Baghdad museum items in bank vaults reported intact

This sounds like good news:

Except for the apparent withdrawal by Saddam and son, the business end of Iraq's central bank -- its main vaults -- appear mostly intact. Civilian US officials say they have located the bank's main vaults, obtained some keys and combinations and sent Iraqi investigators inside. The vaults apparently escaped the looting that swept Baghdad after Saddam's regime fell.

US Treasury Department officials say the safes contain US dollars, Iraqi dinars, gold and items from the museum put there for safekeeping. They say the safes had flooded.

Meanwhile, From Ft. Myer's Pentagram, a report that gives yet more context for the events of April 9-10:

When asked if he could have done more to stop looting in Baghdad V Corps Commander Lt. Gen. William S. Wallace replied, "We were still getting our ass shot off as we went into Baghdad," Wallace said. "And our first responsibility was to defeat the enemy forces, both paramilitary and regular army. As we were able to stabilize the combat situation, then we able to get around to point security and area security of the ministries and museums and places such as that." Wallace was speaking to the Pentagon press corps Wednesday via a direct video hookup from Baghdad.

The general went on to say only 38 artifacts and maybe as few as 17 are now unaccounted for and his troops also secured another museum in downtown Baghdad on the same day and prevented looting there. Wallace admitted the enemy was more aggressive than his staff had war-gamed for and the presence of "fanatical, if not suicidal, foreign fighters" also surprised him. . .

The general was asked about the tactics used in the battle for Baghdad.

Rather than capturing sections of the city one by one as is usually the norm, Wallace sent armored raids into sections of the city and welcomed attack and then cut up the opposition.

Although many have bemoaned the lack of manpower allocated to taking Baghdad, given the tactics actually used, larger or more numerous forces might simply have caused more damage, more civilian casualties, and more friendly fire incidents. And if the methodology was to send out forces to be attacked, placing forces too near museums, libraries, and other cultural institutions might well have been seen as endangering those institutions more than protecting them. This would certainly be consistent with the reports of American forces retreating when fired upon from the National Museum.

UPDATE: Over at Eve Tushnet's, Bill Hauk asks if stationing troops at the museum prior to cessation of hostilities might even have been a violation of the 1999 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property, given the risk of them being attacked and the museum being damaged or destroyed as a result.

Posted by David on May 9, 2003 11:40 PM