Thousands of Iraqi artifacts found

[tucker342]

Link

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- U.S. Customs agents, working with military and museum experts at the National Museum in Baghdad, have recovered nearly 40,000 manuscripts and about 700 artifacts, government officials announced in Washington Wednesday, leaving perhaps only a few dozen key pieces missing.

The museum was looted after the city fell to U.S.-led forces last month, but there has been disagreement since then about how many and what kinds of items were taken. U.S. officials believe some valuable pieces were taken by professional thieves.

Agents of the Bureau of Immigration and Customs (ICE) said that so far they have photos and documentation to confirm only 38 items from the museum are still missing. Although they suspect additional pieces may have been stolen, they declined to speculate on the scope of the additional uncatalogued items that may have been looted.

Officials from ICE, newly created as part of the Department of Homeland Security, said many of the missing items had been stored for safekeeping in hidden storage vaults within the museum before the war. Other items had been returned after public promises of amnesty and rewards.

Agents said they have found evidence that certain select high-value pieces had been stolen.

Officials from a U.S. government delegation, which just returned to Washington from an Interpol conference on the missing antiquities in Lyon, France, this week, said the number of missing artifacts was never mentioned in their meetings.

Attorney General John Ashcroft, who led the group, vowed to help the global effort to recover missing items, but did not mention any numbers or refer to the scope of the Baghdad museum thefts.

The Justice Department officials said their best information continues to be that whatever the scope, the thefts were organized, not the result of random crime.

"From the evidence that has emerged, there is a strong case to be made that the looting and theft of the artifacts was perpetrated by organized criminal groups," Ashcroft said Tuesday at the Lyons conference. (Full story)

Expanding on those comments, ICE agents Wednesday said there was no apparent sign of forced entry to the storage sites, and the doors were locked when investigators arrived.

Agents said they broke through a cinder-block barrier in the basement to find a room with hundreds of cardboard and plastic boxes containing thousands of the less valuable items that had been reported missing.

A similar box filled with such items was recovered last week near Kut in southern Iraq, said officials who believe the intruders are attempting to move the remaining missing artifacts out of Baghdad.
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That's good news, it was really sad to hear that all of that stuff was stolen is getting back to the museum.

[Mantle2600]

And in other nobody cares news...

[tucker342]

Well, a couple weeks ago people cared...

[Mantle2600]

Ya, well 18 years ago i was 1 but now im not. get my point.

[CamEdwards]

Tucker, I'm with you on this one. When the pieces were missing, it was all over the place.

"Oh, we knew this was going to happen!"

"How could you let these treasures vanish?? Why didn't you protect them??"

Now that it turns out the vast majority of them were never missing to begin with, it's "ho hum, whatever."

Asshats.

[Anrhydeddu]

This is very good news but since this was used as evidence of the "failed" Iraqi war a couple of weeks ago, I wouldn't be surprised if the anti-Bush crowd will lie to use it against him.

[Maple Leafs]

Anyone see Dennis Miller's take on this on the Tonight Show a few nights ago?

[CamEdwards]

Originally posted by Maple Leafs
Anyone see Dennis Miller's take on this on the Tonight Show a few nights ago?

Was that where he started to riff on the found art and then Tim Robbins appeared out nowhere and attacked him with a machete?

Oh wait, that hasn't happened yet.

But mark my words, Dennis Miller will rue the day he tried to silence Tim Robbins!!!!

[Maple Leafs]

Originally posted by CamEdwards
Was that where he started to riff on the found art and then Tim Robbins appeared out nowhere and attacked him with a machete?

No, although it's probably inevitable.

No, this was something along the lines of "To be honest, I don't give a crap about their museum. How hard is it replace your 1,000-year-old things when your modern things are exactly the same?"

By the way, anyone notice how Miller is doing the exact same routine he's done for 15 years, the one that gained him a cult following, but now that he's become more conservative he's "just not funny anymore"? It reminds me of all the cool frat boys and middle managers who love George Carlin right until he gets to the part about golf.

[Easy Mac]

Originally posted by CamEdwards
Tucker, I'm with you on this one. When the pieces were missing, it was all over the place.

"Oh, we knew this was going to happen!"

"How could you let these treasures vanish?? Why didn't you protect them??"

Now that it turns out the vast majority of them were never missing to begin with, it's "ho hum, whatever."

Asshats.

hmm kind of like finding chemical weapons at the beginning of the war:

"oh, we'll find them quickly"

"oh, Saddam will use them"

"We have to protect America and keep Saddam's WMD's out of terrorist hands"

Now that it turns out the vast majority of them were never there to begin with, it's "ho hum, whatever."