US Culture Advisers Resign Over Iraq Museum Looting

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

End of thread djf


------ Forwarded Message
From: jsmithberk () attbi com
Date: Thu, 17 Apr 2003 22:18:31 +0000
To: dave () farber net
Subject: US Culture Advisers Resign Over Iraq Museum Looting

Hi Dave,

More fall out form the museum looting.  Cultural advisers to the Bush
Administration resign because of the looting.  The advisors had meet with
and 
warned the military of the location and significance of the museum.  They
are 
especially angry because the military rushed to save oil fields but not the
cultural assets.  Of course the oil fields may have more military
significance.

-James Smith



http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?
tmpl=story&ncid=584&e=2&cid=584&u=/nm/20030417/pl_nm/iraq_antiquities_dc

US Culture Advisers Resign Over Iraq Museum Looting

By Niala Boodhoo 

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two cultural advisers to the Bush administration have
resigned in protest over the failure of U.S. forces to prevent the wholesale
looting of priceless treasures from Baghdad's antiquities museum. Martin
Sullivan, who chaired the President's Advisory Committee on Cultural
Property 
for eight years, and panel member Gary Vikan said they resigned because the
U.S. military had had advance warning of the danger to Iraq (news - web
sites)'s historical treasures.
 
"We certainly know the value of oil but we certainly don't know the value of
historical artifacts," Vikan, director of the Walters Art Gallery in
Baltimore, told Reuters on Thursday.

At the start of the U.S.-led campaign against Iraq, military forces quickly
secured valuable oil fields.

Baghdad's museums, galleries and libraries are empty shells, destroyed in a
wave of looting that erupted as U.S.-led forces ended Saddam Hussein (news -
web sites)'s rule last week, although antiquities experts have said they
were 
given assurances months ago from U.S. military planners that Iraq's historic
artifacts and sites would be protected by occupying forces.

"It didn't have to happen," Sullivan told Reuters. "In a pre-emptive war
that's the kind of thing you should have planned for." Sullivan sent his
letter of resignation earlier this week.

The Iraqi National Museum held rare artifacts documenting the development of
mankind in ancient Mesopotamia, one of the world's earliest civilizations.
Among the museum collection were more than 80,000 cuneiform tablets, some of
which had yet to be translated.

Professional art thieves may have been behind some of the looting, said
leading archeologists gathered in Paris on Thursday to seek ways to rescue
Iraq's cultural heritage.

Among the priceless treasures missing are the 5,000-year-old Vase of Uruk
and 
the Harp of Ur. The bronze Statue of Basitki from the Akkadian kingdom is
also 
gone, somehow hauled out of the museum despite its huge weight.

The White House repeated on Thursday that the looting was unfortunate but
the 
U.S. military had worked hard to preserve the infrastructure of Iraq.


"It is unfortunate that there was looting and damage done to the museum and
we 
have offered rewards, as Secretary Rumsfeld has said, for individuals who
may 
have taken items from the museum to bring those back," White House
spokeswoman 
Claire Buchan said in Crawford, Texas, where President Bush (news - web
sites) 
is spending a long Easter break.


FBI (news - web sites) Director Robert Mueller added that the bureau was
sending agents to Iraq to assist with criminal investigations and had issued
Interpol alerts to all member nations regarding the potential sale of stolen
artifacts. 


"We recognize the importance of these treasures to the Iraqi people and as
well to the world as a whole," Mueller said. "And we are firmly committed to
doing whatever we can in order to secure the return of these treasures to
the 
people of Iraq." 


The president appoints the 11-member advisory committee, which works through
the State Department to advise the executive office on the 1970 UNESCO (news
- 
web sites) Convention on international protection of cultural objects.





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