On Mon, 14 Apr 2003, Harry Needham wrote:

+++++ [CLIP] +++++

> What is really surprising is that, during the Second World War, units
> followed behind the advancing troops, ready to provide interim civic
> administration, albeit with military clout, as the Allies advanced into
> Germany. This was to provide stability, maintain services and, inter alia,
> begin the de-Nazification process, particularly by identifying and detaining
> certain classes of wanted persons.

=====================

Harry:

You are right except on one thing: the Monuments, Fine Art & Archives
Officers (to give them their official title) did not "follow behind the
advancing troops" - they were up there with them.  On the direct orders
of General Eisenhower, the Supreme Allied Commander, several were on the
Normandy Beaches on "D" Day itself, and both identified and marked
important cultural and religious monuments, sites and institutions.  They
also had the power to request local theatre military commanders to mount
guards where there was a special risk of either looting or accidental
damage by Allied forces.  In fact there were never very many of these.
From memory I think that James Rorimer of the National Gallery,
Washington, and the distinguished British archaeologist Sir Leonard
Woolley, had only a couple of dozen M, FA & A Officers each, but their
expertise and presence clearly saved very many sites and even more
collections.

The USA has many expert cultural protection specialists in the Civil
Affairs Branch, mainly Reservists, and they are a fine bunch of highly
professional people.  (I had the privilege of helping to run one of their
regular training weeks at Fort Bragg in about 1996 and met many there.)
One of the things that is going to have to be looked at after the present
conflict is over is why this time, unlike 1944, they were not up here with
the forces, assisting and advising commanders in the field - in just the
same what that the JAGs (legal officers) with, I am certain, have been
alongside every field commander.

One other question that is emerging is why there seems to have been a big
difference between military orders and practice from one side of the
River Tigris to another.  In East Baghdad, by all accounts the Marine
Corps moved immediately to enforce civil order and - in particular to
protect locations entitled to special protection under international
humanitarian law, such as hospitals.  (Important cultural sites and
institutions are entitled to the same special protection by any military
force in effective control or command of a territory.)  All the accounts
suggest that thanks to the Marines not one of the 12 hospitals in East
Baghdad was looted or seriously damaged by the rioters and looters because
a small detachment of Marines were allocated to each to strengthen the
hospital's own security.  In contrast, for days the spokesmen for the
forces in West Baghdad, just a few hundred feet away across the river,
seem to have been saying that their mission and orders did not allowed them
to carry out this essential security mission (even though in fact this is a
clear obligation under international law.)

It looks as though had the National Museum, devastated last Friday, and
the National Library & Archives, burned down yesterday (Monday) been in
East Baghdad they would have probably be largely or totally intact today.



Patrick Boylan

(P.S. The British Museum's head of Middle Eastern Archaeology got
through to one of the Deputy Directors on the Nartional Museum by the
ordinary phone service today, and as told that even after Secretary
Colin Powell's very strong and welcome statement in Kuwait yesterday,
there is no military guard at the National Museum, and the staff are
currently mounting a 24 hour guard of their own, sleeping on primises.)

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