Deb,
I don't see where you get the idea that "museum officials in Baghdad deliberately lied about stolen artifacts" when Donny George, who is in charge of all the museums in Iraq was very clear right at the beginning that some artifacts had been put in bank vaults by museum staff. Buy these were a small percentage of the total. There are still thousands of artifacts stolen, missing, and vandalized thoughout Iraq; not just from the National Museum in Baghdad.
Check your last issue of AVISO -- AAM thought it was serious enough to do something. Also, museum professionals in London and in international museum committees (e.g., ICOM) and at UNESCO don't think it is a fraud.
There's a new article in today's The New York Times, again from a wire service, where AMERICAN archeaologists are interviewed, particularly those from the University of Chicago, who have worked in Iraq for years. Some of them have been in Iraq for the past month surveying the damage. They speak specifically about which sites were secured by the U.S. Military (where the local museums and sites were not looted) and which ones were not, where even as we speak the sites look like "Swiss cheese" because of the numerous unscientific excavations made by looters.
I cannot believe how ethnocentric some people on this list are. This is not about bashing the United States. It is about trying to understand the destruction that happens during wars and revolutions. Most of Africa is experiencing these conditions from Ruanda, to Sierra Leone to Zambia these days. It is bad enough that millions of people are suffering but we are also losing such important cultural resources that somehow made it through thousands of years, and in our own lifetimes are disappearing through the greedy and deliberate actions of individuals and through the "it's not out responsibility" attitude of powerful nations.
pamela sezgin
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