Large traces of Iraqi, world history wiped out

When mobs in Baghdad entered the Iraqi national museum and destroyed the artifacts, little did they know that they were wiping out large traces of history. Not just of Iraq, but that of the entire world.

So, when the museum deputy director Nabhal Amin openly wailed and cried in anguish it was perfectly understandable. She picked up the broken pieces of the artifacts, her helplessness on display for the entire world to see. "They have looted or destroyed 170,000 items of antiquity dating back thousands of years...They were worth billions of dollars," she said, sobbing.

The museum grounds were full of smashed doors, windows and littered with office paperwork and books.

Twenty eight galleries of the museum and vaults with thick steel doors were ransacked through Thursday and Friday with almost no intervention by the US troops. A 4000-year-old copper visage of an Akkadian king, golden bowls, colossal statues and ancient manuscripts were all looted and destroyed.

The museum housed items from ancient Babylon and Nineveh, Sumerian statues, Assyrian reliefs and 5,000-year-old tablets bearing some of the earliest known writing. There were also gold and silver helmets and cups from the Ur cemetery.

Iraq, a cradle of civilisation long before the empires of Egypt, Greece or Rome, was home to dynasties that created agriculture and writing and built the cities of Nineveh, Nimrud and Babylon -- site of Nebuchadnezzar's Hanging Gardens.

On the eve of the invasion in March, archaeologists around the world had warned the US government it had a responsibility to ensure the safety of Iraq’s heritage, of the remnants of the Mesopotamian civilization. To no avail.

The museum deputy director blamed the US troops for failing to heed appeals from museum staff to protect it from looters. "The Americans were supposed to protect the museum. If they had just one tank and two soldiers nothing like this would have happened," she said. "I hold the American troops responsible for what happened to this museum."

The plundering was ruthless. "We know people are hungry but what are they going to do with these antiquities," said Muhsen Kadhim, a museum guard for the last 30 years but who said he was overwhelmed by the number of looters. "As soon as I saw the American troops near the museum, I asked them to protect it but the second day looters came and robbed or destroyed all the antiquities," he said.

According to archaeologists, a full accounting of what has been lost may take weeks or months. The only hope now is that at least some of the museum's priceless gold, silver and copper antiquities, ancient stone and ceramics, and perhaps some of its fabled bronzes and gold-overlaid ivory had been locked away for safekeeping elsewhere before the looting.

During the first Gulf war in 1991, nine of Iraq's 13 regional museums were plundered. Fortunately, the Baghdad museum was spared because the war did not replace the government and policing of the city was not disrupted. The museum incidentally, had been closed during much of the 1990s, and had been reopened only in April 2000.

The museum’s deputy director has now asked the guards to keep guns and protect whatever remains -- a case of “too little too late” ?

We know people are hungry but what are they going to do with these antiquities," said Muhsen Kadhim, a museum guard for the last 30 years but who said he was overwhelmed by the number of looters

I'm into history more than the average Joe and yes it's a shame about the damage but we were over there fighting a WAR. Getting water and electricity going, and bringing in food and medical supplies comes before gold cups. Poor ol' Kadhim couldn't get outta his cushy chair he's been guarding for the past 3 decades to ask sobbing Nabbie for $5 out of petty cash to buy a gun. In another article it refered to some of those vaults as "secret vaults" which casts suspicion on the identity of some of the "looters". Nabbie knew for months her precious treasures might be harmed in a war so SHE should have shipped them away for safe keeping instead of blaming us. Besides, those treasures will eventually turn up on the black market or likely at some local street market or even be brought back. We did protect the museum; it wasn't bombed.

MR. RUSSERT: Let me turn to the situation, the non-military situation, if you will, in Iraq and that is the whole issue of looting. This was the scene with the Museum of Antiquities, which housed treasures dating back thousands and thousands of years from the beginning of civilization. And it was ransacked and destroyed, about 170,000 items. The head of the museum said, “Our heritage is finished.” What happened there? How did we allow that museum to be looted?

SEC’Y RUMSFELD: “How did we allow?” Now, that’s really a wonderful, amazing statement. No, let me...

MR. RUSSERT: But, how are we...

SEC’Y RUMSFELD: ...just say a word, here.

MR. RUSSERT: No, no. Wait, wait.

SEC’Y RUMSFELD: Wait a minute. Wait a minute.

MR. RUSSERT: No, let me be precise, ‘cause it’s an important point.

SEC’Y RUMSFELD: But we didn’t allow it. It happened. And that’s what happens when you go from a dictatorship with repressed order, police state, to something that is going to be different. There’s a transition period, and no one is in control. There are periods where—there was still fighting in Baghdad. We don’t allow bad things to happen. Bad things do happen in life and people do loot. We’ve seen that in the United States. It’s happened in every country. It’s a shame when it happens. I’ll bet you anything that if they—when order is restored, and we have a more permissive environment, that there will be opportunities to ask people to return some of those things that were taken. We’ve already found people returning supplies to hospitals.

MR. RUSSERT: What the heads of the museum will say is that they actually asked for the U.S. to help protect it, and that the U.S. declined. Is that accurate?

SEC’Y RUMSFELD: Oh, my goodness. Look, I have no idea. We’ve got troops on the ground, and who do you know who he asked, and whether his assignment that moment was to guard a hospital instead? Those kinds of things are so anecdotal. And it always breaks your heart to see destruction of things. But...

MR. RUSSERT: The Red Cross said hospitals were also looted. Does that surprise you? I mean, it’s one thing for the Iraqis to ransack, loot Saddam’s palaces, and steal his faucets, it’s quite another to loot their own museum and their own hospitals. Did that surprise you?

SEC’Y RUMSFELD: Surprise me? I don’t know. Disorder happens every time there’s a transition. We saw it in Eastern European countries when they moved from the Communist system to a free system. We’ve seen it in Los Angeles, here in our own country, we’ve seen it in Detroit, we’ve seen it in city after city when there was a difficulty. And it always breaks your heart. You’re always sorry to see it.

And it isn’t something that someone allows or doesn’t allow. It’s something that happens. We know that people—there are people who do bad things. There are people who steal from hospitals in the United States. So does it surprise me that people went into a hospital and did something? I guess it doesn’t surprise me. It’s a shame. It’s too bad. And we’re trying to get medical supplies in to the hospitals that were robbed, and we’re doing it, and we’re having good success at it.

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