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Posted on 04/17/2003 10:45:31 AM PDT by A Vast RightWing Conspirator
WASHINGTON (AFP) - Martin Sullivan, the head of President George W. Bush (news - web sites)'s cultural advisory committee, stepped down this week in protest over the United States failing to stop the looting of Baghdad's museum.
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In a letter to Bush dated Monday, Sullivan said he was resigning as chairman of the President's Advisory Committee on Cultural Property, a position he had held since 1995.
"The reports in recent days about the looting of Iraq (news - web sites)'s National Museum of Antiquities and the destruction of countless artifacts that document the cradle of Western civilization have troubled me deeply, a feeling that is shared by many other Americans," he wrote.
Calling the looting a "tragedy," Sullivan said that it was not prevented "due to our nation's inaction.
The 11-member committee is made up of experts and professionals in the art world who are appointed to three-year terms.
Two are museum representatives, two are experts in archaeology and ethnology, three are specialists in worldwide art trade and four others are designated based on their areas of expertise.
A source close to the committee told AFP on condition of anonymity that another committee member, Gary Vikan, was also stepping down.
Sullivan serves as executive director of the Historic Saint Mary's City Commission, dedicated to one of the first British colonies, in the state of Maryland. Vikan is director of the Walters Art Gallery in Baltimore, Maryland.
Baghdad's museum, which housed one of the world's great collections of artifacts from early Mesopotamian civilizations, was ransacked by looters on Friday in the upheaval following US troops' entry into the city.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Tuesday that the United States was offering rewards for the return of items from the museum, or assistance in their recovery.
But critics have faulted US forces for failing to intervene in the extensive pillaging of the capital and other Iraqi cities after President Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s regime collapsed.
Likening the looting to a post-football game riot, Rumsfeld said Tuesday: "No one likes it. No one allows it. It happens and it is unfortunate, and to the extent it can be stopped, it should be stopped."
"To the extent it happens in a war zone, it's difficult to stop," he added.
Don' worry, so is A Vast RightWing Conspirator's post. He is a Bush hater plan and simple. He has been a member of FR for a while, but I suspect he is just a malcontent that doesn't like anything the government does.
A Vast RightWing Conspirator is hardly Right-wing in any regard (see below)...
On the war...
"Let's face it people, our president just wasted 100+ American lives and $80 billion of OUR money and got absolutely nothing in return."
Link
On looting...
I'm sure Rumsfeld explained away the L.A. riots as natural expressions of freedom and liberty
Link
On Bush...
He's doing more damage to us, as a country and as a nation, that Clinton could have ever dreamed it was possible or that Gore would have been allowed by the legislative branch.
Link
Absolutely not.
Of course it IS true. You didn't read the link in #17, did you?
ART EXPERTS are saying that this was a professional job, and that the looting was likely a cover.
In one possibly encouraging sign, several people in the Al Awi neighborhood that surrounds the museum said they did not see looters leave with any antiquities, even amid gun battles and looting that lasted two days.An imam who lives behind the museum said he stood outside the museum for several hours on the first day of the looting, begging them to stop. "I kept reminding them that this is their country and it was against Islam to steal," said the imam, who asked not to be identified.
But he said the only items from the collection he saw stolen were several old rifles. Mostly, he said, he saw looters take chairs, typewriters, ceiling lamp fixtures and other items from the museum's offices
What's the name of the beer you're crying in? 
AH...here's the agenda. Anti-Israel sentiments. What's next A Vast RightWing Conspirator, NWO?
Get your tin-foil hat. Then, shut your pie-hole!
Again, they did protect the Oil Ministry building.
The original copies of the Constitution and the Declaration Of Independence have been stored at the National Archives since 1953. Before that, they were stored at the Library of Congress.
Aside from the copy stored at NARA, about 20 other copies dating back to the Convention are known to exist in various American and British collections, mostly in those of state governments and universities.
Perhaps you should familiarize yourself with the location of our national treasures before you self-explode in indignation about the questionable circumstances and losses at the Baghdad Museum. There are plenty of FR threads on this subject with some excellent research which raise serious questions about who was responsible, and whether these artifacts were actually present in the museum at the time of the "looting."
Instead, here you are with yet another attack on the administration and the military.
It is the OIL FIELDS which were protected. Those were obvious choices of sabotage.
Try and think of it this way: if we had been held under a tyrannical rule here in the United States, say under a President Hillary, and the Italians and the Brits came to liberate us, would the first thing they would think about is that the people of the USA would loot the SMithsonian? Of course not!
My personal opinion is that most of tha valuable stuff was stolen in an inside job (since according to museum security protocol it was all supposed to be in vaults when the war started...this was in Archaeological Review) and the actual looting by the population was of office furniture, etc.
Pretty amazing that those looters had the sense to take not only the artifacts but the documents that went with them. I say again, inside job, and looting of this facility was not to be expected, given the comparison I gave you.
Sorry guys and gals, I have more important things to attend at this time - work being one of them :)
I can see it doesn't matter to you that Saddam Hussein is gone, and stories are emerging that he behaved much as Hitler did.
You have no idea what Iraq will look like and are simply engaged in wishful thinking because you hate Bush.
You're so transparent it's pathetic.
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