[A-List] Re: [gang8] America's wilful destruction of antiquity

["Gary Santos" <evs@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>From wherever in the political spectrum you belong, this was really
irresponsible. No argument here.


----- Original Message -----
From: <Hudsonmi@xxxxxxx>
To: <gang8@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, April 12, 2003 11:00 PM
Subject: [gang8] America's wilful destruction of antiquity


Dear Gang,
       Since archaeologists told the army that the ONE thing above all else
that had to be protected was the museum that housed all of Iraq's
antiquities, that was the one place that the army refused to protect, even
with a single tank and two soldiers!
       Michael

Looters Ransack Baghdad's Antiquities Museum
By REUTERS

Filed at 9:00 a.m. ET
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Looters have sacked Baghdad's antiquities museum,
plundering treasures dating back thousands of years to the dawn of
civilization in Mesopotamia, museum staff said on Saturday.
They blamed U.S. troops for not protecting the treasures.
Surveying the littered glass wreckage of display cases and pottery shards at
the Iraqi National Museum on Saturday, deputy director Nabhal Amin wept and
told Reuters: ``They have looted or destroyed 170,000 items of antiquity
dating back thousands of years...They were worth billions of dollars.''
She blamed U.S. troops, who have controlled Baghdad since the collapse of
President Saddam Hussein's rule on Wednesday, for failing to heed appeals
from museum staff to protect it from looters who moved in to the building on
Friday.
``The Americans were supposed to protect the museum. If they had just one
tank and two soldiers nothing like this would have happened,'' she said. ``I
hold the American troops responsible for what happened to this museum.''
The looters broke into rooms that were built like bank vaults with huge
steel
doors. The museum grounds were full of smashed doors, windows and littered
with office paperwork and books.
``We know people are hungry but what are they going to do with these
antiquities,'' said Muhsen Kadhim, a museum guard for the last 30 years but
who said he was overwhelmed by the number of looters.
``As soon as I saw the American troops near the museum, I asked them to
protect it but the second day looters came and robbed or destroyed all the
antiquities,'' he said.
ARMED GUARDS
Amin told four of the museum guards to carry guns and protect what remained.
Some of the museum's artifacts had been moved into storage to avoid a repeat
of damage to other antiquities during the 1991 Gulf War.
It houses items from ancient Babylon and Nineveh, Sumerian statues, Assyrian
reliefs and 5,000-year-old tablets bearing some of the earliest known
writing. There are also gold and silver helmets and cups from the Ur
cemetery.
The museum was only opened to the public six months ago after shutting down
at the beginning of the 1991 Gulf War. It survived air strikes on Baghdad in
1991 and again was almost unscathed by attacks on the capital by U.S.-led
forces.
Iraq, a cradle of civilization long before the empires of Egypt, Greece or
Rome, was home to dynasties that created agriculture and writing and built
the cities of Nineveh, Nimrud and Babylon -- site of Nebuchadnezzar's
Hanging
Gardens.