Did anyone really believe that Saddam and his cronies would skip town leaving billions of dollars worth of antiquities behind? Clearly this was an inside job.

FEARS that Iraq's heritage will face widespread looting at the end of the Gulf war have been heightened after a group of wealthy art dealers secured a high-level meeting with the US administration.

It has emerged that a coalition of antiquities collectors and arts lawyers, calling itself the American Council for Cultural Policy (ACCP), met with US defence and state department officials prior to the start of military action to offer its assistance in preserving the country's invaluable archaeological collections.

The ACCP has caused deep unease among archaeologists since its creation in 2001. Among its main members are collectors and lawyers with chequered histories in collecting valuable artefacts, including alleged exhibitions of Nazi loot.

http://www.sundayherald.com/32895

How do you go from "they had keys" to "it was organized outside the country"? If they had keys, it was organized inside the MUSEUM, leave alone the country.

So, whose retirement program did this fund?

If they had keys to the vaults (or knew which keys to take), it sounds like someone in a position of some authority with a knowledge of the contents of the vaults.

Probably not one of the playing card crew, but someone who worked for one of them.

"How do you go from "they had keys" to "it was organized outside the country"?"

That was one guy's opinion. He was probably taking into account the need to get the items to where they can be sold. They can't be sold while they're still in Iraq, at least not for a few years, but if you got them to another country...

Obviously, it was the responsibility of the US Army to prevent an inside job at the Museum from occurring before the Army even got to that part of town.

If there are Americans in a country, anything bad that happens in that country is, ipso facto, the Americans fault. Just ask any European.

At this point, this stuff is worthless to 'looters' unless it can sold outside the country. It would be pointless.

So you have people in the know inside and outside the country.

Some of this stuff will be showing up in art galleries and auction houses (or their equivalent) for centuries.

We need to get George Clooney on this. After all, he was in both "Three Kings" and "Ocean's Eleven"

Good one, Steve.

T. Hardin -- "If there are Americans in a country, anything bad that happens in that country is, ipso facto, the Americans fault."

That's only part of the truth. The rest is if there are NO Americans in a country, anything bad that happens in that country is, ipso facto, the Americans' fault as well.

The possible exception is earthquakes; in such cases, we're only blamed for the resulting humanitarian crisis, not the actual rumblings of the earth. (I considered hurricanes as another exception, but that doesn't work because Americans drive SUVs, which use fossile fuels, which cause global climate change, which causes extreme weather events.)

Look, I'm getting really tired of this whole "the antiquities are now lost to all of humanity" deal. The antiques and artificats still exist, they just are now privately held instead of displayed in a public forum.

History has not been lost. All that stuff was already catalogued, indexed, and logged on the Big List of Old Stuff We've Already Discovered. Look, most all this stuff was locked in a safe where the common folk couldn't see it anyways. So now it's locked in someone elses safe. Big woop.

I'm not condoning theft of dusty old stuff or anything, just thinking that this is pretty much a complete non-issue except for a few academics wearing tweed.

Them and anyone who is desperately trying to find something, ANYthing that will point out this whole operation as being a catastrophe.

At the rate we're going, someone a year from now is going to be publicly mortified that we haven't installed California emissions on every vehicle in Iraq.

Maybe its just me, but I think that the brouhaha over this old stuff is so much puddle-jumping -- a lot of muck and wet -- not big on impact. Let's face it: At the end of the day cultural antiquities locked in a museum don't feed a nation. While it is regrettable that someone saw fit to reallocate these items, are we all that surprised? The vultures always come out to pick the bones. The average Iraqi citizen will be better off for a democratic government, human & civil rights, and a free and open market far more than a full and complete Museum collection.

As to being to blame, well this doesn't really surprise either. The U.S. is to blame for everything. Few laud us, many revile us. Why? They have their reasons. What I find amusing are the arguments on the Arab Street that we are destroying their culture. I swear -- I haven't threatened anyone at all with dire consequences if they didn't wear their Nikes to McDonald's to get a Coca-Cola everday. The fact is, we don't have the power to destroy their culture. It is their job to preserve it. Just like the multitude of ethnic & religious cultures alive and well here in the U.S., as evidenced by so many things the list could go on forever.

They have to report on something and negative spin sells better. Let's face it, they just don't want to report too much of the joy. However, I'd like to read THAT story. Headline "World Press in Shock - No News to Report in Happy World" But then, I'm a dreamer.

The fact that this happened at all is rather telling in the debate regarding America's motivations. How many oil wells did we forget to "secure" against attack.
The library was burned that stuff IS lost... you know, like ashes, even if you deem it only the loss to "few academics wearing tweed."
Perhaps if it were your Rambo video collection you might be able to conceive the loss.

"Perhaps if it were your Rambo video collection you might be able to conceive the loss."

I wish I'd said that.

Perhaps if it were your Rambo video collection you might be able to conceive the loss.

Ironically, Rambo video collections are probably more popular outside the US than here. Nobody watches that crap anymore. But hey, bloodthirsty American cowboys eh?

How many oil wells did we forget to "secure" against attack.

We knew from the last war, that Saddam had a tendency to create ecological and economic disasters by burning oil fields. So those were a priority target for special forces and the like. They were also, way outside of Baghdad and were taken care of first.

What, you wanted us to drop in SpecForces in Baghdad before we had control of the city to "secure" the museum? Please, what a ridiculous concept.

Also, our motives are to stabilize Iraq after it's been disarmed, it's antiquities are not going or were not going to fuel their economy in any significant way, as opposed to their oil fields, so those were a priority in the first place.

The item were secured ahead of time in preparation for the war,as we find out today, somebody took advantage of the situation and stole the items. Nothing the US could have done against professional thieves, and /or possibly inside jobs.

If it was an inside job -- which certainly is what it looks like -- then museum officials will ask for donations to "buy back" the missing antiquities from the purported thieves. That saves them the bother of having to fence the stuff outside the country.

I guess most people would of been happy if we just let them blow up all thier oil fields.
Ohh wait then we would of gotten bashed by all the ecological people in the world for failing to secure those sites.

You cant win, they will always find something to knock the USA for. All you can do is press on and in 10 years show them that Iraq is 100times better than what it was with Saddam. But of course the anti-war people will have forgotten about Iraq and moved onto something.

I think it's a "inside job." Iraqi antiquities have been looted since the UN sanctions we're placed. Saddam spent little money to staff or protect Iraqi cultural heritage. Looting was very profitable business. I feel terrible about the looting, but the military had to secure the Iraqi infrastructures, like bridges, electrical stations, water plants, oil fields, etc. If we didn't, the Iraqi people would experience a humanitarian and environmental disaster. My questions are..why did the curators moved every single artifact to the Baghdad Museum vaults, especially being so closed to military establishments? Why didn't they move their precious artifacts to another middle-eastern museum for safe keeping? I think the curators left the artifacts very exposed and didn't use extra precautions. Especially with Iraqi's past history of out of control looting. The museum people around the world are saying the US didn't follow the Hauge Convention. But I think the Baghdad people didn't do their part to secure their items properly before the war started. They knew the war was going to start a year ago and had ample time to really think about taken care of business. Just follow the recommended procedures stated in the Hauge Convention. Did the US provide enough protection under the Hauge Convention? Did the US fully control the city? It's kind of hard to protect a museum when the troops are dodging snipers right across the street, rocket-propelled gernades, suicide bombers, ambushes and being concerned about hitting civilians. Wouldn't the troops break the Geneva Convention by posting a tank next to the building? Wouldn't the world community screamed if the tank got hit, exploded and burned down the museum? Where was the UN? UNESCO could help to remove items away from danger if Saddam couldn't afford it. The UN could of post blue hats with riot gear and guard the buildings and sites for added protection. It was poor planning or was it?