[Incorrigible]

Somebody call these guys a WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAbulance!

[aristeides]

Expert Thieves Took Artifacts, UNESCO Says .

[RooRoobird14]

I think it's great that these grand-standing Clintonistas resigned and NOBODY CARES!!!

The left continues to try to change the subject re: the SPECTACULAR victory in Iraq.

[PISANO]

Good......get the hell out and go kiss the scumbags a$$!!

[Semper Paratus]

Whatever excuse they needed to bail is fine with me.

Bush can now appoint Dennis Miller, Ann Coulter, and Wayne LaPierre to replace them.

[hattend]

Let's not fill their positions and save a couple of hundred thousand bucks. Give me the tax cut.

[af_vet_rr]

Think they were looking for a way out and a way to take a jab at President Bush as well?

The Iraqis running the museum all but said it was and inside job. They said replicas weren't looted (which if it were common thieves, they would have grabbed anything that looked valuable) and that the thieves knew exactly where to go and what to get. This had nothing to do with the US not protecting anything.

[quark]

A better question: Why do the taxpayers have to foot the bill for some screwball bureacracy called the "White House Cultural Property Advisory Committee?" Can't we all just get along...without it!?

[sweetliberty]

"Martin E. Sullivan, Richard S. Lanier and Gary Vikan, each appointed by former President Clinton, said they were disappointed by the military's failure to protect Iraq's historical artifacts"

So a few more Clinton appointees are gone. What is the down side?

[SpinyNorman]

Why aren't all the Clinton butt boys resigning in protest? Please??!!!

[Cicero]

As leftist PR, this is only a small blip on the radar screen. It's all to the good that there are three fewer clintonoids in the gubmint.

[Free State Four]

Wonder why these bozos didn't offer to go to Iraq to act as human shields against looters?

[HardStarboard]

I'll just bet that much of the stuff found its way to either Iran or Syria. Hummmm.....would these Clinton appointees sanction a raid to get the stuff back?

And, of course, while we're there, we could take care of some other business too.

[alethia]

Isn't it just possible that this looting happened well in advance of our troops being in Baghdad? It would've had been pretty difficult to make off with this loot while being fired on -- don't you think?

I am glad the three resigned -- especially since the facts state that the job was professional, that most of the museum items were reproductions, and that some of the most valuable pieces are still stored in vaults.

I'm certainly not happy IF this type of looting took place. I am definitely NOT happy that these self-righteous aXXhXXXs are trying to blame our troops in either instance -- troops who happened to be under fire at the time. The idiots -- how hypocritical can you get?

Looks like it's coming back to bite them in the a##. When the stuff shows up on the international market -- and it's tracked back, I hope there'll be enough crow to go around.

[finnman69]

Good riddance.

[RGSpincich]

Quitters! If they really cared they would stay onboard and help get the stuff back. A pretty transparent agenda they have.

[ckilmer]

umour and Fact at Baghdad Museum
Free Britannia journal ^ | April 18, 2003) | Anat Tcherikover
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/895943/posts

Posted on 04/18/2003 11:46 AM PDT by quidnunc


Media outlets worldwide lament the fate of Iraq's National Museum at Baghdad, said to have been looted on 12 April. All refer to the important archaeological treasures, now nowhere to be seen, and quote museum officials on the horrors of the marauding mob. The Americans are generally blamed for failing to protect the museum. A petition in this matter, organized by Cambridge and Oxford scholars, has already gone to UNESCO (14 April).


Only a few reporters have detected some strange flaws in this story. In the Daily Telegraph (14 April), David Blair observes that the heavy steel doors of the vaults, about one foot thick, show no sign of having been forced open. He also reminds his readers that "Saddam's regime is thought to have removed some artefacts from the museum before the onset of the war". Similarly in the New York Times (12 April), John Burns notes that it remains unclear whether some of the museum's treasures "had been locked away for safekeeping elsewhere before the looting, or seized for private display in one of Mr. Hussein's myriad palaces."


A cursory check of older reports on the Baghdad Museum, published long before the war, in fact upholds these suspicions and more beside. An article by Alistair Lyon, published in www.museum-security.org on 2 December 1998, describes the state of the museum at that time: "Dusty showcases that once glowed with treasures from ancient Mesopotamian cultures now lie empty in the locked rooms of the Iraqi Museum. The Iraqi authorities removed the finest jewellery, statues, pottery and other prized artefacts and stored them in secret caches during the 1990-91 Gulf crisis. Even I don't know where they are, said Donny Youkhanna, assistant director of the museum'. Significantly, Mr. Youkhanna is described in more recent sources as Iraq's chief archaeologist, director general of Iraq’s Antiquities Research Department. If he did not know where the items were in 1998, who did?


On 11 May 2000, CNN's correspondent Jane Arraf reported on the reopening of Baghdad Museum on the occasion of Saddam's birthday. This is how the article concludes: "The museum had been infested with termites, and years of storage have damaged the artwork. … Some of the more spectacular pieces, treasures from the royal tombs in Ur and recent excavations from Nimrod, won't be on exhibit until summer." Ms Arraf was no doubt quoting the Iraqi authorities on the intention to exhibit these treasures, indirectly informing us that they were nowhere to be seen at the time.


With this information at hand, it is instructive to examine the precise sources on the supposedly total looting of 12 April 2003. Both the Telegraph and the New York Times articles say that the story came from a museum official, who may or may not be telling all. There is no corroboration from any other direct witness. It is equally instructive to examine the bulk of photographs taken in the museum between 12 April and 15 April. All show disarrayed storage spaces, which easily fit with CNN's description of the desolation incurred by May 2000. One photograph, reproduced here, shows empty glass showcases. The caption given to this photo by Agence France Presse claims "empty shelves after a mob of looters ransacked and looted Iraq's largest archeological museum in Baghdad". However, this cannot be true because the glass of the showcases is intact. Clearly, these showcases were emptied in an orderly fashion without being broken, which fits best the evidence of 1998, given above.


Surely, the misfortunes of the Baghdad museum are a matter for concern, but likewise the misfortunes of the press on this issue during the chaotic days of 12-15 April 2003.


Sources:


1. Alistair Lyon's article of 1998: http://www.museum-security.org/reports/07798.html#11


2. Sources mentioning Mr. Youkhanna's poistion as chief archaeologist: http://www.cairotimes.com/content/archiv06/iraq.html http://www.geocities.com/iraqinfo/index.html?page=/iraqinfo/sum/articles/graves.html


3. CNN's article of 2000: http://www.cnn.com/2000/STYLE/arts/05/11/iraq.museum/


4. Photographs of Baghdad museum 12-15 April 2003: http://search.news.yahoo.com/search/news/?adv=1&p=baghdad+museum&ei=UTF-8&c=news_photos&o=a&s=&n=20&2=3&3=


5. Academic petition to UNESCO, 14 April 2003, http://users.ox.ac.uk/~wolf0126/petition.html and its background website: http://users.ox.ac.uk/~wolf0126/index.html


6. NYT article of 12 April 2003: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/12/international/worldspecial/12CND-BAGH.html


7. Telegraph article of 14 April 2003: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=%2Fnews%2F2003%2F04%2F14%2Fwmus14.xml