15,000 artifacts still missing from Iraq Museum: director

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle.asp?xfile=data/focusoniraq/2004/June/focusoniraq_June5.xml§ion=focusoniraq

AMMAN - Some 15,000 artifacts stolen from the Iraq Museum last year are still missing and neighbours like Turkey and Iran were not helping to find them though they were smuggled across their borders, the head of the museum said here on Tuesday.


“Fifteen thousand objects are still missing from the Iraq Museum. We know, we are sure, that Iraqi antiquities are going out through Turkey and Iran, but we’ve never had feedback from them,” Donny George told AFP.

George was speaking in Amman on the sidelines of a two-day meeting of customs officials from several of Iraq’s neighbours, as well as US and European law enforcement agents.

He said some Iraqi neighbours like Jordan, Syria, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia had cooperated with Baghdad and seized hundreds of artifacts smuggled through their borders in the aftermath of the US-led war to oust Saddam Hussein.

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[yellowcanine]

1. But Rummy said just one vase was stolen and the media showed the video of

that event over and over to make the military look bad. Did Rummy lie? I am shocked.

[dsewell]

2. Other spin

I also seem to remember that a week or two after the original looting, it was reported in U.S. media that many (or most) of the "missing" pieces had actually been locked in a separate part of the museum or temporarily taken home by museum staff for safekeeping. The implication was that the loss wasn't all that great.

It would be worth going back over all of the reporting to find out whether that was disinformation meant to sugar-coat the looting story (which was, after all, probably the first major "why the hell didn't the Bush administration plan for this?" story to hit the media after the fall of Baghdad).

[Ripley]

4. I recall a Military Lawyer was put in "charge" of the situation.

And he said their conclusive finding was that about 20 pieces were missing. Then I remember Chris Matthews and CNN people laughing about that saying..."Who ever thought they had thousands of pieces in the first place? Har har har!"

Sometimes I wish the US would experience first hand these silly things (like one of the Smithsonian museums being bombed, ransacked and looted) and then compare the responses of the people in TV Land.

[onecent]

3. Check the Whitehouse or the Crawford ranch

Probably mounted on the wall!

[yellowcanine]

5. Along with Saddam's Pistol! Tell me again how we are different from the

Huns, Vandals, Ghengis Khan, etc.

[NNN0LHI]

6. Fox news TV employee charged with smuggling Iraqi art

http://www.cnn.com/2003/LAW/04/23/sprj.nilaw.antiquities/

ALEXANDRIA, Virginia (CNN) -- The first criminal charge for bringing objects allegedly looted from Baghdad into the United States has been filed against a television network employee whom authorities said tried to smuggle paintings taken from one of Saddam Hussein's presidential palaces.

Meanwhile in Baghdad, four U.S. soldiers are being held on allegations of stealing several hundred thousand dollars of illicit cash from the millions found by U.S. forces in the Baghdad bungalows of senior members of Saddam's regime, Pentagon sources told CNN Wednesday.

Federal prosecutors said Benjamin James Johnson, 27, an engineer for Fox News Channel, was charged in a criminal complaint with smuggling 12 Iraqi paintings and 40 Iraqi bonds into the United States. The articles were impounded by Customs agents at Dulles International Airport near Washington, D.C.

Government sources have told CNN that at least five members of the media re-entering the United States from Iraq have been stopped and material seized. Four of those cases occurred at Dulles and one was at Boston's Logan International Airport, they said.

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[stickdog]

7. Thank God that BushCo can still count on Turkey!

Plastic Turkey, that is ...

[Gemini Cat]

8. bush Democracy In Action!!

First we bomb their cities.
Then we kill their children.
Toss in some torture as well.
Afterwords, we rape, steal and destroy their ancient culture.

Yep. Everything is going right along swimmingly.


:cry:

[struggle4progress]

9. kick

:kick: