The administration has made it clear that it is the Pentagon that is running the show, and soldiers know the peril of trying to act as policemen. It is obvious that the need to protect Iraq's treasures was not part of the pre-war planning on the part of the Department of State. What I can't help but wonder is what the situation in "liberated" Iraq would have been like if the administration hadn't been slowed in its rush to war by the anti-war crowd? What kind of plan would there have been if they hadn't bothered to go through the motions of going back to the UN, and trying to get some allies, and selling the war to the networks, and get contracts out to all those US corporations and other statesmanship stuff?

What good is preserving our cultural heritage anyway? What good has it done us? Thousands of years of culture led Iraq to Saddam Hussein and his bunch of thugs. And we've got George W., following Ole Bubba, George I and Ron the Actor. . .Why do barbarians stand around when the libraries burn? Because all reading does is make a real man weak. . .