the battle to free them?
Freedom was already paid for with the blood of our dearest. Now millions of Iraqis are freed from the evil perpauted upon them by an insanely evil dictator. Triuphant over their newfound liberty, they are jubilant and dancing in the streets while destroying any trace of the evil left behind.
Now some idiot crawls out from under a rock and says "Hey...you broke that!"
False choice. I haven't yet heard one person suggest that Iraq should not have been liberated because of the risk to the antiquities, just that the antiquities should have been protected in the process.
The cuneiform texts are valuable because people are valuable. They represent the last remaining testament of three or four great, lost civilizations: the last voice of millions upon millions of people. Is that not worth a small amount of effort and risk?