BAGHDAD, April 18: US troops committed the “crime of the century” when they failed to protect priceless Iraqi artifacts from looters and likely trampled archeological sites, top antiquities officials here alleged on Friday.
“With what I’m expecting has happened in the (archeological) sites in the field and what happened to the Iraq museum, I would say it’s the crime of the century because it is really affecting the heritage of mankind,” said the head of the National Archaeological Museum in Baghdad, Donny George.
“It looks like there was an action and there were other priorities (for the United States) besides the Baghdad museum,” George said as he briefed reporters about the firestorm over the ransacking of the museum last Friday.
US troops who seized the Iraqi capital on April 9 watched as looters carted away artifacts from some of the world’s oldest civilizations.
A UN conference held on Thursday in Paris to examine the war damage to Iraq’s cultural heritage said much of the looting of the museum was carried out by organised gangs who traffic in works of ancient art.
Experts there said among the items lost was a collection of around 80,000 cuneiform tablets that contain examples of some of the world’s earliest writing. A 5,000-year-old Sumerian alabaster vase — known as the Warka vase — also disappeared.
Asked if that meant the US troops were ignorant of the value of the pieces housed in the museum, George answered “perhaps”.
Under pressure after the museum looting, the United States has offered to send FBI agents to the Iraqi capital to help with the recovery effort.
The head of President George Bush’s cultural advisory committee also stepped down on Thursday in protest at US failure to stop the pillage.
Traffickers in Iraqi archaeological items have thrived since the 1991 Gulf war thanks to growing international demand and an economic crisis in Iraq which encouraged ordinary people to find new ways to make money, experts say.
FBI TEAM: The United States, under pressure after the looting of Baghdad’s main antiquities museum, has sent FBI agents to the Iraqi capital to help recover priceless artifacts.
Federal Bureau of Investigation director Robert Mueller said agents had been sent to investigate the looting and to help improve security in Iraqi cities where there have been widespread troubles since the fall of the Saddam Hussein regime.
“We are firmly committed to doing whatever we can to secure these treasures for the people of Iraq,” Mueller said. He did not say how many agents were involved.
But the chairman of the President’s Advisory Committee on Cultural Property quit after eight years in the post, saying the devastation of a Baghdad museum was a “tragedy” and a result of US negligence.
“The reports in recent days about the looting of Iraq’s National Museum of Antiquities and the destruction of countless artifacts that document the cradle of Western civilization have troubled me deeply, a feeling that is shared by many other Americans,” wrote Martin Sullivan in a letter.
A source close to the committee told AFP another committee member, Gary Vikan, also resigned.
Baghdad’s museum, which housed a major collection of artifacts from some of the world’s oldest civilizations, was ransacked last week in the upheaval following the entry of US troops into the city.
Critics have faulted US forces for failing to halt the pillaging. The US government has offered rewards for the return of the items or assistance in their recovery.
“It is unfortunate that there was looting and damage done to the museum, and we have offered rewards ... for individuals who may have taken items from the museum to bring those back, and we are hopeful that will happen,” White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan said.
“The United States, in liberating Iraq, worked very hard to protect the infrastructure of Iraq and to preserve it and the valuable resources of Iraq for the people of Iraq.”
Much of the looting was carried out by organized gangs, according to experts at a United Nations conference in Paris.
Among items lost was a collection of around 80,000 cuneiform tablets that contain examples of the some of the world’s earliest writing. A 5,000-year-old Sumerian alabaster vase — known as the Warka vase — also disappeared.
The meeting of 30 experts at the UN Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization headquarters was called to take stock of the damage to Iraq’s heritage and recommend ways of safeguarding what remains.
“It looks as if at least part of the theft was a very deliberate, planned action,” said McGuire Gibson, of Chicago University’s Oriental Institute, president of the American Association for Research in Baghdad.
“Probably (it was done) by the same sorts of gangs that have been paying for the destruction of sites in Iraq over the last 12 years and the smuggling out of these objects into the international market,” he said.
Students at the University of Chicago’s Oriental Institute, a center of research on the region’s antiquities, have spent hours this week transferring images of antiquities in old Iraqi museum catalogues to the web, to enable border guards, art dealers and others to more easily identify them.
NEW YORK MUSEUM: Amid recriminations over the looting of the Baghdad museum, New York is preparing to host the biggest exhibition on Mesopotamian art in recent years.
The display of about 400 unique objects from 12 of the world’s biggest museums will open at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 8.
Though there is nothing from Baghdad, the exhibition will include world-renowned pieces such as “The Standard of Ur” from the British Museum in London and “The Bull’s Head” from the University of Pennsylvania.—AFP
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