Baghdad: "But then it's no longer a museum....It's a barracks."

[DeepModem Mom]

NYT: The Ghost in the Baghdad Museum
By ROGER COHEN
Published: April 2, 2006


(Max Becherer/Polaris, for The New York Times)
Donny George, the head of Iraqi museums, at the National Museum in Baghdad.

BAGHDAD, Iraq — For the director of a shuttered museum in a country at war, the imaginary can be a welcome refuge. Condemned to contemplate his own and his country's fate in great halls emptied of visitors, Donny George paces past showcases of ancient vessels and jars and clay tablets, and he dreams.

In his mind's eye, the museum director sees the grand opening: the courtyard filled with 1,000 guests, succulent lamb and sumptuous dates on tables beneath the palms, a Baghdad chamber quartet playing, the spirited talk of civilized people in the land where, several thousand years ago, the emergence of writing first permitted the considered transfer of ideas from one epoch to the next.

Mr. George smiles. It is a relief to dream when explosions greet the dawn. His genial brown eyes express both hope and the burden of living in Iraq. Under Saddam Hussein, he learned to live a double life: praising the dictator in public, worrying in private. He was a member of Mr. Hussein's now-disbanded Baath Party. Not to be, he says, would have meant dismissal and the abandonment of archaeological excavations, his great love....Now, as the director general of Iraqi museums, his new title, he inhabits a labyrinth. The Interior Ministry has been urging him to reopen the National Museum, saying it will provide him with 1,000 guards if necessary. "But then it's no longer a museum," Mr. George said. "It's a barracks."

Three years have now passed since the chaos accompanying the arrival of American troops in Baghdad set off looting at the museum. Mr. George fled through the back door, he says, when Iraqi militias began firing rocket-propelled grenades into the grounds. The plundering prompted international outrage, finger-pointing and a frenzy of political spin....

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/02/arts/design/02cohe.html

[ChairmanAgnostic]

1. I met him a year and a half ago. Cool guy. sorry job he has.

he told an interesting story. After the looting ended, (and rummie still refused to provide any guards) he called on Iraqis to help. They gathered back something like 95% of the stolen materials. Many people volunteered to fix and secure the museum. Only months later did the US military finally agree to send troops on patrol near the museum.

In another telling example of US errors that Condi now disavows, the US started building a military base smack dab in the middle of some ancient city-state ruins dating back almost 14,000 years. Again, after begging, pleading and repeated calls to western scientists, they moved to a clear spot a mile away. But not before some serious damage was done to their digs.

Someone suggested that Rummie himself believes in the inerrancy of the bible, and therefore, the digs could not be any older than 4,000 years old.

[DeepModem Mom]

2. Wow -- thanks for this report! nt