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The National Museum of Iraq is located in Baghdad, Iraq. Closed in 1991 during the Gulf War out of fear
of further U.S. air-strikes it was not re-opened until April 28, 2000, former President Saddam Hussein's birthday. It contains important artifacts from the over
5,000 year long history of Mesopotamia in 28 galleries and vaults.
The museum experienced extensive looting
and damage during the 2003 invasion of Baghdad,
with the loss of an unknown proportion of its 170,000 ancient artifacts. Some of the looting was evidently professional, with the
most valuable pieces taken. It has been very difficult to assess the level of looting, as there was no centralized inventory of
the collection.
Also largely destroyed was the House of Wisdom, Iraq's national
library.
In the months preceding the invasion, starting in December and January, various antiquities experts, including
representatives from the American Council for Cultural Policy asked The Pentagon and the U.K. government to ensure the museum's safety from both combat and looting. No promises
were made, though U.S. forces did avoid bombing the site.
The U.S. government faced considerable criticism for doing nothing to protect the valuable museum after occupying Baghdad. Dr.
Irving Finkel of the British Museum said the looting was "entirely
predictable and could easily have been stopped." Martin Sullivan, chairman of the U.S. President'vs Advisory Committee on
Cultural Property, and State Department cultural advisor Gary Vikan both resigned in protest.
When asked why the U.S. military did not try to guard the museum in the days after the invasion succeeded, Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said "If you remember, when
some of that looting was going on, people were being killed, people were being wounded.... It's as much as anything else a matter
of priorities." Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who described
the period of looting in general as "untidiness", said of the museum's looting, "To try to pass off the fact of that unfortunate
activity to a deficit in the war plan strikes me as a stretch." Secretary of State Colin Powell said, "The United States understands its obligations and will be taking a leading role with
respect to antiquities in general but this museum in particular." The Geneva Conventions require an occupying force to safeguard cultural facilities such as museums from
damage. Critics have noted that the US forces quickly posted troops to guard the Iraqi Ministry of Petroleum building and various
governmental palaces, but made no similar efforts for the museum.
Dr. Donny George, General Director Research Studies for the Board of Antiquities in Iraq, said of the looting, "It's the crime
of the century, because it affects the heritage of all mankind". After the U.S. Marines set up headquarters in Baghdad's Palestine Hotel, George said he went there to
plead for troops to protect the remainder of the Museum collection, but no guards were sent for another three days.
A few days later agents of the FBI were sent to Iraq to search for stolen Museum
property.
UNESCO organized an emergency meeting of antiquities experts on April 17, 2003 in Paris to deal with the aftermath of the looting and its effects on the
global art and antiquities market.
On April 18, 2003, the Baghdad Museum Project was formed in the United States
with a proposal to assure the National Museum of Iraq every possibility of the eventual safe return of its collection, even if
that is to take hundreds of years. Rather than focus only on law enforcement and the current antiquities market, the group seeks
to (1) establish a comprehensive online catalog of all cultural artifacts in the museum's collection, (2) create a virtual
Baghdad Museum that is accessible to the general public over the Internet, (3) build a 3D collaborative workspace within the
virtual Baghdad Museum for design and fundraising purposes, and (4) establish a resource center within the virtual Baghdad Museum
for community cultural development.
Various ancient items believed looted from the museum have surfaced in Jordan, the
United States, Switzerland, and Japan, and on eBay. Among those arrested for attempting to bring looted
antiquities into the United States were a reporter and a camera man for Fox
News.
On May 7, 2003, U.S. officials announced that
nearly 40,000 manuscripts and 700 artifacts belonging to the National Museum of Iraq in Baghdad were recovered by U.S. Customs agents working with museum experts in Iraq. Some looters had returned items after promises
of rewards and amnesty, and many items previously reported missing had actually been hidden in secret storage vaults at the
museum prior to the outbreak of war.
On June 7, 2003, U.S. authorities announced
that world famous treasures of Nimrud were recovered from a secret vault in Iraq's
Central Bank. The artifacts included necklaces, plates, gold earrings, finger and toe rings, bowls and flasks. Officials said
that of the 170,000 items initially believed missing, just 3,000 remained unaccounted for. And, of those, 47 were main exhibition
artifacts.
In November, 2003 Coalition officials
reported a few dozen of the most important items remained missing from the museum's public galleries, along with another 10,000
other items -- most of them tiny and some of them fragments.
External links
News and editorials
- Thousands of Iraqi artifacts found , CNN, May 7, 2003
- MISSING ANTIQUITIES: Loss Estimates Are Cut on Iraqi
Artifacts, but Questions Remain , The New York
Times, May 1, 2003
- RELICS: Experts' Pleas to Pentagon Didn't Save
Museum ,
The New York Times, April 16, 2003
- ANTIQUITIES: Curators Appeal for a Ban on Purchase of
Iraqi Artifacts , The New York
Times, April 16, 2003
- US government implicated in planned theft of Iraqi artistic treasures
, World Socialist Web
Site, April 19, 2003
- Hundreds of looted items returned to
Iraqi museum , CNN
Web Site, November 11, 2003
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