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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