Loot being returned in Baghdad

[renata]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A27412-2003Apr23.html

Update on the looting

Now, as Iraqi and U.S. officials try to calculate the cultural casualties of the war's riotous close, they are discovering that not all was lost. At least a small portion of the thousands of objects that disappeared, it seems, were tucked away for safekeeping.

Officials are also using tips from citizens to hunt down stolen items, and trying to prevail on thieves to turn them in voluntarily. Muslim clerics, at the officials' urging, have announced over mosque loudspeakers that anyone with looted items should return them to museum curators, no questions asked. U.S. reconstruction officials said they plan to air similar messages on Iraqi radio stations starting tonight.

"It's already working," said John Limbert, the U.S. ambassador to Mauritania, who is serving as adviser to Iraq's Culture Ministry for the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance, the U.S. postwar agency for Iraq. "I've heard from our friends that a number of objects were collected in mosques in the neighborhood after appeals from the imams of the mosques."

....

Museum officials said they expect to recover other items that had been locked away at locations outside the museum, including gold objects moved for safekeeping before the war. Finding people with keys to the safes, however, has been vexing, according to U.S. civil affairs officers.

And creating a reliable inventory of museum holdings has been complicated by the museum's lack of detailed records.

.....

Some of the museum's collection was carried off in the 1990s by members of Hussein's government, according to Iraqi antiquities officials. Archaeologists who work for the Culture Ministry said today that Baath Party officials periodically confiscated gold and other valuables from the museum, possibly to be sold on international underground markets. The officials said they don't expect to see those valuables again.

U.S. customs and military officers have launched an investigation of the looting, interviewing museum officials and trying to assemble lists of museum holdings. The investigation is led by reserve Marine Col. Matthew Bogdanus. When he's not in uniform, Bogdanus is a New York City assistant district attorney whose case file includes the highly publicized arms case against rap musician P. Diddy.

.....

The case has some built-in intrigue thanks to a curious pattern of looting discovered by museum workers. Many prized items were taken, while some of the less valuable holdings were left behind. A gypsum facsimile of the Code of Hammurabi, a collection of laws dating to approximately 1750 B.C., was left untouched, for example, while the valuable heads of statues from the ancient city of Hatra were broken off and taken. The seemingly selective pattern has led some to believe it was an inside job.

"There are obviously multiple theories, and none are mutually exclusive," Bogdanus said. "One would be that this was done by people who knew exactly what they were doing."

 

[Guest]

On NPR this morning, they were reporting that looters had broken into some of the schools in Baghdad and ripped the schoolbooks out of their bindings because they had pictures of Hussein inside the front cover. And they took the school desks and chairs. Now that is a shame. I hope a public appeal is made to return the kids' desks and chairs.

 

[Skeptical Greg]

On NPR this morning, they were reporting that looters had broken into some of the schools in Baghdad and ripped the schoolbooks out of their bindings because they had pictures of Hussein inside the front cover. And they took the school desks and chairs. Now that is a shame. I hope a public appeal is made to return the kids' desks and chairs.

The Marines aren't guarding the schools to prevent looting?

 

[Guest]

You know, there were some oversights on the part of the American forces in preventing looting. But I don't think it is reasonable to expect them to prevent every possible case of looting. Every time a government falls, the people go a little crazy for a while. It happens every time.

We need to find a middle ground on our opinions of this matter. I think some of those who opposed the war are looking for anything they can find so they can say what a big screwup the whole affair has been, and looting is the best thing they can find since the war went so disappointingly well for us. I think those in favor of the war are trying to downplay the significance of the rape of the museum.

Looting happens. There just aren't enough troops to prevent it. They have other things going on, too. There are still small pockets of fighting, water and electricity that needs to be restored, searching for the Most Wanted, exploring bunkers and munition sites and defusing them, getting food and medical aid to the people of Iraq. Basically, huge, huge tasks.

I believe that most of the valuables taken from the museum are in one piece. They have just changed hands. Yes, there was some destruction. But I know if I was an art thief, I would know that I must keep the art intact if it is to be marketable.

It will be years and years before Iraq gets it all back, but I think most of it will one day be returned to its rightful place.

Getting food and water and electricity restored is the immediate top priority. These are matters of life and death.

 

[zakur]

The Marines aren't guarding the schools to prevent looting?

Of course not. But then this wasn't foreseen.

On the other hand, the Bush and Blair administrations were warned as early as last December that looting of museums and libraries would likely occur if/when they made a "regime change" in Iraq.

But you already know all this, which makes your false analogy all the more disingenuous.

 

[zakur]

Yes, there was some destruction. But I know if I was an art thief, I would know that I must keep the art intact if it is to be marketable.

It will be years and years before Iraq gets it all back, but I think most of it will one day be returned to its rightful place.

"There was some destruction" is the understatement of the year when considering the Iraqi National Library and Archives. It was burned to the ground! Much of the collection is lost forever.

Forever.

Those works will never be returned to their rightful places.

 

[ssibal]

I wonder if the human shields that went to Iraq to supposedly protect schools and hospitals did anything to stop the looting.

 

[Skeptical Greg]

I wonder if the human shields that went to Iraq to supposedly protect schools and hospitals did anything to stop the looting.

I don't know, but this made me realize those human shields were no dummies.

Protecting buildings that weren't targeted. My, my.. Such a show of bravery and compassion..