Iraqis Say Museum Looting Wasn't as Bad as Feared

The Wall Street Journal ^ | Thursday, April 17, 2003 | YAROSLAV TROFIMOV

[TroutStalker]

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Last week's looting of the Iraq National Museum, which saw numerous items disappear from a vast collection spanning eight millennia of Mesopotamian history, has provoked world-wide outcry -- and criticism of the U.S. military for its failure to protect Iraq's priceless cultural heritage.

[geedee]

Grampa, help me out here.

The blame-America crowd has screamed the following . . . No blood for oil! Quagmire! Not enough troops! Poor planning! Didn't count on the Fedayeen! Bombing innocent Iraqis! Shooting innocent Iraqis! Starving innocent Iraqis! Thirsty innocent Iraqis! Sick and dying innocent Iraqis! Homeless innocent Iraqis! Depleted uranium killing innocent Iraqis!

While I catch my breath, Grampa, I've gotta ask this . . . If there was so damn many "innocent" Iraqis there, why'd we have to go to war in the first place? In a country that has twenty million folks . . . I've already counted sixty million innocents that, according to the media, we've already abused in one form or another.

Okay, back to the blame-America crowd . . . Supply lines are too long! Unprotected supply lines! Looting! Rioting! And, lastly -- that I can think of, WORLDLY TREASURES LOST FOREVER!!!! DISGRACEFUL! WHAT IN THE HELL WAS THE AMERICAN MILITARY THINKING ABOUT??

Okay, now that we know most of the above has turned out to be not nearly as bad as was claimed, my REAL question to you is this . . . Will the blame-America crowd ever be held accountable for their shameless bullshit or will they always be allowed to scream their America-bashing nonsense with impunity?

Whew . . .

[Grampa Dave]

Take a deep breath and relax.

The leftwingers in the media, in politics, in Follywood, and on the street yelling, have the same mental illness.

They feel that when they use their first amendment rights to condemn America 24/7 that makes them great Americans.

Also, they like the Follywood Clymers feel that they can say anything and not be held liable by the rest of America.

They are wrong on both assumptions.

First of all, just exercising their first Amendment rights to trash America does not make them great Americans. It just shows that they hate America. Hating America 24/7 and saying it does not make them a great American.

Second, when we decide as a majority to cancel subscriptions or to stop watching them on tv or in the movies because of their Anti American mantras, we are acting as Americans using our first amendment rights. They can't understand that either.

[geedee]

Good points. LOL. I can visualize a whole room filled with leftwingers inventing what the NEXT tragedies will be. I find it more than a bit humorous. We've got them on the run and they're clueless about how to stop the stampede because they've never been challenged in the past.

[MattAMiller]

I'm glad to hear this. The most important stuff was elsewhere, the damage wasn't as bad as earlier reported, and it wasn't a screw up but a decision to protect our troops.

[PoisedWoman]

Many, if not all, suppposed "restorations" of ancient ruins are roundly criticized by "experts," who believe that no restoration can be accurate. They may be correct; still, it's helpful to see some buildings on ancient sites brought back to the way they probably looked.

The ruins of Knossos on Crete were infamously restored by Brit archeologist Sir Arthur Evans, who was scathingly criticized for his freehand methods. For moi, trotting through restored palace rooms made the place come to life, but scholars still carp.

I.E. "From the beginning it proved necessary to preserve and restore the monuments (at Knossos) that were being uncovered. A number of parts of the Palace were restored in this way, and considerable use was made of reinforced concrete in the work. The parts of the restoration that represent timber frames and other wooden structures were formerly painted yellow, but were later re painted by a colour conventionally representing wood. In a number of places, copies of the famous frescoes discovered, were installed. This method of restoration has received much criticism since it used materials foreign to Minoan architecture. Some scholars also dispute some of the conclusions of the pioneer British excavator."

From what we've recently learned of Saddam's level of taste, his Babylon restorations might have been done in plastic and neon...I'd carp about that too.

[Grampa Dave]

I'm sure that 99% of this stuff starts and comes from the heterophobic group of Editors,Publishers and senior hit writers in charge of the NY Slimes.

[PoisedWoman]

Thanks for fascinating link in your #35.

Last year, 10 wealthy businessmen from Mosul - who chopped an Assyrian bull's head in pieces and took it to Jordan - were executed on TV. It's draconian, but necessary, says George.

Wow! So where were the guards at the Baghdad museum? When I toured Turkey 9 years ago, every single one of their marvelous sites -- Ephesus, Aphrodisias, etc--had Turkish soldiers in tanks stationed around them glaring at tourists.

[Howlin]

From what we've recently learned of Saddam's level of taste

What, you don't like that Donald Trump Taj Mahal look?

[PoisedWoman]

LOL!

Actually, it looks like a room in the garish Helmsley Palace Hotel in NY. Leona, Saddam & The Donald, Inc., arbiters of tacky taste.

[Howlin]

I honestly didn't see one thing I would have walked across the street for. :-)

[error99]

No this is a different article, but it confirms the earlier discussion.
The other article was from back in 1996,
about the looting that occurred after the (1st) Gulf War.

[Torie]

Every bit of good news is a relief, but I am not taking back anything I said - yet. I think part of my rage is due to Rumsfeld's act. He didn't act like he was feeling my pain enough. Perhaps I will get over it, perhaps not.

[SwinneySwitch]

Hey! Billy Jeff can feel your pain!!

[EaglesUpForever]

Yes, that's the difference between Clinton and Bush. Clinton could feel your pain, Bush can make it go away.

[hotpotato]

But, thanks to Iraqi preparations before the war, it seems the worst has been avoided.

Are they saying this now because the FBI is headed that way to investigate????

[hotpotato]

I posted this in another thread:

I'm getting pretty tired of O'Reilly coming down on the military for this hiest. There are a lot of reports that point to an inside job or job that was planned well in advance. While all these Iraqi citizens are standing outside the looted museum expressing outrage before the cameras about the American's lack of protecting the museum, I'd like just ONE journalist to ask them if since they believe this was a predictable and preventable theft and if this "heritage" is as important as they are jumping up and down about, why didn't they form their own militia and guard it themselves rather than wait for troops to fight their way through Baghdad to get there in time to risk their lives to save *Iraqi* "heritage"!?

O'Reilly said last night the lack of protecting the museum was because, he thinks, our military was apathetic. arrrgggg!!!!

[hotpotato]

"Most of the things were removed. We knew a war was coming, so it was our duty to protect everything," Mr. George said. "We thought there would be some sort of bombing at the museum. We never thought it could be looted."

This pretty much backs up the DOD which claims it did not promise to prevent looting but said it would not bomb the museum which is *all* they would be able to promise. Good riddance to the two cultural advisors who quit today over this. I don't think anyone got a promise from the DOD to prevent the looting.

[F-117A]

Bump!

[k2blader]

Bump!

[Kay Soze]

After an hour of research here's what I found on the museum:


“The experts, which included Iraqi art officials, said some of the most valuable pieces had been placed in the vault of the national bank after the 1991 Gulf War, but they had no information on whether the items were still there.” http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-2575224,00.html


"Most of the things were removed. We knew a war was coming, so it was our duty to protect everything," Mr. George said. "We thought there would be some sort of bombing at the museum. We never thought it could be looted." http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB105053292455773900,00.html

“Officials at the UNESCO meeting at its headquarters in Paris said the information was still too sketchy to determine exactly what was missing and how many items were unaccounted for.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-2575224,00.html

Some believe that individuals, including government employees, are taking the best pieces out overland through Jordan
Hamdoon said that many pieces had disappeared from provincial Iraqi museums after the war.
http://www.usfca.edu/~trembath/www-class/iraq-antiquities.html

Some of the objects on display here are reproductions, with their originals removed by conquering nations to be displayed in foreign museums. The Louvre in Paris, London's British Museum and the University of Pennsylvania Museum in the US all contain antiquities from ancient Mesopotamia. Some pieces have been returned, but the effective closure of the country seems to preclude any further returns for the foreseeable future. http://www.arab.net/iraq/iq_baghdadsights.htm
Sensing the treasures could be in peril, museum curators secretly removed antiquities from their display cases before the war and placed them in storage vaults - but to no avail. The doors of the vaults were opened or smashed, and everything inside was taken, museum workers said.

That led one museum employee to suspect that people familiar with the museum may have participated in the theft.

``The fact that the vaults were opened suggests employees of the museum may have been involved,'' said the staffer, who declined to be identified. ``To ordinary people, these are just stones. Only the educated know the value of these pieces.''
http://www.thesundaymail.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,6281650%255E25777,00.html

The museum's most famous holding may have been tablets with Hammurabi's Code - one of mankind's earliest codes of law.
It could not be determined whether the tablets were at the museum when the war broke out.
http://www.thesundaymail.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,6281650%255E25777,00.html

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.
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, as happened at nearly every other government office in the capital.

Abed El Rahman, a museum security guard who lives on the premises, also said that rifles were the only items he saw stolen from the collections. "But many people were carrying boxes," he said. "I don't know what was in the boxes."
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/17/international/worldspecial/17MUSE.html