Museum looting eyewitness

Just spotted this account by Baghdad archeologist Muhssein Kazum, published in Le Figaro (in French) a couple of days ago. Translation is ours, for what it's worth:

"At the beginning, I was convinced that the people were coming to steal the air conditioners and the office furnishings. They were armed, and I was not. Quickly, the crowd grew. It was an invasion. They broke the heavy statues, the Babylonian lions, and the Neobabylonian frescoes. They took fragments, heads, Sumerian funerary masks. It was horrible. I cried out, "It's our patrimony, not Saddam's!"

"Then they beat me. I left to ask for help from the Americans who were holding a position not far away with their tanks. They had a Kuwaiti interpreter, and they told me that, unfortunately, they were not able to protect the museum. I do not understand why they didn't do anything for us, while they placed tanks at the oil ministry and the interior ministry."

"Many rioters broke things to unburden themselves. When a piece was too large to be moved, they angrily destroyed it. The crowd was mostly composed of poor and uneducated men, stealing in haste. But within the crowd there were certain well-dressed figures who gave orders. They knew exactly what they wanted to take, as if they had prepared their move. Their gangs had break-in tools and saws. It wasn't just the galleries but the storage areas that were broken into. The bulkheads and the walls in the basement areas were knocked down to get into the vaults. When it was all over, I cried. . . . "

Posted by David on April 19, 2003 4:32 PM