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Politics : Stop the War! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: zonder who wrote (17061)	5/9/2003 9:43:23 PM
From: Brumar89	Respond to of 21614

It's a shame that some of the museum staff isn't cooperative but its not hard to figure why. It is widely believed members of the museum staff were involved in thefts of antiquities from their own museum. The marines, who have been given responsibility for finding the missing treasures, say the staff are not cooperating. Colonel Matthew Bogdanus, who commands the taskforce conducting the search, said the officals had yet to provide an inventory of the museum's possessions. .... He had an inventory but he stressed that it had not been provided by the museum staff: it was thought Germany may have made it available. Not only had the museum failed to provide him with its inventory, it had not let him into the vaults where some of the most valuable antiquities were kept. "Before the war many items were removed from the museums and put in underground vaults in the Central Bank of Iraq. The vaults appear to be intact but no one has been able to tell us which vaults they are in, provide us with access, keys or combinations," he said. Asked if he was accusing the Iraqis of obstruction, he said: "I offer only facts, not opinons. You can draw your own conclusions." Dr Nawal al-Mutawazy, the museum's director, rejected the implication. "The Americans have asked for all the inventory of Iraq's museums and we did not supply them with it because most of the papers were scattered round the floor," she said. Uh, that would mean you need to PICK THE PAPERS UP, Doctor. The next sentence says a great deal about Dr. al-Mutawazy: Asked about access to the vaults, she replied: "Who says there are vaults?" Well, your state board of antiquities chairman does, that's who: But Dr Jabel Khalil, chairman of the state board of antiquities, confirmed that there were vaults. "We can't answer the question of what has been lost until we investigate what we have, and that will take lots of time, because some of the looting was from halls and some from vaults." Interesting background info: Baghdad is awash with people offering antiquities, real and fake, to foreigners. In the markets, at street corners and roundabouts, statues and seals said to be more than 5,000 years old are on offer. The market in fakes is sophisticated and many of them carry the markings of the Iraqi National Museum. ..... Even before the looting there was an extensive trade in antiquities, spurred by the chaos after the 1991 Gulf war and poverty caused by international sanctions. Thousands of pieces were taken from sites or museums. The recovery is complicated by the sophistication of the fakes on offer, exemplified by the 25 items which a former Iraqi army captain tried to sell to the Guardian, claiming they were looted from the museum. guardian.co.uk