Posted on 04/19/2003 12:55:38 AM PDT by FairOpinion
U.S. troops committed the cultural "crime of the century" when they failed to protect priceless Iraqi artefacts from looters and likely trampled archaeological sites during the invasion, top antiquities officials here charged yesterday.
They also said a small number of "valuable" missing museum pieces were returned after appeals by religious leaders, but denied reports from a UN conference that Iraqi officials may have been involved in an organised theft.
"With what I'm expecting has happened in the (archaeological) sites in the field and what happened to the Iraq museum, I would say it's the crime of the century because it is really affecting the heritage of mankind," said the head of the National Archaeo-logical Museum in Baghdad, Donny George.
"It looks like there was an action and there were other priorities (for the United States) besides the Baghdad Museum," George told reporters at a briefing about the firestorm over last Friday's ransacking of the museum.
U.S. troops who seized the Iraqi capital on April 9 watched as looters carted away artefacts from some of the world's oldest civilisations.
Under pressure after the museum looting, the U.S. is sending FBI agents to the Iraqi capital to help with the recovery effort.
But the head of President U.S. George W. Bush's cultural advisory committee has already stepped down in protest at the American failure to prevent the "tragedy."
Jaber Khalil Ibrahim, head of Iraq's General Directorate of Antiquities, said the U.S. and British governments should make amends by preventing any of the antiquities from leaving the country and "look for the objects that will pop up in Switzerland, England, America, Israel and Japan and send them back."
Ibrahim agreed with an assessment by a Unesco conference of experts in Paris to examine the war damage to Iraq's heritage that organised gangs which traffic in works of ancient art were involved in the thefts.
He noted that some of the pieces, such as a 5,000-year-old Sumerian alabaster vase-known as the Warka vase, which weighs 300 kg - would need several people to be have been removed. In the gallery, the only items left were ones too heavy to carry, he added.
"I suspect they really did (know what they were looking for) and that they were especially looking for Sumerian valuable material," Ibrahim said.
But he denied eyewitness reports from the Unesco meeting which described some of the looters as directed by well-dressed men who had keys to the vaults where they believed the most highly valued items were kept.
Arts and experts at the Unesco meeting said bands of looters possibly organised from abroad were so well prepared when they plundered Iraq's priceless antiquities collections that they used keys to open museum vaults.
They said some of the artefacts might already be on the illicit market in France, Iran and other countries.
"It looks as if part of the theft was a very, very deliberate, planned action," said McGuire Gibson, a University of Chicago professor and president of the American Association for Research in Baghdad. "It really looks like a very professional job."
Iraqi officials confirmed that the major thefts included the Warka vase, also known as the Vase of Uruk, and an Akkadian bronze statue of Basitki. A famed 4,000-year-old Sumerian Ur harp was stripped of its gold and badly damaged.
A collection of some 80,000 cuneiform tablets with examples of the some of the world's earliest writing was also taken, and a number of Roman statues were smashed and their heads are missing.
The officials said a final assessment of the losses would take "days and days" since the area, like many parts of the city, is still without power.
Meanwhile, Interpol launched a worldwide hunt for the antiquities and warned collectors not to buy art treasures they suspected had been stolen.
The international police authority said it had set up a team to track down the looters and missing treasures. Agents will fly to Iraq as soon as possible to check on what was stolen.
Note the headline Reuters gave it, which is not supported by this and even any of the most slanted articles.
Also remember, that is the news the Arab world reads, they don't get the Wall Street Journal, which told the truth and debunked all these accusations.
I guess, one answer to "Why do they hate us?" is that the liberal and Arab press lies about us.
Note that even in this articles they admit that the theft was perpetrated by professional thieves, who had keystothe valuts, not "random looters",
Unfortunately that's not the case. We've already had 9/11. Then again, what's 3,000 dead in a terrorist attack compared to some broken and stolen antiquities from the Iraqi museum?
Obviously we Americans need to get our priorities straight.
Realistically speaking, it's the ONLT thing that they can think up, now, to keep trashing America with, since the Iraqis didn't fight us, throw fits that we won, and toppled ( with our help ) Saddam's statues.
Well, GeorgiePorgie... suppose you suggest for me and the Pentagon a method the US military had to "protect" a museum in the middle of the enemy's capital city. It is totally insane to state the US responsibility for this (as valuable as it is) takes precedence over the safety of our soldiers and accomplishing their other missions, but I'm willing to listen to suggestions.
Dubai?
Is the Muslim Mass Murderers Arabprop Tag Team back in business?
LOL!
Nice catch!
We are getting lulled by the outrageous Orwellianisms of the Sandmaggots to the point where the absurd sails under our intellectual radar unnoticed.
Yeah gee golly, Donny boy, you're right. Why, compared to the theft of some old stuff from a bankrupt culture, the Holocaust or, even closer to home, the butchering of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis by their own leader just pale.
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