I, too, thought that Dan Cruickshank was a little harsh on the museum staff, seemingly expecting them to have somehow prevented what appears to be semi-official looting prior to the war, and the apparent use of the museum buildings as a military post during the war.  Also they have no particular duty to reveal anything to him. 



Nonetheless, the programme did reveal to me the complexity of the situation, with some materials removed for safekeeping, others removed by various types of looters at various times, and others in an apparently chaotic and uncatalogued state even before the war.   



How can we even begin to reconcile early claims along the lines that "170,000 items had been looted, while the Americans stood idly by" with later reports suggesting "2,000 items are missing, many of which disappeared before the war started" ?



My impression from the programme was that the museum staff were afraid of being held accountable for what happened before, during and after the war, and that there was a distinct atmosphere of distrust and lack of leadership within the museum itself.   I don't think we can assume that the pre-war museum management is completely without fault or taint, but the installation of a wholly new team would be form of imperialism in iteslf.    



Right now the US Military are the de-facto law in Baghdad and the US Colonel seen in the programme seems to be a good man trying to bring some order (in a bluff military sort of way), but he needs to be rapidly supplanted by an academic-led international team, which then hands authority over/back to local management.



I can also accept that it was not easy for the US military to respond appropriately during the war and immediately afterwards.  Clearly security at the museum and many other important sites could have been better handled, although perhaps at the cost of installing a much larger military force and generating more dangerous confrontations between the US military and the local people.   The notion that the military cynically protected economic assets and ignored cultural ones seems too simplistic to me - it is obvious to me that destruction of the oil industry was a risk and would have been catastrophic for the future economic well-being of Iraq, but I would not have predicted that some Iraqis would choose to burn the libraries of their own universities.



The time is past for deploring and blaming, and we must find way to constructively help Iraq.  This requires us to resist the temptation to assume that all US/British participants are militaristic, untruthful, crass, ill-informed or illegitimate.  And also we need to recognise, particularly given the previous form of government, that not all Iraqis are innocent, competent, truthful or legitimate.



Let's do what we can to help.



Mark Carden

[log in to unmask]







-----Original Message-----

From: Archivists, conservators and records managers.

[mailto:[log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]> ] On Behalf Of sam collenette

Sent: 09 June 2003 10:01

To: [log in to unmask]

Subject: Raiders of the Lost Ark



Last night Dan Cruikshank broadcast a report on the looting of the

Baghdad

museum. He placed much of the responsibility for the looting on staff at

the

museum and finally questioned the policy of UNESCO and British Museum

aid to

Baghdad whilst the museum management remained in place. I think that we

ought to discuss some of the assumptions made in the report and not

simply

accept this point of view.



The clearest assumption was that the US military and somehow Cruikshank

himself represented a legitimate authority in Iraq that the curators

should

be answerable to. Given the US and UK role as occupying forces and the

levels of continuing lawlessness, looting and killing, I do not think it

is

surprising that museum officials are not in Cruickshank's words

'cooperating

fully' e.g. will not reveal the location of emergency storage areas. We

need

to keep in mind that the war in Iraq has disrupted everything and at the

very least, attempts to secure and save material from the Museum,

Library

and Archive collections may well have gone wrong.



It is impossible for invading and invaded peoples to discuss the current

situation in Iraq with neutrality, and that obviously includes us as

British

citizens. The aid and charity organisations said at the beginning of the

occupation that it was necessary either for the UN to take on the role

of interim administration or for professional bodies to act independently

of the military in their sphere of expertise. I think that this is what

must happen if we want to reach a situation where blame and counter blame are

not the main preoccupation.



Whatever the political situation, our priority has to be to ensure that

our

colleagues in Iraq receive international support to restore these

collections, prevent further looting and ensure the continued security

of

the items. It is clear that looting and destruction have taken place and

we

must help to minimise further damage and effect the return of as much as

is

possible. It is extremely important that aid is offered through UNESCO

and

that an international team go out as soon as possible to provide

resources,

assistance and support to all three sectors Museums, Libraries and

Archives.



Yours sincerely



Sam Collenette

Archivist

Personal capacity



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