Who is Responsible for the Looting of the National Museum of Baghdad?

Who is Responsible for the Looting of the National Museum of Baghdad? - 2003-04-19 Jim Hoagland, Washington Post The Pentagon has come under fire from all sides for failing to protect the National Museum of Baghdad, which is unique in its kind. This accusation is partly true; the security lapses at the National Museum and hospitals are unjustifiable. However, the rush to condemn the Americans for the looting and pillaging carried out by Iraqis obscures fundamental issues of accountability and responsibility in Iraq and throughout the Arab lands. The debate over who is responsible for the damage to the museum raises the essence and necessity of a moral and psychological transformation throughout the Middle East. In the haste to condemn, an important question is lost: If this looting was so predictable, what actions had the Iraqis, particularly the museum staff, taken in advance to protect these artifacts? News reports and footage coming from Baghdad indicated that they had not taken preventive measures; this raises a grim and troubling possibility: Could one of the largest art thefts in history have been orchestrated from within by Iraqi officials who were products of the thieving regime of Saddam Hussein? I have spent hours in this museum, a paradise of peace and cultural and spiritual health in the midst of a police regime; a monument from ancient times, when Mesopotamia was the center of civilization and not a hell of tyranny and savagery. The architects of the U.S. war plan, in this war as in 1991, did not drop their bombs near the museum. However, the potential for danger and damage should have been clear not only to American generals but also to museum officials, although both groups appeared to be caught off guard by the rapid collapse of the Ba'ath regime. This looting could not have occurred without planning. The glass of the display cases was cut with appropriate tools, and everything was destroyed in such a way that no trace was left behind. Although this statement is currently just a theory, it cannot be denied that Saddam's thugs may have brought their street mob to the museum long before. In any case, it is disgraceful and a failure for the Iraqis (and others) to place all the blame on the U.S. military. Such an act perpetuates the myth that every misfortune that befalls Arabs is the work of foreigners. Arab governments have turned blaming others into an art, and their citizens easily follow this explanation. Arab media, their politicians, and intellectuals spend all day saying that they have all been victimized. Such behavior merely exacerbates widespread civil passivity under authoritarian regimes and existing poverty. It is encouraging to see that free Iraqis in Baghdad are breaking the chains of fatalism and organizing to confront thieves and looters and to make their neighborhoods safe and clean. The survival of society is from the bottom up.