NEWS> Iraq War Claims History of Civilization as Victim: Museum and Library Destruction and Looting
- From: Gleason Sackmann <gleason@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: NetHappenings <nethappenings@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 16 Apr 2003 09:22:00 -0500
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Net Happenings - From Educational CyberPlayGround
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Date: Wed, 16 Apr 2003 02:59:34 -0400 (EDT)
To: Gleason Sackmann <gleason@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
The Iraq National Museum and the Iraq National Library
have both been extensively looted and the Iraq National
Library has also been torched.
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Iraq National Museum plundered by looters
Hamza Hendawi
Associated Press
Apr. 13, 2003 12:00 AM
<http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0413war-museum13.html>
BAGHDAD - The Iraq National Museum, home of
extraordinary Babylonian, Sumerian and Assyrian
collections and rare Islamic texts, sat empty
Saturday, except for shattered glass and cracked
pottery 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?" Ali Mahmoud, a museum employee,
asked, futility and frustration in his voice.
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Looters Ransack Iraq's National Library
By CHARLES J. HANLEY
The Associated Press
Tuesday, April 15, 2003; 8:13 PM
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/
A33530-2003Apr15.html>
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Looters and arsonists ransacked
and gutted Iraq's National Library, leaving a smoldering
shell Tuesday of precious books turned to ash and a
nation's intellectual legacy gone up in smoke.
They also looted and burned Iraq's principal Islamic
library nearby, home to priceless old Qurans; last
week, thieves swept through the National Museum
and stole or smashed treasures that chronicled this
region's role as the "cradle of civilization."
"Our national heritage is lost," an angry high school
teacher, Haithem Aziz, said as he stood outside the
National Library's blackened hulk. "The modern
Mongols, the new Mongols did that. The Americans
did that. Their agents did that," he said as an explosion
boomed in the distance as the war winds down.
The Mongols, led by Genghis Khan's grandson Hulegu,
sacked Baghdad in the 13th century. Today, the
rumors on the lips of almost all Baghdadis is that the
looting that has torn this city apart is led by U.S.-inspired
Kuwaitis or other non-Iraqis bent on stripping the city of
everything of value.
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Experts' Pleas to Pentagon Didn't Save Museum
By DOUGLAS JEHL and ELIZABETH BECKER
<http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/16/international/
worldspecial/16MUSE.html?ex=1051070400&en=
f8791b644b269e4f&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE>
WASHINGTON, April 15 The plunder last week
of Iraq's national museum, one of the Middle East's
most important archaeological repositories, occurred
despite repeated requests to the Pentagon by experts
and scholars that the site be protected when American
troops entered Baghdad.
A senior Pentagon official said the military had never
promised that the buildings would be safeguarded.
"We could never guarantee ahead of time the safety
of a single building," said Dr. Joseph Collins, a deputy
assistant secretary of defense for humanitarian and
peacekeeping operations.
But experts, including McGuire Gibson, a professor
at the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago,
said they believed that the military had understood
the need to protect the buildings against looting
as well as bombing.
"I thought we had understandings," Dr. Gibson said
today as he prepared to leave for a meeting of
antiquities experts in Paris called by Unesco to
assess the damage from the museum's destruction.
"I didn't expect that we would stand by and let them
loot the museum and burn the ministries."
The experts met with Pentagon officials as early as
January to warn that the impending war could pose
grave risks to Iraq's archaeological treasures.
They renewed the warnings in e-mail messages in
the days before the American attack on Baghdad
began, some of the experts said today.
Representatives of the American Council for
Cultural Policy, a New York-based group of
museum officials and prominent art collectors, also
met with Defense and State Department officials in
the months before the war, and said they were
encouraged by the meetings.
---------------------
Iraq National Museum Treasures Plundered
Saturday April 12, 2003 11:10 PM
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/
0,1280,-2557569,00.html>
---------------------
Iraq liberated as arsonists burn the library of Korans
By Robert Fisk
<http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?
page=story_16-4-2003_pg4_20>
So Monday was the burning of books. First came
the looters, then the arsonists. It was the final
chapter in the sacking of Baghdad.
The National Library and Archives ... a priceless
treasure of Ottoman historical documents, including
the old royal archives of Iraq ... were turned to ashes
in 3,000 degrees of heat. Then the library of Korans
at the Ministry of Religious Endowment was set ablaze.
I saw the looters. One of them cursed me when I
tried to reclaim a book of Islamic law from a boy
of no more than 10. Amid the ashes of Iraqi history,
I found a file blowing in the wind outside: pages of
handwritten letters between the court of Sharif
Hussein of Mecca, who started the Arab revolt
against the Turks for Lawrence of Arabia, and the
Ottoman rulers of Baghdad.
And the Americans did nothing. All over the filthy
yard they blew, letters of recommendation to the courts
of Arabia, demands for ammunition for troops, reports
on the theft of camels and attacks on pilgrims, all in
delicate hand-written Arabic script. I was holding in
my hands the last Baghdad vestiges of Iraqs written
history. But for Iraq, this is Year Zero; with the
destruction of the antiquities in the Museum of
Archaeology on Saturday and the burning of the
National Archives and then the Koranic library, the
cultural identity of Iraq is being erased. Why?
Who set these fires? For what insane purpose is this
heritage being destroyed?
When I caught sight of the Koranic library burning
flames 100 feet high were bursting from the windows
I raced to the offices of the occupying power, the US
Marines Civil Affairs Bureau. An officer shouted to a
colleague that this guy says some biblical [sic] library
is on fire. I gave the map location, the precise name
in Arabic and English. I said the smoke could be seen
from three miles away and it would take only five minutes
to drive there. Half an hour later, there wasnt an
American at the scene and the flames were shooting
200 feet into the air.
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Sincerely,
David Dillard Research Librarian
david@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
ECP RingLeader
http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/ringleaders/davidd.html
Temple University
(215) 204 - 4584
jwne@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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