From: Keith Miller (kbmill@ksu.edu)
Date: Wed Apr 16 2003 - 09:40:46 EDT
More on the devastation to Iraq's (and the world's) archaeological and
historical heritage. Forwarded from another list.
Keith
> http://reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=2571384
> "U.S. archeological organizations and the U.N.'s cultural agency
> UNESCO said
> they had provided U.S. officials with information about Iraq's cultural
> heritage and archeological sites months before the war began. 'Not to
> my
> knowledge. It may very well have been,' Rumsfeld said when asked it he
> had
> received such advance warnings. 'But certainly the targeting people
> were
> well aware of where it was and they certainly avoided targeting it.
> Whatever
> damage that was done was done from the ground.' Air Force Gen. Richard
> Myers, chairman of the U.S. military Joint Chiefs of Staff, quickly
> added
> that Rumsfeld did receive advance warnings about archeological sites
> around
> Baghdad and that these warnings were passed on to the military's
> Central
> Command with responsibility for the war. 'I think it was the American
> Archeological Association -- I believe that was the title -- wrote the
> secretary with some concerns,' Myers said. 'We tried to avoid hitting
> those
> sites ... to my knowledge we didn't hit any of them.'"
>
> It was the Society for American Archaeology and the Archaeological
> Institute
> of America, but details are clearly irrelevant. The plan for
> "protecting"
> cultural heritage sites was to try not to hit them with bombs or
> missiles.
> It's clear from how these men talk that the preservation of Iraq's
> cultural
> heritage never even crossed Rumsfeld's mind.
>
> It's also clear there was never any consideration given to protecting
> the
> National Museum or National Library once our troops had actually
> arrived in
> Baghdad--despite the pleas of scholars around the world.
>
> The last sentence of the article says it all:
> "I think as much as anything else it was a matter of priorities,"
> [Myers]
> said.
> Here are some additional links to stories that appeared today:
> Baghdad museum's treasures 'Stolen to order'
> http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=397630
>
> Looters Ransack Iraq's National Library
> http://abcnews.go.com/wire/World/ap20030415_1974.html
>
> Inquiry demanded over US failure to stop library looting
> http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=397629
>
Keith B. Miller
Research Assistant Professor
Dept of Geology, Kansas State University
Manhattan, KS 66506-3201
785-532-2250
http://www-personal.ksu.edu/~kbmill/
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