Didn't someone this morning mention arming the staff?
Maybe if you shoot low for the legs you might miss
most of the exhibits.
Jerry Fahey

Eugene Dillenburg wrote:

> Well, not EVERYONE is willing to let Mr. George off the hook:
>
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,979087,00.html
>
> Staff revolt at Baghdad museum
>
> Rory McCarthy in Baghdad
> Tuesday June 17, 2003
> The Guardian
>
> Iraq's national museum, home to many priceless artefacts which were thought
> to have been looted after the fall of Baghdad, has been plunged into a new
> crisis because of a revolt by staff.
> More than 130 of the 185 staff of Iraq's state board of antiquities office
> in Baghdad, which runs the museum, have signed a petition demanding the
> resignation of its directors.
>
> Staff said they believed that some of the thefts from the museum were an
> inside job. They also accused Dony George, the board's head of research, of
> arming them and ordering them to fight US forces.
>
> Mr George admitted to the Guardian that he armed staff but denied
> instructing them to shoot US troops. He said none of the directors had a
> hand in the looting.
>
> The row came after weeks of confusion about the artefacts apparently stolen
> from the museum under the gaze of US troops. At first Mr George and other
> directors accused the US military of failing to protect the building. But
> in the past two weeks many of the most precious pieces, including the
> golden treasures of Nimrud and the Sumerian vase of Warka have been
> returned.
>
> One employee said: "We want elections for new directors and we want an
> investigation into what happened at the museum."
>
> US military investigators have discovered that the keys from a director's
> safe went missing and have never been found. Several employees said they
> found secure doors leading into the building unlocked but not broken after
> the first days of looting. A wall which concealed a secret entrance to
> underground store rooms, which only a handful of senior officials knew
> about, had been knocked down.
>
> Staff also described how Mr George gathered employees in the museum for a
> meeting in the early days of the war at which he ordered them to fight US
> troops or face the sack. One employee who was present at the meeting
> said: "He [Mr George] said: 'If the Americans come you have to fight.' They
> never mentioned thieves once."
>
> Missiles destroyed a building opposite the museum during the war. Staff
> said Mr George ordered them to fire at US aircraft or parachutists.
>
> Mr George, who has worked for the board for 26 years and is known
> internationally, admitted he had been at the meeting and that guns were
> distributed but said he told staff only to guard the museum against
> looters.
>
> "They were given strict orders they were here to protect the museum from
> any kind of looting that might happen," he said. "They would never fight or
> shoot against any kind of tank or helicopter because it would be suicide."
>
> He said he had been a member of the Ba'ath party, but not a senior one.
> Refusal to join, he said, would have meant "troubles in my position here
> [at the museum] and at home".
>
> A spokesperson for the US-led coalition provisional authority (CPA), which
> is running Iraq, said Mr George's Ba'ath party membership had been
> investigated and he had been cleared. "All other allegations are just
> hearsay," the spokesperson said. Elections have been organised by the CPA
> in the ministry of culture, which oversees the museum, to choose new
> directors. But staff from the antiquities board are unlikely to take
> part. "It is not the way it works," the spokesperson said.
>
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