[MAI-NOT] Museum's sacking suggests deliberate planning [G&M A18]
Janet M Eaton
restraint in deploying arms -- and apparently in securing the Oil
Ministry and oil fields -- they have been nothing short of impotent
in failing to attend to the protection of [Iraq's] cultural
heritage," wrote Martin Sullivan, chairman of U.S. President George
W. Bush's advisory committee on cultural property in his letter of
resignation quoted in yesterday's Washington Post:
Nine other members of the committee also submitted their resignations
this week. In an effort to calm the growing outrage, the U.S.
Federal Bureau of Investigation said yesterday that it sent agents to
Iraq in search of the stolen antiquities.
fyi-janet
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TODAY'S PAPER
INTERNATIONAL
Museum's sacking suggests deliberate planning
By GRAEME SMITH With reports from AP and Reuters Friday, April 18,
2003 - Page A1
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As they picked through the smashed pottery and ransacked cabinets
inside Iraq's National Museum this week, curators at the
internationally famous facility noticed disturbing evidence that the
worst thefts were not the work of random looters.
They found glass-cutting tools on the floor. Replica artifacts that
the curators had switched with genuine treasures were left untouched
in their display cases while the genuine artifacts that had been
hidden in vaults were missing. The vaults had been opened with keys.
This suggests an organized heist that was likely planned in advance
by conspirators outside Iraq, according to leading academics who
gathered in Paris yesterday at the headquarters of UNESCO, the United
Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.
McGuire Gibson, a University of Chicago professor and president of
the American Association for Research in Baghdad, said at the meeting
that he received unverified reports that some of the museum's
artifacts were shipped to Iran and Europe. "I have a suspicion it was
organized outside the country -- in fact, I'm pretty sure it was,"
Prof. Gibson said.
There was widespread suspicion among antiquities experts that
criminal gangs would use the war as a cover because similar thefts
occurred in the aftermath of the 1991 Persian Gulf war, said Allison
Karmel Thomason, a professor of art history and archeology at
Southern Illinois University.
The U.S. military's failure to guard against looting at the country's
most important historical site generated vitriol among academics on
private e-mail forums, Prof. Thomason said.
"Scholars around the world are asking me, 'What is going on with your
military?' "
A more pointed criticism was offered by the head of a U.S.
presidential panel. His letter of resignation was quoted in
yesterday's Washington Post:
"While our military forces have displayed extraordinary precision and
restraint in deploying arms -- and apparently in securing the Oil
Ministry and oil fields -- they have been nothing short of impotent
in failing to attend to the protection of [Iraq's] cultural
heritage," wrote Martin Sullivan, chairman of U.S. President George
W. Bush's advisory committee on cultural property.
Nine other members of the committee also submitted their resignations
this week.
In an effort to calm the growing outrage, the U.S. Federal Bureau of
Investigation said yesterday that it sent agents to Iraq in search of
the stolen antiquities.
"We are firmly committed to doing whatever we can to secure these
treasures to the people of Iraq," Robert Mueller, the FBI director,
told reporters.
Mr. Mueller said the bureau is co-operating with Interpol by issuing
alerts to all member countries to track any sales of the artifacts
"on both the open and black markets."
He declined to say how many agents went to Iraq, but he said their
work is supported by agents in the United States, who are poring over
documents captured by U.S.-led forces.
Many experts fear the stolen artifacts were absorbed into highly
organized trafficking rings that ferry the goods through a series of
middlemen to collectors in Europe, the United States and Japan.
Officials at the UNESCO meeting in Paris said the information is too
sketchy to determine exactly what is missing and how many items are
unaccounted for. UNESCO director-general Koichiro Matsuura called for
an international ban on trading in Iraqi artifacts until the
situation can be dealt with.
The cultural artifacts in Iraq are from the world's oldest
civilizations that flourished in the crescent of rich soil between
the Tigris and Euphrates rivers where humans are believed to have
invented alphabets, codes of law, mathematics, astronomy,
agriculture, poetry, epic literature and organized religion.
The museum in downtown Baghdad housed more than 170,000 artifacts,
including world-renowned sculptures, bass reliefs, ancient texts and
ceramics.
The exhibits chronicle Stone Age settlements of half a million years
ago, the rise and fall of civilizations such as Uruk, Sumeria,
Babylon, Assyria and
Persia and Islamic empires into the 1900s.
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