Thursday, April 17, 2003

Museum most likely hit by well-executed theft

Museum officials have determined that most of the looting that did take place at the home to more than 170,000 artifacts of human civilization was focused on office machines and furniture, as at other government buildings, and that only selected antiquities were taken.

The people who came in here knew what they wanted. These were not random looters," Donny George, director general of Iraq's state board of antiquities, said Wednesday in front of the museum as he held up four glass cutters -- red-handled with inch-long silver blades -- that he found on the floor of the looted museum.

He pointed out that replica items -- museum pieces that would have looked every bit as real to an angry mob as authentic items -- were left untouched. The museum's extensive Egyptian collection, which is valuable, but not unique to the world, also was left alone.

"The administration building, the library, they are a mess. In the museum, there is broken glass and papers on the floor, but a lot of the collection was pulled before the war. And not as much is missing as first thought."

In fact, in the main collection, it now appears that few items are missing, and very little seems to have been the victim of mob violence.

It makes sense they were pros. Everyone knew the war was coming and a good thief would know that museum security would be non-existent. Maybe the Iraqi David Mamet will write a good movie about it.

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