"Looting not as bad as first feared?"
It would appear that the scale of that looting and the difficulty of
stopping it apparently depend on who you're listening to. Anyone can quote
a newspaper article when it suits them.
Here's an alternative opinion to the WSJ which suggests that the Pentagon's
own Iraq reconstruction agency isn't very happy.
I happily concede that the Observer is about as 'objective' as the Wall
Street Journal - ultimately it's all a matter of perspective.
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To see this story with its related links on the The Observer site, go to
http://www.observer.co.uk
US army was told to protect looted museum
The United States army ignored warnings from its own civilian advisers that
could have stopped the looting of priceless artefacts in Baghdad, according
to leaked documents seen by The Observer.
Paul Martin in Kuwait, Ed Vulliamy in Washington and Gaby Hinsliff
Saturday April 19 2003
The Guardian
Iraq's national museum is identified as a 'prime target for looters' and
should be the second top priority for securing by coalition troops after the
national bank, says a memo sent last month by the Office of Reconstruction
and Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA), set up to supervise the reconstruction
of postwar Iraq.
Looting of the museum could mean 'irreparable loss of cultural treasures of
enormous importance to all humanity', the document concluded. But the US
army still failed to post soldiers outside the museum, and it was ransacked,
with more than 270,000 artefacts taken.
General Jay Garner, the head of ORHA, is said to be 'livid'. 'We asked for
just a few soldiers at each building or, if they feared snipers, then just
one or two tanks,' said one ORHA official. 'The tanks were doing nothing
once they got inside the city, yet the generals refused to deploy them, and
look what happened.'
More than two weeks after the March memo was sent, ORHA was told it had not
even been read. The official admitted, however, that ORHA had not identified
hospitals - which were also ransacked - as a potential target, as they had
not imagined that the Iraqis would resort to 'killing their own people'.
The warnings were echoed yesterday by American archaeologists, who have
tried for three months to persuade the Bush administration of the risk to
antiquities.
Its sacking was 'completely predictable', says the president of the
Archaeological Institute of America, Jane Walbaum. A week before the
looting, one of the institute's members, Patty Gerstenblith of De Paul
University, wrote to Major Christopher Varhola, a US army civil affairs
officer in Kuwait, asking for troops to be stationed at the museum.
'I am stressing this hard to the ground commander, but unfortunately I do
not have good news for you,' Major Varhola replied.
The Observer has seen documents submitted to senior US generals by ORHA on
26 March, listing 16 institutions that 'merit securing as soon as possible
to prevent further damage, destruction and or pilferage of records and
assets'. First was the national bank, next came the museum. The Oil
Ministry, which has been carefully guarded, came sixteenth on a list of 16.
The memo said 'looters should be arrested/detained', yet US troops continued
to pass by looters carting off their booty, and no tanks appeared in front
of these buildings for days.
'It's a tragedy and a disaster for our image and for rebuilding Iraq,' said
one ORHA official.
Around 20 artefacts stolen from the museum have been returned, but thousands
remain missing. The US has sent a team of FBI agents to investigate claims
that some items may have been stolen to order.
Martin Sullivan, the chair of President Bush's Advisory Committee on
Cultural Property, has already resigned over the issue, saying it was
'inexcusable' that the museum should not have had the same priority as the
Iraqi Oil Ministry.
The US military argues that its primary job in the first few days was to
quell armed resistance in Baghdad, and that it could not tackle looters
until it had finished fighting a war.
Copyright Guardian Newspapers Limited
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dr. Alasdair Brooks
Department of Archaeology
La Trobe University
Plenty Road
Bundoora VIC 3083
Australia
Phone - 03 9479 3269
E-mail - [log in to unmask]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"The buffalo tastes the same
on both sides of the border"
Sitting Bull
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