People, we done fucked up.
Please God, let us hope George Bush does not do a Clinton here, and weasel. Just a flatt admission of a serious error of judgement would redeem this event.

Actually...

If the U.S. Military "obeyed" every memo and directive that they received, they'd be so bogged down in trying to figure out how to wage war with all kinds of excessive requirements and rules that they wouldn't be able to fight.

quote:

The paper cited a memo by the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA) for postwar Iraq as saying that the National Archeological Museum in Baghdad was a “prime target for looters”

The important words to note are POSTWAR IRAQ. At the time of the well-organized looting and black market theft of the museum, it was still Active Wartime!!

I've said it before and I'll say it again..."Human life is more important to protect than old and dusty artifacts"...IMHO

I just noticed the source. They're still desperately looking for anything they can to make the U.S. look stupid and Chirac a little less like an oaf for trying to think that he, in all his grandeur, could dictate U.S. actions.

I saw the same story in the Washington Times, which sure isn't a left-wing source. It also included an actual photo of the memo.

General Garner sounds like a really good guy, but I'm not sure he's being given the authority he needs. He's evidently very frustrated now because Central Command has delayed the entry of his team into Iraq for "safety and security reasons."

The stuff was ripped off by the old regime before the U.S. army even showed up.

We're talking vaults, huge vaults with thick doors. Christ, even the Nazis hid their stuff when they realized their regime was not long for this world.

This would be so easy to put to bed. The public statement would run something like this:

"We are very proud of our military and it's many successes in Iraq. Coalition forces have moved faster, and mitigated civilian causalities better than any army in history. We have protected the oil assists of the Iraqi people, and deterred the use of chemical weapons. The Iraqi people are now free."

"Regrettably, we did not move with sufficient speed to successfully protect certain cultural treasures in the Iraqi National Museum. This was due to a number of causes including debatable command decisions, the exigencies of war, and the difficulty of adapting our plans to swift success of our troops in Baghdad. The result of this was some looting of this facility."

"Fortunately, the actions of the museum staff has somewhat mitigated the loss. Additionally, these are valuable artifacts, and those individuals who possess them now have cause to safeguard them. We must now attempt the difficult task of recovery. The coalition will offer rewards for the safe return of these objects, commensurate with a valuation reasonable on the black market, complete with amnesty for anyone possessing the artifact. If an individual is arrested with the artifact, and it has not been damaged, amnesty will also be extended. Damage to any of these artifacts will be severely punished."

Done. No more controversy. We'd get a lot of takers on the reward and it wouldn't cost too much. A fence rarely gives more than 10-20% of value on stolen goods, less if it is hard to move. This coupled with the amnesty would allow the thieves to realize a profit and spend it freely. Sure it would suck a little, but we can justify it by saying we are compensating people for keeping the things safe, and putting a little money in the Iraqi economy.

I haven't seen this linked here yet, but it deserves as much, or more attention than repeated non-critical rehashings of the museum story:

Iraqis Say Museum Looting Wasn't as Bad as Feared

Even before reading that, keep in mind that until recently there were at most 1,600 troops in a small portion of Baghdad, the museum had been closed to the public for 10 years, vaults were opened by someone with keys, specific pieces were missing and the people initially quoted about the story were employees in good standing of Saddam Hussein.

Stay critical, this story's got a bad stink to it.

now i read everyones statement, but you all lets get real the generals FUCKED up big time....they could have gaurded the artifacts.....if it had been of milatary importance {weapons} they would have been all over it.....the service is great for fighting but they havent a clue for historical items of great importance...lets all face it they destroy and kill...thats there prime job.....this mess no matter what the exscuse the govt. may offer will not be dissmised by the world...especially the iraqis....oh and by the way i was a marine...and i didnt have a clue when i was in there either....but i am older and wiser and can appreciate history and things that CAN'T BE REPLACED PERIOD.

What kind of military genius thinks that the U.S. is going to stake out "a few soldiers" or "just one or two tanks" somewhere in a city where there are hundreds of fedayeen loose with RPGs and car bombs?

The Iraqi people did it to themselves... Now the frogs blame the US for not being able to policy an entire city of 6 million with 35,000 troops while still engaging in combat operations.

I know US troops look superior, but there are limits to their ability... But alas, the Left forgets this again!

abby normal,

EVERYTHING and EVERYONE is replaceable.

It might just take some time for the less common stuff to be found again, but it can be done. Much of Iraq is not explorered, I am sure with the ground penetrating radar the US will be using that they will be finding artifacts buried.

I am a historian, or at least that's what my degree says. I agree its a real loss, but its not going to affect my life drastically. So I don't really care!

Going back to the article someone else posted about the museum curators locking away some of the more valuable items, there's an additional piece or two in the story: the Iraqi fedayeen and some of the regular army were in trenches in front of the museum, sniping at the US troops. US forces didn't return fire. It was a couple of days before they could clear those guys out. You have to be very careful of what you read, and what you're willing to believe, because so much of what the press - ALL the press - puts out is BS.

...From Agence France Presse/Arab News...MB's nose is twitching, again, at that stench...that source is about as reliable as Chirac's word on helping! Gen. Garner wasn't even in country when that looting happened! The looting started long before the first tank rumbled into the outskirts of Baghdad.
Somebody's knickers are in a twist, so they spew allegations; you won't see the truth printed on the front page to retract the garbage flung about like feces.

Enough, already!

Truly,
How much of "humanity" was saved by this rarified collection of artifacts before it was looted? Yep, about as much as they save us now.

The artist in me is all for preserving the rare object but honestly this has IMO been a bit over blown.

We will not likely forget the roots of civilization, even without these artifacts.

Furthermore, unless the thieves have ground these artifacts into dust or burned them to ashes they are not lost... the bits and pieces can't be hidden forever and they will turn up again.

Hold on to your drinks and take a seat -- everything will be o.k.

It looks like the looting was a done deal before the Marines had secured Baghdad

Raiders of the Lost Art

http://www.dailytelegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/04/20/wloot20.xml&sSheet=/news/2003/04/20/ixnewstop.html

A long quote from "The Saddam Files":
http://www.msnbc.com/news/902240.asp?cp1=1

>>>>>
       America wants to bring liberty and democracy to Iraq. But first the Iraqis will have to come to terms with the legacy of fear Saddam created, and regain the humanity that was frightened and beaten out of them by three decades of grotesque misrule. No wonder Iraqi looters torched and sacked the National Library and stole their nation?s antiquities from the National Museum. They had lived all or most of their lives in a world where neighbors informed on each other for cash; where torturers multiplied their salaries each time they extracted a confession; where police made only $4 a month for catching crooks but could earn lavish bonuses by imprisoning people for their thoughts and words.

Don't believe everything that "Agence France Presse/Arab News" tell you.

Yea, but have you noticed that the last warnings issued about Iraq by the people who are so exercised about the Baghdad Museum generally included the word "quagmire" or the phrase "the Arab Street will revolt"?

It is a great loss, but it's not at all clear that much blame can be laid on the US for it. And it sure wasn't worth sacrificing many Marines for.

A knowledgeable art / history blog that I like:

http://www.cronaca.com/

Some old rocks and statues got stolen -- boo fuckin' hoo. Seriously, all you who are complaining about this, what differences does this really make in your life, or anybody else's, outside of archeological circles? As much as I love the USA, if the original copy of the Declaration of Independence was somehow destroyed, OK, I'd be bummed for about a minute or so, and then I'd shrug and get on with my life.

This whole issue is just more desperate screeching by the left to try to make the US look bad.

Ahh... but have you seen where the "goodies" are ending up?

Paris!

Phil Hornsey --
Yup. That would do it.

Joe Maller -- Thank you for that information. I had somehow missed the fact the museum was closed to the public for a decade.

"Hey, let's rip this place off, and let the Ami's get blamed for it. Go get the truck, Abdul -- we have buyers in Paris waiting for this stuff!"

There were other things to do. Bad guys to catch/eliminate. Infrastructure to protect/repair. Vital services to restore. Life for millions of people to get as close to normal as possible. A museum is full of stuff. None of it essential. Most of the stuff will probably a) turn up when the person who took it realizes that a Mesopotamian funeral urn is just something else to dust, b) a lot of suspicious Middle Eastern artifacts show up on E-bay. In addition, they've already caught some people doing illegal trafficking in the stuff.

People need to get some priorities and chill out over this. It's a non-story.

Laurie K.

I'm amused by the statement that "the tanks were doing nothing". AFAIK, this was while we were in control of about 1/3 of the city, with fighting still underway to secure the rest. I'm sure the tank crews were all just having a big ol' tailgate party in Saddam Square and lazing their days away.

Until we have more information I'm willing to give the Marines the benefit of the doubt. We need to know exactly when the looting occured in relation to what parts of the city were then secured, and how many artifacts were actually stolen by museum staff and gov't officials, either using the looting as cover or at their leisure during the 10 years the museum was closed to the public. Come back in a year or two when you have those answers and then we'll talk about who screwed up and when. Making accusations of negligence and incompetence base on what we know at this point is utterly stupid.

As AFP is so swift to point a finger at the US forces for failing to secure a museum while fighting continued, perhaps they should have leaned on Jackie "King of Peace" Chirac to support the coalition effort to liberate Iraq.

In 1991, the French, following a long tradition of bringing a knife to a gun fight, sent some throwdown light infantry to take part in the Gulf War. This rabble had to be kept out of harm's way while the grown ups dealt with Saddam's invading army.

If Chirac and the nth French Republic had consented to send their uniformed rabble this time, perhaps they could have acted as museum guards while the grown ups secured the city. That is, if their officvers could have been kept from looting or from taking bribes as they did in the Balkans.

This stuff is valuable enough that it will show up again, sold back into civilization, as soon as the disorder settels down. If we refuse to listen to the multi-culti idiots in the future, artifacts valuable to humankind will not be left in countries of origin that are ruled by barbarians. That will bring them to the West where they will be secure for a few hundred more years.

As for the notion that this museum was second in priority to the central bank, let us hope that not everyone in ORHA is that clueless. Did it not occur to this drooler that the water supply, the power plants, the commo centers -- all those dull things required to keep a city of several millions running -- were much higher priorities for our forces to secure?

One hopes that ORHA gets their head back in daylight and out of the narrow place indicated by this memo before they're entrusted with Iraqi reconstruction. This whole collection, reasonably valued, is not worth the life of a single American, Australian, British, or Polish soldier. It is trash from dead civilizations. Living people deserve more attention.

We ain't done fucked up. Our military just has a better sense of pragmatic priorities than one of our dimmer bureaucrats or the French press. No surprises there.

I'd like to put any number of these nattering ninnies into a situation as mercurial as that which our armed forces faced on or about April 9, and demand that they guard artifacts while the city remains full of armed jihadis looking to plug an RPG into an American APC, or worse. Everything's easier said than done; many times more so in war. Perhaps our military could have taken more precautions to guard artifacts, but it comes across as nitpicking.

If this is the worst that they can throw at us after months and months of doomsday predictions prior to the war, I'd say that we did just fine...

Yes, it stinks that this pottery is gone. We'll try to get it back. End of story.

I am a historian, or at least that's what my degree says. I agree its a real loss, but its not going to affect my life drastically. So I don't really care!

Posted by Original Mark at April 20, 2003 07:27 PM

i would'nt think that it would affect you...since your not an iraqi...{dumbass} you may have a degree but you sure dont have alot of common sense...maybe you should go back to school and get a degree in common sense? and go to the dr and see if you cant find the other half of your heart.
i bet youd feel different if it was our shit that was looted would'nt you? i can just hear you...wailing to cnn....you may have a degree but you must have traded it for half of your humanity...shit theese are still people like you and i not substandered organisms...what people have forgotten in the last 4 weeks is the IRAQIS ARE HUMANS TOO....not all of them but the majority of em...

EVERYTHING and EVERYONE is replaceable.

if this is the case go blow your brains out and let your family replace you? makes as much sense as you do does'nt it... people are not replaceable.....maybe you need my post name instead of original mark...the only thing original about you looks to be....you are part of a vast majority of people without sense.....i rest my case.

Ya got 10,000 places in the country. Some of them are believed to hold chemical weapons. Some are hospitals. Some supply power and water. Some have enemy fighters in them. Many are full of hungry and scared civilians. Some are businesses. Others are government offices. Various small groups of hostiles are still around, attacking American forces. Oh, and the dictator's home city still has not been captured.

You've also got a limited number of troops in country. They are busy. Some are being shot at. All could be at any second. Their commanders are busy sorting out all the priorities. Everybody is tired from the non-stop blitzkrieg.

Maybe they missed this the museum protecction in the vast sorting, or maybe it's priority was low.

Either way, complaining about it is pretty lame. This Army just made an unprecedented conquest, with minimal civilian casualties.

Aby, your rip on Original Mark seems a bit harsh and over the top. Do you think any inanimate object, no matter age or value placed on it by "experts", is worth one human life.

There is reason to believe this "looting" of the museum was done before our marines ever got a foothold in Dadbag, and it wasn't coalition forces that did the deed, it were Iraqis! This whole story reeks of contrivance just to throw mud on a hugely successful operation that removed a plague on Iraq.

Peace, bubba.

These are the critical questions:

"We need to know exactly when the looting occured in relation to what parts of the city were then secured, and how many artifacts were actually stolen by museum staff and gov't officials, either using the looting as cover or at their leisure during the 10 years the museum was closed to the public."

Call me back when they have been answered, and we can begin to talk about US responsibility. Not before.

Doesn't it strike any of you warmongers as rather ironic that the US forces rapidly turned the Ministry of Oil into a fortress at the same time that the Museum was being looted?

Sure there are priorities and there was a war being fought, but you are all incredibly gullible, arrogant and ignorant if the tenor of your response to this tragedy is along the lines of "Yeah it stinks that this pottery is gone".

http://www.spectator.co.uk/article.php3?table=old§ion=current&issue=2003-04-19&id=3011

Man a lot of people with panties in a twist over the simple reporting of this obvious mistake. The fact is that many other places were secured and these should have been as well. the news from this article is that the Pentagon predicted ahead of time this would happen.

We made a mistake, a huge cultural legacy for all of us has been destroyed. What the heck is the matter doesn't anyone wish to admit that war is a bit more than breathless melodramatic commentary by cowboy "in-beds" reporting the "ge wiz" part of war?

"We made a mistake, a huge cultural legacy for all of us has been destroyed. What the heck is the matter doesn't anyone wish to admit that war is a bit more than breathless melodramatic commentary"

See, this is a classic example of cognitive dissonance. You can acknowledge that war is violent and uncontrolled, and yet you can't follow that through to the logical conclusion that perhaps it WASN'T feasible for US troops to have prevented the museum heist.

EVERYTHING and EVERYONE is replaceable.

elvis the formaldehyde has pickled your brain the above remark was made by original mark at least try and read all the posts before you engage your dead and overweight thoght process...would you and please dont do a comback tour....and one last thought is it to much to ask for you to stay DEAD....not a fan
abby normal.

jb perhaps you could explain to a dummy like me why it was so feasible to protect the Ministry of Oil?