As if the "celebrations" (the word the Bush administration is now apparently using to refer to the widespread looting and anarchy in "liberated" Iraq) which resulted in the hospitals being picked clean as a bone weren't bad enough, this news comes in today from The Guardian, on the priceless treasures taken from the Iraqi National Museum:


BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - The famed Iraq National Museum, home of extraordinary Babylonian, Sumerian and Assyrian collections and rare Islamic texts, sat empty Saturday - except for shattered glass display cases and cracked pottery bowls that littered the floor.

In an unchecked frenzy of cultural theft, looters who pillaged government buildings and businesses after the collapse of Saddam Hussein's regime also targeted the museum. Gone were irreplaceable archaeological treasures from the Cradle of Civilization.

Everything that could be carried out has disappeared from the museum - gold bowls and drinking cups, ritual masks worn in funerals, elaborately wrought headdresses, lyres studded with jewels - priceless craftsmanship from ancient Mesopotamia.

``This is the property of this nation and the treasure of 7,000 years of civilization. What does this country think it is doing?'' asked Ali Mahmoud, a museum employee, futility and frustration in his voice.

The rest of the story is here:

Guardian article

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Iraqi Museum an Inside Job? (Click)