"That museum is one of the five greatest museums on Earth. It contained treasures that are the heritage of mankind. There are 140,000 U.S. military personnel in Iraq. We've protected all the oil fields, north and south. Do you really believe we couldn't have spared two fire teams to guard the irreplaceable artifacts of the beginnings of Western civilization?
We could have and we should have. As conservatives, we need to be big enough to admit our mistakes and this one was a doozy...
How so? See post #31.
<< We could have and we should have. As conservatives, we need to be big enough to admit our mistakes and this one was a doozy... >>
If the museum was so important, why weren't you and every other big mouth telling us how important it was before the war started?
If the museum was so important, why didn't the Iraqi's empty it and secure their treasures in one of the impregnable underground bunkers we heard so much about?
If the museum was so important, why wasn't it emptied and the contents sent to Syria for safeguarding along with Iraq's WMD?
If the museum was so important, why didn't the human shields prevent it from being looted?
If the museum was so important why didn't Jacques Chirac, Gerhard Schroeder, Vladimir Putin, and Kofi Annan mention it prior to the war's start?
If the museum was so important, the disgrace is on Iraq for failing to safeguard one of mankind's most significant cultural treasures. Our job is to secure Iraq's infrastructure, the lives of American boys, and the lives of ordinary Iraqi's.
If Clinton had been President, we would've secured the museum and lost 18 men doing it, or we would've secured the museum and left Jessica Lynch behind. Our military is no longer the world's rent-a-cop.
In reality, the museum wasn't that important otherwise it would have been taken care of prior to the start of the war. The museum is important in retrospect. A pity that you, and the rest of the world, didn't think it was important before our troops entered Baghdad.
Given that 1) it was defended, and 2) that it was looted by people both with keys and who knew the difference between the originals and the replicas...that's quite a stretch.
It contained treasures during what period can you state with certainty.
My opinion is the items were long gone before we were in Baghdad. So how is it our fault they're gone?
As usual, though, we'll lead the charge to find them and restore them to a place where all can benefit. And we'll get small thanks for that.