THE FBI has said at least one suspected Baghdad museum piece has been seized at an American airport, while art collectors and dealers say they are already getting queries about artifacts looted from Iraq.
Thousands of items, some dating back many thousands of years, were taken in looting after US forces overthrew Saddam Hussein's regime. The FBI has begun working with US and international law enforcement agencies, as well as art collectors, auctioneers and experts, to try to recover them. Today, Lynne Chaffinch, manager of the FBI Art Theft Program, told reporters that she expected the thieves would attempt to sell most of the stolen pieces in wealthy countries such as the United States, Britain, Germany, Japan, France and Switzerland. People in the United States buy about 60 per cent of the world's art, both legal and illegal. "We've had some interesting motives, but mostly it's money," she said of the reasons behind art theft. Chaffinch said Customs agents at an unspecified US airport had so far seized at least one item believed stolen from a Baghdad museum. Customs officials declined comment, citing an ongoing investigation. But they did say that Customs agents at ports of entry nationwide were on the lookout for Assyrian, Sumerian, Mesopotamian and other treasures believed stolen.
Chaffinch said thieves usually attempted to sell stolen art and artifacts on the legal market. The FBI would hear about a suspect piece from a dealer or expert, then dispatch an undercover agent to contact the seller, she said. Some agents have art history training so they can move undetected in a highly specialised world. "You've got to be able to talk the talk," Chaffinch said. The FBI has pledged to work closely with art collectors, auction houses, museum curators and even online sellers such as eBay to track down any Iraqi pieces offered for sale in the United States. Key to that will be getting documentation about the stolen pieces from Iraq so that law enforcement officials can authenticate any recovered. It will send a team of agents, probably including Chaffinch, to Baghdad to collect that information soon, and it will then be posted for police on the FBI's National Stolen Art File.
The University of Chicago's Oriental Institute has also begun posting descriptions of some important artifacts believed stolen on its internet site. Experts at the university have said between 50,000 and 200,000 items were stolen from Baghdad museums after the city fell to US forces. Meanwhile, a US government task force that includes the FBI and Justice Department, State Department, Customs, CIA and Interpol is figuring out how to tackle the Iraqi looting case. Some thought is being given to using an amnesty or reward program to get thieves to return items, though officials stressed today no final decisions had been made. Interpol plans a conference on May 5 and 6 in Lyons, France, to organise and co-ordinate international efforts to both recover the stolen pieces and arrest the perpetrators. Some Interpol investigators are already in Kuwait, awaiting US military permission to travel to Baghdad.
http://www.themercury.news.com.au/
FBI: Looted Iraqi Antiquities Surfacing
By CURT ANDERSON
WASHINGTON (AP) - Art collectors and dealers say they already are getting queries about artifacts looted from Iraq's museums, and the FBI said Monday that at least one suspected piece has been seized at an American airport.
Thousands of items, some dating back many thousands of years, were taken when U.S. forces overthrew Saddam Hussein's regime. The FBI has begun working with U.S. and international law enforcement agencies, as well as art collectors, auctioneers and experts, to try to recover them. Lynne Chaffinch, manager of the FBI Art Theft Program, told a small group of reporters that she expects the thieves will attempt to sell most of the stolen pieces in wealthy countries such as the United States, Britain, Germany, Japan, France and Switzerland. People in the United States already buy about 60 percent of the world's art, both legal and illegal. ``We've had some interesting motives, but mostly it's money,'' she said of the reasons behind art theft.
Chaffinch said Customs agents at an unspecified U.S. airport seized at least one item believed stolen from a Baghdad museum. Customs officials declined comment, citing an ongoing investigation. But they did say that Customs agents at ports of entry nationwide are on the lookout for Assyrian, Sumerian, Mesopotamian and other treasures believed stolen. Thieves usually attempt to sell stolen art and artifacts on the legal market. The FBI frequently hears about a suspect piece from a dealer or expert, then dispatches an undercover agent to contact the seller. Some of these agents have art history training so they can move undetected in a highly specialized world. ``You've got to be able to talk the talk,'' Chaffinch said.
The FBI will work closely with art collectors, auction houses, museum curators and even online sellers such as eBay to track down any Iraqi pieces offered for sale in the United States. Key to that will be getting documentation about the stolen pieces from Iraq so that law enforcement officials here and abroad can authenticate those that are recovered. This case is far different from many art thefts, which can involve famous works by artists such as Picasso or Van Gogh rather than ancient pieces of pottery or writing tablets that only experts recognize. ``Somebody steals a Picasso or a Rembrandt, it's going to be hard to sell,'' Chaffinch said.
The FBI soon will send a team of agents, probably along with Chaffinch, to Baghdad to collect that information. That will be posted for police on the FBI's National Stolen Art File, which along with private and international databases list descriptions of some 100,000 pieces of stolen art. The University of Chicago's Oriental Institute has also begun posting on its Internet site descriptions of some important artifacts believed stolen. Experts at the university say between 50,000 and 200,000 items were stolen from Baghdad museums after the city fell to U.S. forces.
A U.S. government task force that includes the FBI and Justice Department, State Department, Customs, CIA and Interpol is figuring out how to tackle the Iraqi looting case. Some thought is being given to using an amnesty or reward program to get thieves to return items, though officials stressed no final decisions have been made. In addition, Interpol plans a conference May 5-6 in Lyons, France, to
organize and coordinate international efforts to both recover the stolen pieces and arrest the perpetrators. Some Interpol investigators are already in Kuwait, awaiting U.S. military permission to travel to Baghdad. The sheer scale of the thefts has sparked unprecedented publicity that is already helping law enforcement officials investigate the case, Chaffinch said. The fact that the items date to civilization's earliest times has led to worldwide interest in the case, she added. ``That's the cradle of civilization,'' she said. ``It isn't just Iraqi cultural heritage - it's the world's cultural heritage.''
On the Net:
FBI: http://www.fbi.gov.
University of Chicago Oriental Institute: http://www- oi.uchicago.edu/OI/
Interpol: http://www.interpol.int.
Iraq's stolen heritage
Global effort should be mounted for recovery.
The priceless cultural heritage of Mesopotamia, where one of the world's earliest urban civilizations flourished, was looted and vandalized in the chaotic climax of war in Iraq. Damage was especially heavy at the Iraqi National Museum in Baghdad, where most of the collection of several hundred thousand items, including the famed Lyre of Ur, noted for its gold bull's head motif, were taken. It is difficult to recover stolen cultural properties. But history imposes the responsibility to attempt recovery, through international effort, before they are scattered all over the world. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), in an emergency meeting, sought protection by U.S. and British troops for Iraq's museums, libraries and historic sites to prevent further damage. It also asked that concerned nations move to block any traffic in Iraqi cultural properties. UNESCO should have the central role in this issue. We hope the organization, with cooperation of the nations of the world, will apply effective measures. The first step is compilation of a list of objects that are missing. If the list is distributed worldwide, the prospects of recovering the items will be that much better.
The United States, castigated for having protected Iraq's oil fields but not its cultural heritage, has dispatched FBI agents to Iraq to begin an investigation as part of the recovery effort. The United States has not ratified the Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict. Unless the lesson of this failure is applied to greater efforts to protect cultural properties, the U.S. military faces more criticism for lacking respect for culture. What can Japan do? The British Museum and other cultural institutions in the world have offered to cooperate with the Iraqi National Museum. We hope Japanese institutions, especially those once involved in digs in Iraq, will consider helping the Iraqis by sending specialists. Many of Iraq's cultural treasures have been exhibited throughout Japan in the past. Illustrated pamphlets from those exhibitions will be useful in compiling a list of the cultural properties. Japan is a significant market for stolen artifacts. Indeed, Japan is widely criticized as a haven for traffic in such properties. It is only last year that Japan joined the UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property, adopted in 1970. The UNESCO convention bans import of stolen cultural properties. If it is discovered that an artifact was stolen, the convention calls for return of the item to its rightful owner. Personal possession of such antiquities is out of the question. Anyone who finds something suspicious should consult a museum for advice. There have been many instances in recent years in which cultural properties have been purchased to protect them, based on the assumption they would be returned when political stability is restored in the country of origin. The Left Foot of Zeus, which disappeared in Afghanistan, was offered to art dealers in Japan again and again, and was finally exhibited at the Ancient Orient Museum in Tokyo after a Japanese antique merchant acquired it for that purpose. Ikuo Hirayama, UNESCO's goodwill ambassador, has established a Japanese commission for the protection of lost cultural properties in an attempt to protect cultural properties that are put on the market for sale.
This should be an opportunity for the world's nations, including the developed nations that carried off priceless artifacts in abundance during past colonization, to establish an international network to protect such artifacts. Without that, we must be ashamed of ourselves for failing to respect the heritage of mankind.
--The Asahi Shimbun, April 21(IHT/Asahi: April 22,2003)
Jordanian customs officials have seized 42 paintings believed to have been looted from Iraq's national museum, government officials said Saturday.
Ad-Dustour, Jordan's second-largest daily newspaper, broke news of the seizure Saturday, quoting Mahmoud Qteishat, the director general of the Jordanian customs department. According to the report, a group of journalists had tried to carry the paintings across the Karameh border post earlier this week, but they were discovered by officials and sent to the main customs department in Amman. Officials told The Associated Press the paintings were now being checked for authenticity, but preliminary tests indicated the had been taken from Iraq. Interpol has launched a global hunt for priceless Iraqi antiquities taken during the chaos of the war, which sparked criticism over the American's failure to enforce control. Two cultural advisers to U.S. President George Bush have resigned in protest over the failure of U.S. forces to protect Iraqi National Museum in Baghdad, which held thousands of rare objects and artifacts. Antiquity experts from the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) gathered in Paris on Thursday to assess the damage. The panel said there were two kinds of looting -- simple vandalism and organized theft.
While the group said it had no proof, it suspected some of the looting was "commissioned theft" by collectors who knew what they wanted from the irreplaceable Babylonian, Sumerian and Assyrian collections and knew where to find them. Some thieves had keys to vaults inside the museum. "It looks as if part of the theft was a very, very deliberate, planned action," said McGuire Gibson, president of the American Association for Research in Baghdad. "It really looks like a very professional job." Much of the effort now is being placed on finding the artifacts, which have already shown up on black markets. Dick Ellis, an expert in recovering stolen Art, said some of the treasures might turn up in London, because it is one of the most important markets for Islamic art. "The first thing to do is to assess what has been stolen and create a circular of the key objects and get it into the market place to close down the market. And to be able to identify these pieces as they surface," Ellis said. Washington announced on Thursday the FBI would be sending agents to Iraq to assist in recovering the antiquities. The Interpol team will meet with officials in Kuwait later this month before going on to Baghdad to determine exactly what has been stolen. In the meantime, it is asking collectors not to buy cultural property from Iraq. "In case of doubt concerning the origin of certain items, these bodies should immediately contact Interpol and seek expert evaluation of what is being offered for sale," Karl-Heinz Kind, Interpol's specialist in the theft of art and antiquities, told Reuters.
The Iraqi National Museum held thousands of rare artifacts documenting the early civilizations of ancient Mesopotamia, one of the world's earliest civilizations. Outside of Iraq, the British Museum is home to the largest collection of Mesopotamian artifacts. The director for the British Museum said they are lending six conservators and three curators to help in the hunt. "It is the duty of the international community to restore what has been stolen from these museums to help Iraqi colleagues restore what is left," said director Neil McGregor.
With a report from The Associated Press
http://www.ctv.ca/
An Army for Art
By CONSTANCE LOWENTHAL and STEPHEN URICE
The looting of Iraq's national museum in Baghdad could have been prevented. The American and British forces are clearly to blame for the destruction and displacement of its cultural treasures. In fact, late last year, experts and scholars started working with the State and Defense Departments to identify key Iraqi cultural and archaeological sites and to have them removed from lists of potential bombing targets. While the museum was not bombed, troops failed to protect the building and its priceless contents from the chaos that engulfed Baghdad last week.
At another time, in another war, the United States and its allies realized that cultural property would be endangered by an invasion and acted to minimize that damage. In the spring of 1943, when victory over Nazi Germany was far from assured, the American military created what would become known as the monuments, fine arts and archives section.
Art historians and scholars in the military worked throughout Europe to prevent damage to cultural sites and art and to protect them after hostilities ceased. Members of the section followed troops into war- torn areas to find, collect and repatriate art stolen by the Nazis. They continued their efforts until 1951.
In the wake of the Baghdad disaster, the Pentagon should reconstitute the monuments section to advise on cultural property matters and assist local museum personnel and site administrators in postwar Iraq and future conflicts. As an integral part of the military, this group will help the United States rebuild its reputation for respecting cultural property in time of war.
This new force should be deployed to Iraq as soon as possible. The collections at Iraq's national museum, vital to the return of tourism, present a record of the region's ancient pre-eminence and comprise an irreplaceable part of the world's cultural heritage. If recovered, they would play a central role in building a vibrant future for Iraq.
Constance Lowenthal is a consultant on art-ownership disputes. Stephen Urice is visiting lecturer at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
To the Editor:
Re "An Army for Art," by Constance Lowenthal and Stephen Urice (Op-Ed, April 17):
Blame for the disaster at the National Museum of Iraq lies not with the Army but with the priorities and directives of the Bush administration. The utter crassness of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's dismissal of museum looting reflects the general cultural indifference of a White House that values oil commodities above historic artifacts. Our State and Defense Departments had been warned of the danger, yet the administration chose to protect the Oil Ministry but not the art museum. The result is a staggering loss to world history.
EDWARD HILL Houston, April 18, 2003 The writer is a professor of art, University of Houston.
To the Editor:
Re "Art Experts Mobilize Team to Recover Stolen Treasure and Salvage Iraqi Museums" (news article, April 18):
The Pentagon or, failing that, our nation's museums should distribute a deck of playing cards with pictures of the 52 most important antiquities looted from the National Museum of Iraq. That way, everyone could be on the lookout for them, and the Iraqi people would realize that at least some Americans are sorry we let it happen.
CHARLES H. BENNETT Croton-on-Hudson, N.Y., April 18, 2003
To the Editor:
I am appalled by the wanton destruction of key Iraqi archaeological and cultural treasures discussed by Constance Lowenthal and Stephen Urice in "An Army for Art" (Op-Ed, April 17). But instead of blaming the United States government and the American soldier, perhaps they should ask, "What is the responsibility of the Iraqi looter?"
IRVING SEIDENBERG Chestnut Ridge, N.Y., April 17, 2003
To the Editor:
The Taliban destroyed the Buddhas of Bamiyan. The American military did nothing to protect the priceless artifacts of ancient civilizations at the National Museum of Iraq and the House of Wisdom, the country's main library ("Experts' Pleas to Pentagon Didn't Save Museum," news article, April 16).
The sins of omission may be less than the sins of commission but still represent appalling negligence.
The definition of "collateral damage" should be expanded to include violence against cultural treasures.
EDGAR METZLER Goshen, Ind., April 16, 2003
To the Editor:
The sacking of the museum and the burning of the library in Baghdad (new s article, April 16) bespeak our lack of civilization, and of respect for civilization.
In World War II, the Allies showed respect for history and other cultures. Today, the people setting priorities in Washington clearly consider the oil fields of utmost importance.
These are sad days for all humanity.
GWYNETH DEGRAF Brooklyn, April 16, 2003
To the Editor:
The pillaging of the National Museum in Baghdad was not just a loss for Iraqi history (news article, April 16). It was also a devastation of world culture akin to the destruction of the library in Alexandria, Egypt, and will be lamented for ages.
ELEFTHERIOS PAVLIDES Bristol, R.I., April 16, 2003 The writer is a professor of architecture at Roger Williams University