Sleazy art collectors worldwide are salivating....


It seems U.S. troops may have acted on orders to safeguard the Iraqi oil ministry in Baghdad, while ignoring pleas from international archeologists to protect the Iraq National Museum--before hostilities, perhaps the world's greatest repository of Mesopotamian culture.

...Dr Jeremy Black a specialist on ancient Iraq at Oxford University, said: "What has befallen Baghdad and Mosul museums was foreseen by archaeologists worldwide. Meetings were even held with the American military before the war to warn of the extreme likelihood of looting should an invasion occur.

"Sadly, however, the occupying forces failed to implement in practical terms the measures to protect Iraq's and the world's cultural heritage....

[....]

Curators said the looters came in two categories – the angry and the poor, most of them Shias, who were bent largely on destruction and grabbing whatever they could to earn some money; and more discriminating, middle-class people who knew exactly what they were looking for. Some of the more famous pieces may be too easily recognizable to be sold on the international market, leading some experts to fear they will be destroyed.

[....]

Their [the missing objects'] value, in total, could quite conceivably run to billions of pounds – with the profits lining the pockets of the more unscrupulous of the European and North American-based dealers. Somewhere between Switzerland and antique shops in Britain and elsewhere, all knowledge of an object's Iraqi provenance will be lost.

A photo accompanying the British Independent's story shows U.S. troops stringing razor-sharp barbed wire around the Iraqi oil ministry. That's right! We gotta keep our priorities straight! (Thanks to Common Dreams.)