Most museum artifacts found

[SpencerH]

It took me a couple of trys to figure that one out

[Jac de Molay]

Oh, yes and we knew where every squad of people was going to be a year ago and how all the battles would progress and had arranged a plan so that we would have absolute control of every piece of territory and would know exactly where and when forces would roll back and how the Iraqi army would dissolve. You MUST be a civ micro-manager.

This whole operation was more than a year in the planning. . No, I don't expect that the coalition forces had a crystal ball, but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that a strong and effective police/military presence would be needed in post-war Baghdad.

The fact that there was widespread looting ( not just the landmarks), and other criminal activity tells me that insufficient consideration was given to retaining a semblance of order, period. You can blabber all you want about "shock and awe", but the post war handling of the city was a fiasco. Quite the contrary with the oil fields, though.

And FYI, Im a SMAC micromanager, not a civ micromanager

[TCO]

figured you were a micromanager. In the real world adapt and opvercome is more important.

Oh...and you better be cool with the shootings elsewhere. Or are you the fooker who said we should have sniper teams every single place with a bead drawn on the right people. actually that would make sense if you are a micromanager.

[Oerdin]

It just goes to show how far the anti-war folks would go in their exaggerations and distortions of the truth. I'm glad the damage didn't turn out to be that bad but I still wish "activists" would stop playing political football with issues they don’t know anything about. Would it really be so hard to wait until an investigation is completed before people rush to judge and condemn?

[Ming]

Originally posted by DetroitDave

Quite the contrary with the oil fields, though.

And FYI, Im a SMAC micromanager, not a civ micromanager

Yeah GP... probably a combat reloader

But AGAIN... since you seem to mention the oil fields in just about EVERY post you make on the subject...

You would have been the first to whine if they had been torched like the last time... probably worse since a disaster like that is far more earth shaking than a few historical pieces

[DanS]

Plenty of protection for the oil fields, though. Glad to see we have proper "presepective".

You better believe that is the right perspective. The oil fields represent a $20 billion per annum revenue to the Iraqi economy.

Almost everything else can be replaced.

[DanS]

And here's the NY Times reporting on the subject...

Most Iraqi Treasures Are Said to Be Kept Safe
By BARRY MEIER

A top British Museum official said yesterday that his Iraqi counterparts told him they had largely emptied display cases at the National Museum in Baghdad months before the start of the Iraq war, storing many of the museum's most precious artifacts in secure "repositories."

The official, John E. Curtis, curator of the Near East Collection at the British Museum, who recently visited Iraq, said Baghdad museum officials had taken the action on the orders of Iraqi government authorities. When looting started, most of the treasures apparently remaining in display halls were those too large or bulky to have been moved for protection, Mr. Curtis said.

He and Neil MacGregor, the British Museum's director, were in New York for the opening of an exhibition, "Art of the First Cities," at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

In a news conference at the museum and a subsequent interview, Mr. Curtis said he believed that American authorities now knew the locations of the artifact repositories but that as a precaution against further looting were not disclosing them.

In Iraq yesterday, American and Iraqi officials appeared to support this assessment, saying they still did not know precisely what was missing from the National Museum, because they had not yet had access to sites where art objects may have been hidden, or to rooms inside the building that were among the looters' targets.

But Mr. Curtis said the officials "certainly know" where the hiding places are.

Both he and Mr. MacGregor said a full accounting of missing artifacts would have to await the opening of the repositories.

It was previously known that Iraqi officials placed some artifacts in the vault of the country's Central Bank for safekeeping in the event of war. But Mr. Curtis's comments indicated that safekeeping measures may have been far more extensive.

Such measures would mirror actions taken in Iraq before the Persian Gulf war in 1991, primarily as a protection against bombing of Baghdad.

Mr. Curtis's remarks may help explain recent reports by both Iraqi officials and American authorities that losses at the National Museum are less extensive than previously feared. For instance, Col. Matthew F. Bogdanos, a Marine reservist who is investigating the looting, said recently that Baghdad museum officials had listed only 25 artifacts as definitely missing.

Mr. Curtis said it appeared that a vast majority of the looting at the National Museum had not taken place in its display halls but in its basement storage rooms, where more commonplace objects were kept.

Some 100,000 to 200,000 objects were stored in the basements, British Museum officials said. Many of them may never have been photographed or cataloged.

As a result, Mr. MacGregor said, they are precisely the types of objects that can easily slip into the black market for looted artifacts.

"Even if they have a little museum marking on the back of them," he said, "that can be easily removed."

The protracted debate in Washington over a United Nations resolution to lift sanctions against Iraq has included discussion of a measure to urge all nations to work toward the return of the stolen antiquities, American officials said today.

But it is still not clear whether the United States will seek a separate Security Council resolution on the issue, or include it in a larger one dealing with the sanctions. It also remains unclear whether it will include anything stronger than a plea for cooperation.

[Chemical Ollie]

Originally posted by GP
... Or are you the fooker who said we should have sniper teams every single place with a bead drawn on the right people. actually that would make sense if you are a micromanager.

No, that was me. But you totally misunderstood what I wrote. You don't have to be am expert sniper with a .50 cal rifle to do some sniping. What I meant was that they should use controlled and well-aimed single shots instead of hosing blindly into the direction of an enemy who hides in crowds of civilians. Anyone who has passed boot camp should be able to do that if he just has the guts to stick his head up long enough to find the right target. And the unit involved in the event we discussed were paratroopers from 82nd, who are expected to have more target skills and guts than average. But that was another thread.

On this threads topic: I wrote in the last museum looting thread that they would need plenty of manpower to carry away 170 000 objects in 1-2 days, which was the fact that put me in some doubt. On the other hand you need plenty of manpower to hide it away in secret rooms inside the museum too.

[rah]

Actually, to fire accurately into a moving mob does require an expert, and even then it's dicey.