Sandy English: Three years after looting of Iraqi National Museum: an official whitewash of US crime
Three years have now passed since thieves looted the Iraqi National Museum in Baghdad following the American invasion. Nearly 15,000 objects of inestimable scientific and cultural value were stolen, although initial figures were over 10 times that number....
There was an international outcry, and the United States military, groping to set right a public relations disaster, sent in Marine Reserve Col. Matthew Bogdanos, in civilian life a Manhattan assistant district attorney, to conduct an investigation. He was assisted by a team drawn from various military services as well as by the staff of the museum itself.
Bogdanos has published his findings in several journals and in his book, Thieves of Baghdad. [1] A more detailed account appeared in the prestigious American Journal of Archaeology (AJA) last summer. [2]
The results of his investigation are limited to what looters stole and how and when they probably stole it. When Bogdanos touches on the role of American forces in the area at the time, he raises more questions than he answers. Although he says the military could have done more to protect the museum, he fails to indicate how.
More significantly, Bogdanos defends the invasion. He is neither able nor inclined to investigate those responsible for putting the museum in jeopardy in the first place: the architects of the illegal assault on Iraq.
In fact, Bogdanos’s findings serve as an attempt by the Bush administration to placate critics, particularly in academic circles. This, and the reclaiming of roughly 5,000 stolen objects though amnesties, raids and interdiction at borders, has provided, the administration hopes, a necessary dénouement to one of the great episodes of cultural vandalism of the twenty-first century....
... From a political point of view, Bogdanos’s AJA article and the final chapters of Thieves of Baghdad represent an apologia for the American role in the looting.
He presents a selective sequence of events from April 8, after the American invasion of Baghdad, up until April 16, 2003, the day the museum was guarded by American troops. He asks if American troops in the area could have done more to protect the museum. He implies that the answer is no.
According to Bogdanos, on April 8 the staff left the premises of the museum at 11 a.m., when Iraqi troops took up positions. Donny George, a director of the museum, attempted to return there at 3 p.m., but was unable due to heavy fighting in the area.
On April 9, an American tank company, the 3rd Infantry Division Task Force 1-64, moved to within 500 meters and began taking fire from three of the four buildings in the museum compound.
The commander of the unit, Lt. Col. Eric Schwartz, estimated that 100-150 Iraqi soldiers were inside, armed with AK-47s and RPGs. Tanks fired a round at the 2nd floor storage room of the main museum building and at a position on the roof of one of the buildings. Bogdanos notes that Schwartz contacted his superiors before doing so.
Bogdanos defends the American action on the basis of international law. He cites not only Geneva Convention protocols but also those from the Hague Convention for the Preservation of Cultural Property in Time of War, which states that designated cultural property is to be immune from military conflict in time of war. The United States has never ratified the Hague Convention, but the Joint Chiefs of Staff unanimously recommended adherence in 1995.
From a technical point of view, Bogdanos is correct. Both the Geneva Conventions and the Hague Convention prohibit the use of cultural property by defenders in wartime.
But there is something ludicrous and grotesque in an American colonel speaking of the transgressions of the laws of war by a small, nearly defenseless nation during the illegal invasion by the world’s leading military power.
Article 11 of this Hague convention is specific about the obligation of the aggressor in withdrawing immunity from a cultural area that has been occupied by enemy forces. “Wherever possible, [the attacker] shall first request the cessation of such violation within a reasonable amount of time” and “immunity shall be withdrawn from cultural property under special protection only in exceptional cases of unavoidable military necessity, and only for such time as that necessity continues. Such necessity can only be established by the officer commanding a force the equivalent of a division in size or larger. Whenever circumstances permit, the opposing party [in this case, the Iraqi military occupying the museum] shall be notified a reasonable time in advance, of the decision to withdraw immunity.” [3]...
Read entire article at World Socialist Website
There was an international outcry, and the United States military, groping to set right a public relations disaster, sent in Marine Reserve Col. Matthew Bogdanos, in civilian life a Manhattan assistant district attorney, to conduct an investigation. He was assisted by a team drawn from various military services as well as by the staff of the museum itself.
Bogdanos has published his findings in several journals and in his book, Thieves of Baghdad. [1] A more detailed account appeared in the prestigious American Journal of Archaeology (AJA) last summer. [2]
The results of his investigation are limited to what looters stole and how and when they probably stole it. When Bogdanos touches on the role of American forces in the area at the time, he raises more questions than he answers. Although he says the military could have done more to protect the museum, he fails to indicate how.
More significantly, Bogdanos defends the invasion. He is neither able nor inclined to investigate those responsible for putting the museum in jeopardy in the first place: the architects of the illegal assault on Iraq.
In fact, Bogdanos’s findings serve as an attempt by the Bush administration to placate critics, particularly in academic circles. This, and the reclaiming of roughly 5,000 stolen objects though amnesties, raids and interdiction at borders, has provided, the administration hopes, a necessary dénouement to one of the great episodes of cultural vandalism of the twenty-first century....
... From a political point of view, Bogdanos’s AJA article and the final chapters of Thieves of Baghdad represent an apologia for the American role in the looting.
He presents a selective sequence of events from April 8, after the American invasion of Baghdad, up until April 16, 2003, the day the museum was guarded by American troops. He asks if American troops in the area could have done more to protect the museum. He implies that the answer is no.
According to Bogdanos, on April 8 the staff left the premises of the museum at 11 a.m., when Iraqi troops took up positions. Donny George, a director of the museum, attempted to return there at 3 p.m., but was unable due to heavy fighting in the area.
On April 9, an American tank company, the 3rd Infantry Division Task Force 1-64, moved to within 500 meters and began taking fire from three of the four buildings in the museum compound.
The commander of the unit, Lt. Col. Eric Schwartz, estimated that 100-150 Iraqi soldiers were inside, armed with AK-47s and RPGs. Tanks fired a round at the 2nd floor storage room of the main museum building and at a position on the roof of one of the buildings. Bogdanos notes that Schwartz contacted his superiors before doing so.
Bogdanos defends the American action on the basis of international law. He cites not only Geneva Convention protocols but also those from the Hague Convention for the Preservation of Cultural Property in Time of War, which states that designated cultural property is to be immune from military conflict in time of war. The United States has never ratified the Hague Convention, but the Joint Chiefs of Staff unanimously recommended adherence in 1995.
From a technical point of view, Bogdanos is correct. Both the Geneva Conventions and the Hague Convention prohibit the use of cultural property by defenders in wartime.
But there is something ludicrous and grotesque in an American colonel speaking of the transgressions of the laws of war by a small, nearly defenseless nation during the illegal invasion by the world’s leading military power.
Article 11 of this Hague convention is specific about the obligation of the aggressor in withdrawing immunity from a cultural area that has been occupied by enemy forces. “Wherever possible, [the attacker] shall first request the cessation of such violation within a reasonable amount of time” and “immunity shall be withdrawn from cultural property under special protection only in exceptional cases of unavoidable military necessity, and only for such time as that necessity continues. Such necessity can only be established by the officer commanding a force the equivalent of a division in size or larger. Whenever circumstances permit, the opposing party [in this case, the Iraqi military occupying the museum] shall be notified a reasonable time in advance, of the decision to withdraw immunity.” [3]...