First of all, I will freely admit to knowing zip about Middle-eastern antiquities. However I do tend to keep myself informed of modern political events in that area. This thread has displayed a distressing lack of knowledge about the later. The picture painted, IMHO, has been a noble Iraqi government struggling to protect its heritage in the face of an unjust and needless embargo. Let's get real! One poster mentioned that an Iraqi official responsible for guarding dig-sites couldn't get parts for vehicles to patrol the areas or chemicals needed for the unit to do preservation or restoration work. I'd like to ask whether perhaps those parts, if allowed into Iraq, might not be much more likely to go into military transport. And as for the chemicals? I don't have a clue what they might be, but I seem to recall certain unpleasant uses that the Iraqi government recently made of foreign-supplied chemicals. As for who is responsible for the supposed looting, are we all naive enough to think that government wouldn't sell its heritage for some attractive hard currency that can perpetuate their power? Some may think this a very Scrooge-like post for this season. I would counter that there will never be "peace on earth" as long as people of good will put their blinders on and fail to see that evil sometimes must be confronted even if some innocent people are unfortunately hurt by this. If you think that this is off-topic, maybe the list charter ought to stipulate that only pro-Iraqi posts may be made. Dave Carroll - [log in to unmask]