"Go in, Ali Baba, it's all yours!"- called the Americans

American soldiers broke open the door of the main building (Baghdad 
Museum) , and stayed in the exhibition halls unobserved for about two 
hours. Eventually they brought out objects and transported them off.  

By Von Walter Sommerfeld

Translated by Dagmar Nearpass

05/09/03: (Information Clearing House) Baghdad, since the fall of 
Bagdad, the city of 5 million is in a state of anarchy. Everyone is 
armed to the teeth, shots can be heard around the clock, especially 
at night. One shoots to warn, out of fear or happiness, when the power 
comes on in some area for two hours a day. The greatest worry is 
therefore security.  

All public employees - hundreds of thousands of teachers, doctors, 
professors or officials - have not received a salary in nearly two 
months. Theft, assaults and murder are the order of the day. Robbers 
with guns attack automobile drivers in broad daylight, to steal their 
cars. On the other hand, local "volunteer corps" have sprung up. Many 
areas have established local groups, and ordinary people are directing 
traffic with home-made signs. The Iraqis are improvisation artists.  

The Iraqis are especially shocked about the looting that destroyed 
the infrastructure and cultural sites. The reports of many independent 
witnesses are the same in their details. Openly, in one part of the 
city after another, the locations of the former government were 
systematically plundered. What did not lend itself to plundering was 
smashed. In museums, libraries, cultural centers, in the 15 universities 
of the country, all ministries except the oil ministry, hospitals, city 
offices, hotels, banks, palaces of the government officials, also the 
German Embassy, the French cultural institute and UN building. Even 
at the beginning of May, day long plundering could be observed.  

These robberies were encouraged or tolerated. Many Iraqis report 
attempts to move soldiers to intervene. Even the intervention of the 
commander in the Palestine Hotel is not heard. Simple people from the 
slums plundered, as did better off residents from the neighborhood. 
People were motivated by revenge, anger, rage, greed, and the loot 
was often sold on the street the same day.  

The most surprising in all of the reports was the insistence that the 
American soldiers often helped the plundering, in that they broke or 
shot open doors and then encouraged those there to steal, "Go in, Ali 
Baba, it's all yours!"- called the Americans, said Iraqi witnesses. 
"Ali Baba" has become the American term for plundering Iraqis. An 
employee of the UN development program observed that Americans forced 
themselves into the Technical University, opened computers, and took 
the hard drives before the thieves went to work.  

Many Iraqis speak openly about these incidents, but want to remain 
anonymous because they fear repercussion and must work with the 
Americans. This also applies to the employees and caretakers of the 
Iraq Museum especially, since there observations are especially 
controversial. On Tuesday, April 8, heavy battles took place near 
the museum, since the building is in the center of the city surrounded 
by strategic targets. The armed civilian guard which was supposed to 
guard the building from being overrun, fled out of fear for their lives, 
so it fell into the hands of the Americans.  

A high ranking museum employee reports that, on the next day two 
tanks appeared, American soldiers broke open the door of the main 
building, and stayed in the exhibition halls unobserved for about 
two hours. Eventually they brought out objects and transported them off. 
The witnesses could not identify which objects were involved. It is certain, 
however, that the largest and most obvious objects were still there, 
because there concealment is more difficult, and that only the smallest 
objects out of displays were brought out.  

A resident reported how the American soldiers encouraged various 
Iraqis who happened to be standing nearby, to help themselves: "This 
is your treasure, get in!" For three day the plunderers raged unhindered 
and carried their objects away in front of running cameras. The few 
confused returning museum workers attempted to move American troops 
to the defense. Soldiers only appeared briefly, looked at what was 
going on, then quickly disappeared, "This is not our order," - these 
aren't our orders.  

After that employees were concerned that, like everywhere else, the 
arsonists would go to work and burn the documentation, excavation 
records, and library. Two Directors of Antiquities, therefore, on 
Sunday went to command central of the Americans at the Palestine Hotel, 
waited four four hours, to desperately beg for protection. The 
commander promised to send tanks and soldiers immediately, but for 
two days, nothing happened. Not until one of the directors contacted 
a colleague at the British Museum, using a secret satellite phone, who 
then mobilized British and Americans from London, did tanks appear, 
who have guarded the museum since then.  

Today the Iraq Museum is the best guarded in the world. Its employees 
and even the directors, who are cleaning up without any pay, and are 
documenting the damage, are only admitted with exact identification. 
"We decide who will come in," related the soldier on guard to me. In 
a side wing, the remaining objects are guarded. As the general director 
took me on a tour, there were spread out on the tables, hardly more 
than 100 found things - watched by about a dozen soldiers, who had set 
up their field cots nearby.  

With certainty some of the most famous displays of the museum, which 
were in the exhibition halls, have disappeared (see list). The robbers 
also broke into the records, which included over 170,000 inventory 
numbers. Only for a few days has a generator provided some light, 
and the employees have begun documenting the damage. The library 
remained intact, as did many excavation reports and probably most 
of the inventory books. It has not been a total loss, but he majority 
of the collection may well have been stolen.  

The stolen antiquities are in special demand by journalists, so that 
armed bands have especially targeted press vehicles on the 500 mile 
long highway between Bagdad and the Jordanian border. One who was 
attacked reported that, after tearing apart the vehicle, bandits first 
wanted to know, "Where are the antiquities?" In one journalists car, 
twelve boxes of antiquities were discovered.  

The most valuable, no longer insurable items - including the famous 
gold from the Assyrian king's graves in Nimrud - rested in the safe of 
the central bank. Here too, plunderers had free hand for a long time, 
in the meantime it has been overtaken by soldiers. Even the leaders of 
the antiquities authority have no information which of these antiquities 
remain intact and where they are now.  

In spite of the international appeal about the destruction, the devastation 
is still tolerated. A uropean colleague and an Iraqi archaeologist report 
that in just a few days ago in Babylon, the perhaps most famous city in 
the old world, plundering and arson continue. There the documentation 
about the Iraqi graves located there was burned. As in Bagdad, so also 
in Babylon, did the employees of the antiquities service speak to the US 
troops, who had quartered themselves in a palace of Saddam's. The 
response: "These are not our orders."  

The 15 universities of Iraq are totally plundered and burned. 
A portion of the University of Bagdad at Dshadirija remained 
unharmed. The Americans had set up their quarters there.  

Of the campus of the Mustansarij University, the oldest in the 
world besides Bologna, nothing remains - even securely installed 
places were dismantled, and the campus was burned. On the campus 
of the research institute University of Bagdad in Wazirija almost 
everything is destroyed; even the archaeology section is disturbed, 
which as associate of the Iraq museum was excavating the wells of 
the more than 5,000 year old culture. Several buildings have collapsed 
as a result of fires. Of the library of the ? section, which included 
15,000 volumes, only clumps of baked together ash piles remain.  

In the meantime, professors and students have started the cleanup. 
Even that is difficult: gasoline reserves in Bagdad are disappearing, 
one gas station after another is closing, the wait for a tank of gas 
is five hours, the price of gas has risen tenfold; one can not risk the 
drive to the university. Some rooms were provisionally repaired, locks 
purchased from their own pockets, so that the work will not be destroyed 
again.  

On the 17th of May the universities are to start up again - without 
libraries, paper, administrative support. More important than notebooks 
and computers, brooms and shovels are the needed tools, and the 
teachers must instruct from memory. The students want to do it out 
of love, so that they won't lose a whole year,  

"Under Saddam it was bad, but now it's worse. Why was this done?" 
said the head of the archaeology department of the University of 
Bagdad. "Our future is gone. We have no trust in anything. We just 
want to survive."  

The author is a professor at the University of Marburg and travelled in 
Iraq for 20 years. He is one of the first German academics to visit iraq 
after the war.  

Translated from an article in Suddeutschen Zeitung a German 
newspaper.  

http://www.sueddeutsche.de/kultur/artikel/973/10963/print.html

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Source: Information Clearinghouse ...
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article3311.htm

Cheers, Steve..

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