"I was deeply dismayed at the looting of this museum. I hope many of the artifacts can be recovered. "
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Now it's turning out that the artifacts were being looted by Saddam all along, some kept, some sold in international markets, that some artifacts have been put in vaults in advance and not stolen, others stolen from vaults by thieves who had keys, most likely Saddam's henchmen, that there were Iraqi soldiers at the museum shooting at US troops from there, and so on.
If you missed all this, you may want to check out these threads & articles:
Steal this vase?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/895788/posts Many others are looters
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/895649/posts Experts: Looters had keys to Iraqi antiquity vaults
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/895129/posts Looting not as bad, as feared
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/895267/posts Iraqis selling antiquitites( 1996!)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/894176/posts Churning: rethinking Museum Looting
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/894999/posts And here is a set of direct links to articles( some were not posted separately at FR, just mentioned in posts of some other threads):
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB105062922276805100,00.html?mod=weekend_journal_primary_hs http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB105053292455773900,00.html?mod=article-outset-box http://www.news-register.net/edit/story/0418202003_edt02.asp 1996:
http://www.usfca.edu/~trembath/www-class/iraq-antiquities.html http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB10504503813207600,00.html?mod=special_page_iraq_3 http://www.thesundaymail.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,6281650%5E25777,00.html http://www.arab.net/iraq/iq_baghdadsights.htm http://www.freep.com/news/nw/iraq/loot17_20030417.htm http://www.thesundaymail.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,6281650%255E25777,00.html