Archaeological looting in Iraq
[1] By the end of World War I, British-administrated Mesopotamia created protections for archaeological sites where looting was beginning to become a problem.
[5] Upon becoming president in 1979, Saddam Hussein treasured his national heritage immensely and acted to defend these sites and the artifacts within them.
[8] With the fall of Saddam's government in 2003, archaeological sites were left completely open and looting became an even greater problem.
[9] According to Lawrence Rothfield, former director of the Cultural Policy Center at the University of Chicago and associate professor of English and comparative literature, this looting of the National Museum of Iraq and of hundreds of archaeological sites around the country was not prevented.
[9] At the time of war planning it was Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld who decided on a fast invasion with fewer troops, resulting in inadequate protection of buildings and cultural sites.
He had worked in the State Department as a Foreign Service officer, as an international policy analyst for the White house and also served at an acting curator for the Getty Museum.
[14] In late spring 2002, Houghton was approached by Ashton Hawkins, former executive vice president and counsel to the trustees of the Metropolitan Museum, and was asked to find out what was being done by officials to secure heritage sites in the upcoming war in Iraq.
[17] UNESCO had in fact, after the Gulf War in 1991, attempted to go into Iraq and assess the damage to cultural sites but they were not allowed to enter the country.
Varhola was needed to prepare for the refugee crises that never arrived and Sumner was reassigned to guard a zoo after pushing his advisor too hard on antiquities issues.
[22] Something that was accomplished was the creation of a no-strike list created by Maj. Varhola just like two archaeologists before him had done during the 1991 Gulf War which had a great outcome of saving antiquities from bombing.
As the upcoming years would prove, there are exceptions to this convention and they would result in Americans firing on the Iraq National Museum.
[24] Deputy Assistant under the Security of Defense, Joseph Collins, recalls some forces spent more time working on projects that ended up not being needed like a refugee crises plan.
After a meeting of powerful players in culture, Houghton sent a letter asking for departments to tell forces to avoid damaging monuments, soldiers were to respect the integrity of sites, and lastly to work quickly to get the antiquities services in Iraq up and running again.
[25] Following this, the Archaeological Institute of America (AIA) also sent a similar letter to the Pentagon in December 2002 asking for governments to take action to prevent looting in the aftermath of the war.
[26] As 2002 came to an end the media and government were only broadcasting the good done by the troops in not destroying cultural heritage themselves but not on the looting done by people in Iraq and the Americans duty to protect the antiquities.
[27] McGuire Gibson, one of the leading archaeologists and experts on Mesopotamia explained to the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA) that the looted museum artifacts were only a small part of what archaeological digs around the country held.
[29] On May 7, the Bush administration replaced Gen. Jay Garner with L. Paul Bremer who was given more power and banned high-ranking Ba'ath Party members from government jobs and disbanded the remains of the Iraqi army.
[30] At the end of May 2003, it finally became clear how badly the sites were looted when a trip sponsored by National Geographic went out to assess the damage.
[31] Gibson was part of the northern National Geographic team and he sent a report to the White House science advisor John Marburger.
McGuire Gibson on September 11, 2003, wrote to a military geographer, "The continuing destruction of sites all over southern Iraq and the theft of thousands of artifacts every week, with no visible effort on part of the US authorities, makes the question of ethical behaviour by museums pointless.
[39] Archeologist Elizabeth Stone purchased satellite images of the seven thousand square kilometers in Iraq that contain many known sites.
[42] U.S. Marine Corps reservist Matthew Boulay witnessed illicit trading even on military bases[42] Flea markets authorized by the camp commanders included a booth with antiquities for $20, $40 or $100 each.
The US started teaching military personnel headed for Iraq the importance of cultural heritage and site preservation.
[44] In 2016, the U.S. Government Accountability Office issued a report describing some of the United States’ cultural property protection efforts in Iraq and Syria.
