Home to the ancient cultures of Sumer, Assyria and Mesopotamia, Baghdad boasts more than 7,000 years of civilization and art.
Baghdad is the largest city in an area that most western historians consider the cradle of civilization. Before the seige of Iraq, United States forces promised to guard museums and archeological sites. After failing in this regard - the Iraqi museum in Baghdad was looted and vandalized - the United States failed to acknowledge the severity of their negligence.
What has been stolen, lost, and damaged is not only the history of the Iraqi people but the echoes of a history shared by people around the world.
Blamed initially on local Iraqis then on professional art thieves, the plundering of Iraqi's treasures, though a great loss, could not be seen as the direct fault of improper planning by American forces.
Still, some Americans are certainly trying to profit from the mistake. At least 15 Iraqi paintings, gold-plated firearms, ornamental knives and other items have been seized by customs at airports in Washington, London and Boston within the last two weeks.
Only one man so far has been charged with the smuggling of Iraqi artworks - Fox News Channel engineer, Benjamin James Johnson. A criminal complaint filed in District Court in Alexandria, Va., charges that Johnson attempted to bring 12 paintings into the United States.
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Johnson, who accompanied troops in Baghdad, gathered the paintings from a palace that was owned by Odai Hussein, one of Saddam Hussein's sons. Johnson initially told Customs officials that he had received the paintings as gifts from Iraqi citizens.
He then said he had planned to keep most of them "for decoration" and to provide one as a present to his employer. Fox News fired Johnson immediately. An unidentified serviceman was intercepted trying to ship gold-plated Iraqi weapons to a military base in the United States Boston Herald reporter Jules Crittenden had several souvenirs confiscated from him as he returned from Kuwait Saturday.
Crittenden will not be charged for his crime. Additional items shipped by several other members of the media were seized at Dulles.
Fortunately, not everyone is seeing dollar signs in regard to the tragedy; a few westerners are on damage control.
The Lost Iraqi Heritage project is a joint effort of more than 80 universities, museums and individuals working to create a comprehensive, searchable database for the tens of thousands of objects that are missing and in the hands of art thieves and their collectors.
This will be used as a tool that law enforcement, customs officials and art dealers can use to prevent the sale and export of stolen objects. The group, which is coordinated by professors at the University of Chicago, includes the Archaeological Institute of America, the University of California at Berkeley and the University of Michigan.
Iraq's lost heritage will be the backbone of the effort to quantify the losses and help the rebuilding of the Iraq museum. Unfortunately, during the looting what little existed of the museum's database, held back in development thanks to the 12-year embargo on Iraq, was damaged.
Another huge setback involves whether or not Iraq Museum officials approve of the idea. The Iraq's Lost Heritage project, along with creating the database, also wants to put the information on the Internet.
Since most non-military communication is cut off from the country there is no way to be sure what the curators think about this aspect of the project. Thankfully, no direct actions will take place until members of the project fly in to meet with museum officials on May 8.
Despite the relative urgency behind this project, the United States' agencies typically designed to support artistic preservation have done all but turned a blind eye to avoid the subject. Besides a link to the Iraq project, the International Cultural Property Protection Office has done nothing to support this cause.
The only definitive action took place April 14, when Secretary of State Colin Powell issued a statement that said that individuals in possession of looted items from Iraqi museums or archaeological sites would be prosecuted under the National Stolen Property Act.
Both Interpol and the FBI have teams of agents heading to Iraq to start tracking down the stolen artworks. For its part, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, or UNESCO, held a meeting of 30 experts in Paris on April 17 and is planning to send a delegation to Iraq as soon as possible.
With all the focus on prosecution and none on cataloging, this unfortunately insures the total loss of these priceless items. Smugglers and thieves have no problem letting time pass and enforcement go lax, while the memory of the small pieces of history in their hands fades.
