Who Will Profit From Iraqi Museum Looting?

By Maureen Murphy

In mid-April, looters systematically dismantled Iraq's National Museum as U.S. troops guarded Iraq's Ministry of Oil and Ministry of the Interior, failing to protect the Ministries of Culture, Education, Information, Planning, Industry, Trade, Foreign Affairs, and Irrigation. International art historians and archaeologists are mourning this devastating loss to world history. Among the artifacts feared stolen, estimated at 50,000 to 200,000 pieces, was a 5,000-year-old Uruk Vase illustrating a procession entering a temple, numerous recently excavated tablets, a solid gold harp from the Sumerian era, and the "White Lady," which The Washington Post described as "the stone face of a woman that looks as if it was carved during the Greek Classic period but is 5,500 years old, one of the earliest known examples of representational sculpture."

However, it is speculated that not all art lovers are shaking their heads in grief. Scotland's The Sunday Herald reports, "It has emerged that a coalition of antiquities collectors and arts lawyers, calling itself the American Council for Cultural Policy (ACCP), met with U.S. Defense and State Department officials prior to the start of military action to offer its assistance in preserving the country's invaluable archaeological collections."

Because the ACCP had closed-door meetings with the Pentagon months before the bombing campaign began and the looting was systematic, some believe that it is more than coincidence. The Los Angeles Times reports, "A Northern California scholar and collector of Iraqi art, speaking on condition of anonymity, said he was contacted surreptitiously before the war and told that Iraqi antiquities would soon become available. He speculated that the thieves acted in accordance with a plan, but no such design has been revealed."

This news is troubling considering that those who initially looted the museum knew what they were doing. According to The New York Times, "Archaeological officials in Baghdad took reporters through the museum [April 16] and pointed to what they said was clear evidence of professionalism on the part of some looters: the use of glass cutters, the bypassing of reproductions in favor of valuable originals, and the carting off of major pieces weighing hundreds of pounds."

Although the Los Angeles Times added, "Reports from museum guards indicate that the looters simply grabbed whatever was available," others have speculated that the looting was done in two phases. The Independent reports that "[Museum] curators said the looters came in two categories -- the angry and the poor, most of them Shias, who were bent largely on destruction and grabbing whatever they could to earn some money; and more discriminating, middle-class people who knew exactly what they were looking for."

The Los Angeles Times also stated, "U.S. forces intervened only once, for half an hour, before leaving and allowing the looters to continue," suggesting that despite repeated calls from various U.S. archaeological associations to the Pentagon urging the military to protect the huge amount of history stored in the museum, pleas to exercise caution went unheeded. McGuire Gibson of the University of Chicago's Oriental Institute told The Chronicle of Higher Education, "'I have been talking to the military since January 24th, and we supplied them with a list of more than 5,000 archaeological sites, which they've been putting on their maps. They know where those locations are.'"

Scholars around the world are outraged at what they call the U.S. military's failure to even put a tank or three soldiers outside of the museum. This neglect has led many to question whether the ACCP might have something to do with it.

The Times Higher Education Supplement reports, "The ACCP, which has offered financial and technical support to the planned post-Saddam regime in Iraq, denied that it had any interest in Iraq other than to protect its rich heritage." However, the same report adds, "The ACCP said it had no policy on U.S. law, but some if its members -- including its president, New York lawyer Ashton Hawkins -- have criticized U.S. law that recently led to the conviction of a leading dealer for handling stolen property. Critics also pointed out that the group's treasurer, lawyer William Pearlstein, has criticized Iraqi laws that forbid the export of antiquities and has reportedly said he would like the postwar regime to allow some exports."

The ACCP's high-profile New York lawyers and art dealers could certainly profit from more lenient laws on artifacts with problematic provenance. The Art Newspaper reported last year that "Ashton Hawkins represents at least five institutions ... and a growing number of private clients who are concerned about the legal risks in owning anything from paintings to Greek bronzes."

The ACCP appears to be little more than an influential lobby group. The Art Newspaper added, "The group would ... push to revise the Cultural Property Implementation Act and how it is applied, in order to minimize efforts by foreign nationals to block the import into the U.S. of broadly defined categories of objects, particularly antiques. Another aim is to discourage the use of the 1997 U.S. vs. McClain decision as a judicial precedent to target the trade and collectors by means of the National Stolen Property Act."

It is alarming that an organization that is intent on changing policies regarding the imports of cultural artifacts is also seeks involvement the U.S. reconstruction of Iraq. On top of this, the military's decision to guard the Ministry of Oil rather than museums, libraries, hospitals, and the U.S.' neglect towards Iraqi infrastructure points to its true intentions in Iraq.

In an effort to unite the fragmented demographics of Iraqi society, and create a sense of Iraqi nationalism, Saddam Hussein "pour[ed] money into archaeological research and restoration," as The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports. Many Iraqis are blaming the U.S. for the looting and this might cause a new, anti-American nationalist sentiment. The Bush administration should be aware that nationalism can come as easily from hatred towards a shared enemy as it can from a shared culture.

Commenting on the burning of the National Library and Archives and the loss of history that ensued, Robert Fisk, of The Independent, writes, "for Iraq, this is Year Zero; with the destruction of antiquities in the Museum of Archaeology ... and the burning of the National Archives and then the Koranic library, the cultural identity of Iraq is being erased. Why? Who set these fires? For what insane purpose is this heritage being destroyed?"

But one thing is certain: the whole world, not just the Iraqi people, has lost important pieces of its history en masse. And it's unlikely to ever be the same. As the Los Angeles Times reports, "Of the 4,000 artworks taken from museums during the 1991 Persian Gulf War, `maybe two' have been recovered, said McGuire Gibson. ..." Not only will Iraq never be the same, thanks to Bush's war on Iraq, but art history will forever be altered as well.

Illustration by Trev Kelderman