[Colin Glassey] The Looting of the Iraq Museum
I'm upset at the coverage of this event in the media. Phyllis Bennis from the Institute for Policy Studies was on KQED radio this morning blaming the United States for the looting of the Iraqi Historical Museum. I'd like to say she has no right to critique our soldiers in the city of Bagdad who were fighting (and sometimes dieing) to overthrow the Saddam government. Blame for the looting of the museum goes to the following parties:
- The Saddam government for failing to live up to its signed treaty obligations to disarm after the 1991 War.
- The head of the museum for not hiding or otherwise securing the most important artifacts of the collection. It was obvious for nearly a year that war was likely. The museum has been closed to visitors for several years so hiding the collection is a trivial task, if you cared.
- The looters themselves. It wasn't U.S. Troops that looted the museum. We don't know who it was but we can be sure it wasn't our soldiers.
So, do we have any share of blame? In an ideal world our forces would have been followed instantly by a well trained, non-Saddam Iraqi police force who would have backed the U.S. Troops and prevented looting in the newly liberated city. Well, guess what, we don't live in an ideal world. In the real world most things happen differntly than planned. The fall of Bagdad is one of those events which happened faster than expected.
Should we have stationed some of our military units outside the museum to protect it? That is a military choice, made on the ground by officers who had a job: defeat Saddam, conquer Bagdad, and keep our soldiers alive. Keeping the museum safe from Bagdad's citizens is not and should not have been on our commanders list of top 5 priorities.
Frankly, I think it is yet to be proved that the museum was looted by the citizens of Bagdad. Take a look at this essay from The Villiage Idiot. Main points: 1) The museum has been closed to the public for years. 2) Saddam and his cronies were looting the country of Iraq for more than a decade. 3) The museum is suddenly looted in the middle of the night, all the vaults are opened, the muesum director is wailing. Was it common for the people of Bagdad to loot at night? I thought the streets were desterted at night in Bagdad. Thanks to Instapundit for the links (as usual).
1:48:04 PM 
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