I'd rather be called an elephant.
OK, if you want, I'll rephrase my question: "Why is it responsibility of the US military to protect and defend the heritage of of the civilized world!"
Why does it fall to the US military? Since you seem so incredibly upset with the term: "Iraqi people" and "Iraqi heritage" then how is it that the items once belonging to the past cultures that existed in that region, now inhabited by the Iraqi people worth the life of a US soldier when the very same people don't give a fig about it? The Japanese, the Germans never looted their musuems after WWII?
We Americans have enormous pride in our cultural heritage. BUT, if the unthinkable happened, if there were looting here (say the National Archives), by the local people here, and that looting were successful, then the Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence would at that moment, cease to be important documents. They would be pieces of parchment and nothing more.
A clay pot ican be a clay pot or a hallmark of the Assaryian Empire. If the locals regard it only as a clay pot to be smashed, then why should the life of one American be endangered because of it?
Madam, if we can protect oil wells, we can protect antiquities.
I don't think we went into Iraq to replace one form of barbarism with another.