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4.21.04 Iraqi Antiquities: Protectors and Pillagers

April 2003 -- Iraq invasion. The Iraqi National Museum, already a mess under Saddam's rule, is looted. America is there to protect Liberty not dusty old baubles. But a year later, J. Michael Kennedy reports that progress is being made on several fronts. There are several heroes in the story, but I'm not surprised to see that Italians are at the center of the effort to recover lost artifacts. Italians have a rich appreciation of their own ancient past and their archaeologists are familiar with and trusted in Iraq.

Of course the museum is not the only focus of looting. Archaeological sites are regularly raided to access the black market and hard currency. Looters are generally not evil, just hungry. They get pennies from the local middlemen, who supply the wholesalers, who send the merchandise into the upscale world of antiquity collectors.

South of Baghdad in that cradle of civilization we all learned about in grade school, it is good to find that one Iraqi bureaucrat is still on the job. Abdul-Amir Hamdani, the guy in charge of antiquities for the province, is passionate.

"We have 800 sites around Nasiriya alone, and one million thieves," Mr. Hamdani said hyperbolically. "I am ready to work with the Devil in order to protect these sites."

Again, the devil may just be those equally passionate Christian Italians. Their national paramiliatry police force -- the Carabinieri -- is working with Hamdani. The Carabinieri are known for their no-nonsense treatment of looting on Italian soil.

But salvaging antiquities and perserving archeological sites is largely a side job for the passionate few. You can count on artifacts disappearing across the borders and into the gray market. Years from now there will be debates within the collector community about whether they stole Iraq's heritage or actually preserved it from the threshing machine of war and chaos.

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