From the article you posted:
Although mob rule played a part, he believed some archives – especially in ministries and police stations – were deliberately destroyed to eradicate the evidence of Saddam Hussein's repressive rule. In the case of libraries and museums, he believed many of the most precious treasures had been taken intact for sale on the international art market, and the rest destroyed to create confusion about what was missing.
"One must not oversimplify it. There was no one clear motive," Dr Riedlmayer said. "But this was certainly opportunistic on the part of people who held positions of power. At the National Museum, the vault doors were opened undamaged, which means someone had a key and deliberately let the mob in."
He said: "One speculation is that people with access stole selected valuable objects and then left the place open, hoping everything would be attributed to the mob rather than to them."
From the article I posted:
Lt. Col. Schwartz, whose functions also include feeding the lions in the abandoned Baghdad Zoo next door, said he couldn't move into the museum compound and protect it from looters last week because his soldiers were taking fire from the building --...
But, thanks to Iraqi preparations before the war, it seems the worst has been avoided. Donny George, the director-general of restoration at the Iraqi Antiquities Department, Wednesday said his staff had preserved the museum's most important treasures....
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