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Iraqi Civilian Deaths ... caused by Bush's unprovoked war

 

Plundering the Museums of Baghdad
(Walter Sommerfeld, CounterPunch, May 17, 2003)
Since the fall of Baghdad, anarchy has reigned in this city of five million. Everyone is armed to the teeth, and shooting can be heard around the clock, especially at night. . . . Theft, robbery and murder are daily fare. Armed robbers commit carjacking in broad daylight. . . . Particularly shocking for most Iraqis was the fervor with which their infrastructure and cultural heritage has been destroyed. Many independent eyewitnesses are unanimous about this. Apparently the infrastructure of this ancient state was systematically plundered, district by district. Whatever was not worth the taking, was destroyed. In museums, libraries and cultural centers, in the country's 15 universities, in every ministry with the exception of the Ministry of Oil, in hospitals, state warehouses, hotels, banks, palaces of government ministers, and also in the German Embassy, the French Cultural Institute and the UN-Building. Even at the beginning of May, plundering continued throughout the day. . . . A resident reports how US soldiers commanded chance Iraqi bystanders on the museum grounds, to go into the museum and help themselves: "This is your treasure, get in! . . . The most surprising detail in all reports was the assertion that American soldiers often made the looting possible at all, by breaking open or unlocking well-protected doors and then animating bystanders to plunder: "Go in, Ali Baba, its yours!" -- shouted the Americans, say Iraqi eyewitnesses. Among Americans., "Ali Baba" has become an almost generic term for Iraqi looters. A member of the UN Development Agency observed how Americans forced open the Technical University, opened computers and removed their hard drives, before allowing looters in. . . . A high-ranking museum official reports that the day after, two tanks rolled up, and American soldiers broke open the doors of the main building and spent around two hours unobserved in the display galleries. Afterward, they removed certain objects and transported them away. . . . The 15 universities of Iraq have been totally looted and burned. Only the University of Baghdad in Djadaria remained untouched. There, Americans had made their headquarters. Of the infrastructure of the Mustansanja University, along with that of Bologna the oldest in the world, nothing has been left -- even fixed installations were dismantled -- including the electrical wall-sockets, and the campus burned down. On the campus of the Arts Faculty of the University of Baghdad in Wazinja almost everything has been destroyed, also its Department of Archaeology, which as extension of the Iraqi Museum delineates the sources of the more than 5'000 year-old period of high culture. The fires have caused several buildings to collapse. Of the Library of the Germanistic Section, which contained over 15'000 volumes, only solidified slagheaps of ash remain. . . . "Under Saddam, it was bad, but now it is worse. Why was this done to us?" asked the director of the Department of Archaeology of the University of Baghdad: "Our future looms darkly. We have trust in nothing. We only wish to survive."

posted by Lorenzo 5:31 PM