Most museum artifacts found

[Solver]

Solver, ever the critic.

I've never said a bad word about the war or such stuff, I just like pointing the bad sides out .

[rah]

I am waiting for FOX NEWS to report that this means the Museum was never actually looted.

[Kropotkin]

Yeah, in fact the american soldiers (the same that didn't know about Babylon) found and bought with them even more artifacts to the museum. Items they found during the advance when digging trenches.

[SlowwHand]

I'm waiting for the report out of Al-Jazeera that the museums are at the White House.

[Solver]

Yeah, in fact the american soldiers (the same that didn't know about Babylon) found and bought with them even more artifacts to the museum. Items they found during the advance when digging trenches.

Indeed. But it's hard to keep myself from laughing, still .

[DRoseDARs]

Originally posted by Ming
I still love how they still blame the US for the looting.
Sure, we could have protected things better... but the last time I checked, most of the looting was done by Iraqi... Yes... we were responsible for robbing their history, while Iragi were making money selling them...

Funny, I don't recall blaming the Coalition for the looting, but blaming them for not doing more to prevent it.

Obviously, if the Chicago Tribune article is accurate, then great. However, that still doesn't excuse the lack of protection for the hospitals, universities, and the library.

[DanS]

And here's some more to add to the brew...

http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/news/special_packages/iraq/5788461.htm

But, he said, ``all sorts of people have been coming forward and telling us that they're turning this over to the U.S. forces for safekeeping for ultimate return to the Iraqi people, and they specifically tell us they are not turning this stuff over to the museum staff. They have told us this time and time again.''

[SlowwHand]

Iraq could have been just a little more involved in stopping the looting earlier.
Eventually, they did.

[rah]

While I'm not happy that the american forces didn't do enough to protect what should have been protected, I will say that the city fell much faster than anticipated and may have caught them off guard at first. And there was no way that there were enough troops to protect EVERYTHING. But more should have been done.

RAH

[Solver]

You didn't need many forces to protect the museums. And actually, they asked the US to protect them even before Baghdad was taken.

[Ming]

Originally posted by DRoseDARs
However, that still doesn't excuse the lack of protection for the hospitals, universities, and the library.

And again... just WHO did the looting of the hospitals, universities, and burned the library... Hmmm, it wasn't the American Soldiers.

Yeah... more protection could have been provided. But the blame falls mostly ON THE PEOPLE WHO ACTUALLY DID IT!

Just think if you stood in front of judge and said the following...

"I didn't see a cop around, so I just broke the window and stole what I wanted... blame the cop for not being there, don't blame me."

There aren't many judges in the world that would blame the cop...

[rah]

Originally posted by Solver
You didn't need many forces to protect the museums. And actually, they asked the US to protect them even before Baghdad was taken.

That they asked before is insignificant in my opinion. The city wasn't in our hands yet. For all we know they made that request public so any insider looting would be blamed on the americans. The americans were asked to protect a lot of things prior.

DanS, good link.
The amount of effort that the US is doing to help recover the items is another indication that Bush thinks the American people were not happy about it. There may never be an official apology, but there are obviously people that think we are partly to blame.

DRoseDARs
Nice, sig, just noticed it


RAH

[SlowwHand]

Troops were doing their job first, then helping police.
Imagine the concept.

"The problems of victory are far more agreeable than those of defeat, but they are no less difficult." - Winston S. Churchill

[DRoseDARs]

Originally posted by rah
While I'm not happy that the american forces didn't do enough to protect what should have been protected, I will say that the city fell much faster than anticipated and may have caught them off guard at first. And there was no way that there were enough troops to protect EVERYTHING. But more should have been done.

RAH

I don't know if I buy the idea that it caught them off guard. The US went on-and-on about how military might would scare off the Iraqi military ("Shock and Awe") and the Iraqi people would welcome their "liberation," so they must've at least THOUGHT about, even made some preliminary plans for the possiblity that Ba'ath control would crumble like a sh*tty cookie. Contingency planning is always a must. If it comes to light that there really wasn't more than a few hundred troops within, say, 100 miles of Baghdad and those troops were mostly used to secure the three ministries, then that just further exemplifies the questionable planning done by Rummy.

And protecting EVERYTHING wasn't the point (for those who missed what was being critisized). I'm running on the assumption that large numbers of troops were within the vicinity of Baghdad, say 2,000, but were kept back...just in case. It should have been possible to protect a few key hospitals, the library that got burned out, and the major university or at least some buildings on the campus (I don't know how large or spread out it is).



Rah, at least we agree that more should have been done to protect a few (more) key installations and that not all of the looting city-wide could have been prevented.

[SlowwHand]

Another career civilian gives his 2 cents on the failure of the military.