The Iraq Thread

[IsthatyouJohnWayne 0]

LOL Anyday now Schoeler

I think the main 'planting' team has actually just recently arrived in Iraq under the ludicrous pretext of being a search party

And yes Denoir, this is another of my subjective opinionated posts (and i admit it!)

.

[Guest]

As to me never criticizing the British and i find this actually slightly offensive "sticking it" to my "american allies" im quite sure with some searching i could disprove this but i dont think such a well thought out response is worth attempting here.

Look one page back and then look two pages back.

Let me give you a little advice. Being objective does not mean splitting the blame in two and distributing it evenly.

Quote[/b] ]Strange in fact how you yourself become so defensive (or offensive)on certain issues e.g. the EU, or accusations of US failures. Certainly not due to -loyalty- to your modern european world view thats for sure.

Me? I'm not the one posting a rant about how I and other that "went into overdrive over the museum" should really change our minds because you saw a program on BBC. Do I really have to point out the absurdity of this  

Quote[/b] ]I dont see how this is relevant. Are you saying that the widely held view that the war is unjust and Britain has blood on its hands makes it more likely or has any bearing on the charge that the museum was neglected and not guarded properly?

Oh, it's very relevant. I've read enough of your posts on this board to know that you are not stupid. Yet you post such a silly thin as this museum piece which is based on idiotic assumptions and moronic conclusions. Obviously your judgement is severely clouded.

Quote[/b] ]I think it is important and relevant if it is discovered that there was a significant Iraqi military presence based at the museum (as denied by the museum staff). I think it is relevant if it discovered that museum staff are linked to the Baath party (what officials in Iraq arent?).

This is a beauty of a statement which very much illustrates the lack of thought in your claims. You say that there was a significant Iraqi military presence based at the museum, yet there were no American troops there.  If the blame was on some Baath party crooks (as the BBC obviously likes you to see) why did Powell then apologize for the looting. Was he also decieved by the media hysteria? Thank god for BBC archeology programs that surely know the situation much better than all the rest of the world media.

Quote[/b] ]If one werent as gullible and trusting as i am one might even begin to harbour thoughts that the whole thing was part of a ploy by certain Baathists to ,in all the chaos of the war and the badly organised museum, make off with valuable artifacts and then use the museum staff to blame it all on American negligence.

It was American negligence. They did not protect the museum against whovever looted it. They did however manage to protect the ministry of oil, which unlike the rest of the city wasn't looted. That shows that it was very possible to protect the museum and they didn't do it. Just as they didn't protect the hospitals.

I find this a rather intriguing statement coming from someone who practically swore that Bush and Blair would plant WMD in order to justify the war.  Strange that that hasn't happened yet.

*sigh* First of all, I never said that they certainly would plant evidence. I said that it is a possibility, and I think that more now then ever. What is amazing is that you don't. You have seen now that they lied about everything regarding the  WMDs. They've produced false reports (examples: Nigerian uranium, plagerized 12 year old thesis). Powell stood in the UN and lied directly to the entire world. British government editing intelligence reports to make them more appealing etc

You have seen all that and yet you doubt that they would plant evidence.

It's beyond words. I never, never, never thought that people could be so blind. To use self-deception to such lenght, just to keep an idealized of your government.  I don't get it, i just don't. How can anybody sane, think for one second that they would not plant evidence if given the chance?

[king homer 1]

i thin you shoul close this thread, iraq war is over....

[Balschoiw 0]

Quote[/b] ]iraq war is over

negative, war is far from being over there

[USSoldier11B 0]

Quote[/b] ]Absolutely, but you must agree that not starting a war our of self-interests is better than starting a war out of self-interest.

True, but what if it was? Surely somewhere down the line it will happen. Hmmm...as far as Afghanistan. My unit just returned from deployment there last month. They said by the time they left enemy activity was really slow. Most of their time was consumed by treating Afghani militia and civilian landmine victims that the militia patrols or civilians salvaging military goods for money frequently ran into.

As far as the Britain colony analogy regarding the U.S. cleaning up it's mess in the mid-east: Are irrate Indians crashing plane loads of Darjeeling into central London?

[nyles 11]

Well, the recent suicide bombing of that german convoy, killing 4 and wounding around 30, for sure says that enemy activity in Afghanistan isn't really slow. Don't you agree?

[USSoldier11B 0]

Slow compared to what? More people get killed in NYC every day.

[FallenPaladin 0]

Our german peacekeepers killed compared with US citicens happily murdering each other or dying in accidents sucks!

[Guest]

The military activity is slow since the military isn't doing much and what they are doing is in a very limited geographical area. Part of Kabul and the airport are under US/UN control. The rest of the country is a mess and the military forces don't have the resources nor the will to uphold the law.

Iraq will probably be better off in time, since they have oil, but Afghanistan seems very much like a lost cause.

[Die Alive 0]

Our german peacekeepers killed compared with US citicens happily murdering each other or dying in accidents sucks!

Suicide bombings happen every day it seems.  But in NYC, you got women killing men with high heel shoes. Maybe the bombers mistook the germans for Americans.

-=Die Alive=-

[-TU--33ker 0]

Maybe the bombers mistook the germans for Americans.

-=Die Alive=-

don't think so. it was shown clearly that it was a german convoy. and i think most people in Kabul should be able to identify a German Soldier or vehicle in the streets.

[IsthatyouJohnWayne 0]

Denoir- 'rant'? 'idiotic'? 'moronic'?

Right then....

Perhaps i should have worded my original 'silly museum piece'  differently for modern europeans but it was not ONLY this documentary that convinced me, it was simply the final straw that broke the back of the original reportage. There has been a steady body of evidence accumulating in the public domain to contradict to a greater or lesser extent the version of events widely reported in the initial aftermath. Further i would rather have said US army largely absolved of guilt in the matter, as they could have acted better but did not act as badly in this matter at least as first reported.

You dont trust the BBC- thats fine. Nor do i enough to base my views entirely or even mostly on their reporting.

**BREAKING NEWS ! (at least it was when it was quite widely reported ,even outside the Blair Bullsh't Corporation,

over over a month ago) Baghdad Museum Looting May Have Been Planned (perhaps even before the beginning of war)! /Museum staff complicit? ..etc**

*Reuters article* (holy of holy sources of unbiased modern european news-no wait dont tell me...they must be lieing too! Its a conspiracy i tell you!)

I suggest you read this article in full Denoir:

-Iraq Museum to Reopen Displaying Lost Treasure -reuters

more, again making good reading on this subject in relation to what i saw presented in the documentary:

-U.S. Recovers 951 Iraq Museum Items/staff refuse to reveal secret vaults -reuters

Baghdad museum looting not so random- cites Mercury News/Guardian/Wall Street Journal

*Guardian article* (another holy source for modern europeans)

Experts: Looters Had Keys to Iraqi Vaults -The Guardian

Objects found hidden in vaults- Wall street Journal

some other related googled websites snatched from a list of thousands (some showing clear signs of Shrubite propaganda):

Museum looting likely well-executed theft, officials say -Mercury News

Museum looting may have been planned -St.Petersburg times

Thousands of Iraqi artifacts found- CNN

Antiquities experts: Some looting was 'commissioned'- CNN

Museum Looting Inside Job? -res ipsa loquitur/yahoo news

BAGHDAD TREASURES: Museum raid looks planned -Detroit Free Press

Missing Iraqi Antiquities Found -Andrew Marshall/Reuters

For each one of these i could produce probably 10 more sites

----------------------------------------------------------

What you read in those articles are items of news that strongly suggest some of the assertions detailed in the programme i watched (probably wouldnt have mentioned it if i thought this would be the result)

Lets see...what do i trust? The initial reports by probably a handful of f^^kwit journalists working for international media who know jackshit about archeology being taken on 'tours' by the staff ,  or a programme by an archaology fanatic (yes working for the Big Brothe..i mean British Broadcasting Corporation)

with a great knowledge of the subject who has been working for years specifically in the field of historic artifacts in troubled areas, who has visited the same museum before, met all the staff before, spent a long time interviewing museum staff, locals, US troops and investigators, who watched as the staffs dishonesty was revealed right on camera WITH A LARGE BODY OF SUBSEQUENT INDEPENDANT REPORTING as evidence to back up his claims (preceeding the actual airing of this report, some of which i recall reporting at the time e.g. 'looters may have had museum key' etc)?

Gullible I have chosen the latter.

So, important points that now appear to me to be other than Bush/Blair propaganda (Tell me which of these you deny and i can direct you to to the appropriate news article):

* Most of the initial reporting came from museum staff

* The Museum staff were dishonest with journalists

* There was a large body of Iraqi troops stationed at the museum as denied by museum staff

* Almost all the artifacts were not stolen but were hidden by museum staff in secret vaults to which staff had the keys

* The most valuable of the 2000 or so still missing items are now widely believed to have been stolen by professional art theives

* Locals and some international reports have suggested links between the museum staff and the Baath party

* The Baath party is known to have been involved in international smuggling operations including prominent members of the Saddam elite (such as his sons)

* Multiple reports suggest that one of Saddams sons was involved in antiquity smuggling even before the war began

* Now this one is a little general but: Iraqis ,especially the relatively educated Iraqis of Baghdad were believed before the war to hold their history in high esteem and so it seemed strange to many that the people had pillaged their own history, a claim that in this case seems to be much less true than first thought ( Mullahs have happily convinced/shamed  the local people that did steal some items into returning much of it)

* Most of the destruction in the Iraqi national museum now appears to have taken place not in the display areas or storage areas but in the administrative departments that locals insist were Baathist offices (and thus to anti-saddam looters a legitimate target).

Yes the US troops could have done better at guarding the museum and coalition troops could have done better at guarding facilities but the museum episode is not nearly as simple as it was at first made out to be.

The US troops claim they were fighting a running battle in and around the museum area.

Cited by James Taranto (Wall street opinion Journal+ stated by other sources i can quote), who also notes that Lt. Col. Eric Schwartz of the U.S. Army's Third Infantry Division has stated that the reason forces were pulled back from the museum was because they were being shot at from the museum itself, and neither wanted to be shot, nor were prepared to endanger the museum by shooting back.

I saw evidence seeming strongly to support this on camera. They were not as focused on guarding the museum as they could have been but the museum area according to the evidence i saw was NOT benign and the museum building itself was used for some time as a military fortification by the Iraqis.

Given the relatively small number of US troops in Baghdad, the lack of guards posted to the museum when the area was still in an active battleground whilst a disappointing oversight does not anymore seem totally surprising to me. There were US troops fighting at the museum but after clearing out the facility of the alleged entrenched enemy ,being in an active battlezone and still coming under fire they moved (wrongly) to press on with the attack elsewhere without posting guards. Furthermore it is now admitted that the extent of the museum looting has been blatently exaggerated.

It's beyond words. I never, never, never thought that people could be so blind. To use self-deception to such a length, just to keep a demonised view of the US in the war.  I don't get it, i just don't. How can anybody sane, think for one second that they would not stop looters in the museum given the chance again?

Well i will 'idiotically' assume with my 'clouded judgement' that on balance they would. Yes those are my 'moronic' conclusions. The commanders made an error and cocked up but the scale of the museum episode has been grossly misrepresented and the possible reasons have gone largely unreported. It is 2000 or so items (mostly minor) that are still missing as the punishment for this mistake, not the tens of thousands originally thought and sensationally reported.

I really cant be bothered to drag up your other claims (such as accusing me of cowardliness in reporting British wrongs and attempting to pin things on America) right now (this posts too long anyway) but maybe later.

----------------------------------------------------------

Balschoiw- "negative, war is far from being over there"

unfortunately right:

U.S. Soldier Killed in Iraq -Reuters

U.S. Soldier Killed at Checkpoint in Iraq - AP

[Guest]

So, important points that now appear to me to be other than Bush/Blair propaganda (Tell me which of these you deny and i can direct you to to the appropriate news article):

* Most of the initial reporting came from museum staff

* The Museum staff were dishonest with journalists

* There was a large body of Iraqi troops stationed at the museum as denied by museum staff

* Almost all the artifacts were not stolen but were hidden by museum staff in secret vaults to which staff had the keys

* The most valuable of the 2000 or so still missing items are now widely believed to have been stolen by professional art theives

* Locals and some international reports have suggested links between the museum staff and the Baath party

* The Baath party is known to have been involved in international smuggling operations including prominent members of the Saddam elite (such as his sons)

* Multiple reports suggest that one of Saddams sons was involved in antiquity smuggling even before the war began

* Now this one is a little general but: Iraqis ,especially the relatively educated Iraqis of Baghdad were believed before the war to hold their history in high esteem and so it seemed strange to many that the people had pillaged their own history, a claim that in this case seems to be much less true than first thought ( Mullahs have happily convinced/shamed  the local people that did steal some items into returning much of it)

* Most of the destruction in the Iraqi national museum now appears to have taken place not in the display areas or storage areas but in the administrative departments that locals insist were Baathist offices (and thus to anti-saddam looters a legitimate target).

Yes the US troops could have done better at guarding the museum and coalition troops could have done better at guarding facilities but the museum episode is not nearly as simple as it was at first made out to be.

Your point being? It doesn't matteri if Mickey Mouse ransacked the museum. The troops should have protected it.

And here is where your bias comes in. You blame it on the opportunist looters (whoever they were) instead of those that were supposed to protect such institutions from the looting. Your interpretation is skewed because of your political opinions on the coallition troops. I'm sorry that you don't see it and I doubt that there is anything that I can say to make you see it clearly.

Quote[/b] ]The US troops claim they were fighting a running battle in and around the museum area. I saw evidence seeming strongly to support this on camera. They were not as focused on guarding the museum as they could have been but the museum area according to the evidence i saw was NOT benign and the museum building itself was used for some time as a military fortification by the Iraqis.

Given the relatively small number of US troops in Baghdad, the lack of guards posted to the museum when the area was still in an active battleground whilst a disappointing oversight does not anymore seem totally surprising to me. There were US troops fighting at the museum but after clearing out the facility of the alleged entrenched enemy ,being in an active battlezone and still coming under fire they moved (wrongly) to press on with the attack elsewhere without posting guards.

This is pure BS. I've seen plenty of pictures of the looting in progress. There were two US soldiers outside who didn't do anything. They just waved happily to the looters. There was no fight in progress.

[PitViper 0]

Denoir,

I keep seeing you claim that U.S troops guarded the "oil ministry" in Baghdad. I have searched extrensively and have not found anything regarding any such thing. Could you point me to something that corroborates it. (other than some raving op-ed'er)

[Guest]

Here you go (ABC News)

Quote[/b] ]Ministry of Oil Intact Amid the Rubble

But the looting and the burning continues, although not at the same pace as the anarchic days following the fall of Baghdad.

Earlier this month, I drove by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to see a fire raging through the premises. A few miles from the Ministry of the Interior, I saw a smoldering building so badly burned you could see straight through it.

But amid these hulking, smoldering carcasses of concrete, one pristine, untouched building stood out: the Ministry of Oil. Unlike other government buildings in Baghdad, it was not bombed. U.S. troops were sent in to protect and secure this building from being looted immediately after they arrived in the city.

Other buildings were left unguarded and looters flocked to these sites. Offices of the Foreign Ministry, the Ministry of Information, secret police, prisons, laboratories, banks, museums, palaces — not much was spared.

Baghdadis were expected not to loot their own city. Unfortunately, that didn't happen.

The Ministry of Oil however was spared the rampant ransacking and looting. And it did not go unnoticed by residents, feeding people's suspicions that the war was all about oil, a comment I also heard in Israel and Jordan.

Edit: number #2

Just search on google for "ministry of oil" building looting and you'll get tons of hits

[IsthatyouJohnWayne 0]

Denoir- "I've seen plenty of pictures of the looting..."

Do you know for sure that that wasnt the administrative department of the museum? (which was extensively wrecked and destroyed)

Do you know for sure that it was even the Iraqi national museum?

From which news organisation did the footage come?

As for blame, instinctively i tend to blame most of the major losses on opportunist thieves with links to organised crime (centred around the regime as it was in Iraq) who may just as likely have operated BEFORE the americans even reached the museum (perhaps even before the war to some extent) as afterwards AND on the failure of US troops to act quickly enough to consolidate their position after the removal of Iraqi troops from the premises. The fog of war can always take at least a small slice of blame

Quite simply neither i nor anyone here likely has enough information to form an absolutely solid opinion of what happened.

Alas, we may have to agree to disagree on this subject.

[-TU--33ker 0]

Quote[/b] ]The coalition forces were guarding the Iraqi Oil Ministry building while hundreds of Iraqis ransacked and ran off with precious heirlooms and artefacts from a 7000-year-old civilisation.

The Age

Quote[/b] ]The Oil Ministry also seemed intact with a heavy US military presence inside.

Herald Sun

Quote[/b] ]The huge oil ministry compound -- still under heavy U.S. guard -- is almost the only government building that survived looting that swept the capital after the collapse of Saddam's regime 11 days ago.

But even ministry personnel echoed the complaints of many Iraqis by questioning why the Americans did not guard other ministries and buildings, such as the Iraqi National Museum.

Houston Chronicle

[Die Alive 0]

How many things are missing right now?

-=Die Alive=-

[Guest]

Denoir- "I've seen plenty of pictures of the looting..."Do you know for sure that that wasnt the administrative department of the museum? (which was extensively wrecked and destroyed)

Do you know for sure that it was even the Iraqi national museum?

From which news organisation did the footage come?

It was IIRC footage of a couple of people carrying a golden lion (or some similar creature) statue and several following people carrying crates. I don't know who shot the footage originally, it was shown on SVT (Swedish television).

Quote[/b] ]As for blame, instinctively i tend to blame most of the major losses on opportunist thieves with links to organised crime (centred around the regime as it was in Iraq) who may just as likely have operated BEFORE the americans even reached the museum (perhaps even before the war to some extent) as afterwards AND on the failure of US troops to act quickly enough to consolidate their position after the removal of Iraqi troops from the premises. The fog of war can always take at least a small slice of blame

The looters are certainly directly responsible, but you have looting after every war. It's a certainty and that's why the Geneva conventions put heavy emphasis on the responsibility of the occupying powers to prevent it from happening. When the Russians for instance took Pristina the first thing they secured was the airport and in parallel the banks, museums and hospitals in the town - virtually eliminating all looting. The US troops were ill-prepared, too few and not interested in stopping the looting.

Quote[/b] ]Quite simply neither i nor anyone here likely has enough information to form an absolutely solid opinion of what happened.

Exactly. Which was my whole point when I criticized you for forming a solid opinion because you watched a show on BBC. All we have is the media reports and we know how accurate (not) they are.

Quote[/b] ]Alas, we may have to agree to disagree on this subject.

It would not be the first time

[IsthatyouJohnWayne 0]

On the matter of guilt i forgot to mention the museum staff charged with looking after the artifacts. I believe it likely that they were complicit in organised thefts of some of the items. Perhaps they felt their lives were threatened by the regime so i wouldnt know how to best punish them.

I didnt form an absolutely solid opinion, i reached new conclusions based on the evidence available to me.

What conclusions do you draw from the fact that most reports now mention a maximum of 'only' 3000 or so items mostly small and of minor importance, with certainly less than 50 of the major items missing (at least according to the untrustworthy records kept by the staff)?

Not quite the total devastation first reported is it?

[IsthatyouJohnWayne 0]

Just from one of the sites i listed:

"An imam who lives behind the museum said he stood outside the museum for several hours on the first day of the looting, begging them to stop ... But he said the only items from the collection he saw stolen were several old rifles. Mostly, he said, he saw looters take chairs, typewriters, ceiling lamp fixtures and other items from the museum's offices, as happened at nearly every other government office in the capital.

Abed El Rahman, a museum security guard who lives on the premises, also said that rifles were the only items he saw stolen from the collections. "But many people were carrying boxes," he said. "I don't know what was in the boxes."-NY Times

Of course as the site mentions there could be some incentive for them saying they saw very little obvious and blatant artifact looting and as i already mentioned i dont doubt that the troops could have done better in halting it but in retrospect it was hardly the total orgy of destruction and mass theft of a nations culture most of the media organisations (including BBC) made it out to be.

There are plenty of clearer fronts on which to attack TBA anyway.

Everyone is biased of course but who appears more biased- he who alters his opinion when new evidence comes to light, or he who does not alter his opinion in the face of new relevant evidence (namely the greatly revised version of the museum looting now accepted by most who have investigated)?

[Guest]

Don't you see the absurdity of it - you are attacking the media coverage of the incident by refering to what that very same media is reporting today. All that can be concluded is that on some points their initial reporting and their current reporting don't match. And that should not come as such a big surprise.

[ralphwiggum 6]

and on top of that the inital reporting was upto your ideas, whiel later reporting was not so much as the first one?

951 recovered so far

museum to reopen

seems like the museum staff decided to safely guard the artifacts until things settle down. guess they didn't trust anyone and decided to keep it a secret to protect the artifacts.

[IsthatyouJohnWayne 0]

Either the initial reporting is more flawed or the subsequent reporting is more flawed. Which do you consider more likely?

[Guest]

and on top of that the inital reporting was upto your ideas, whiel later reporting was not so much as the first one?

951 recovered so far

museum to reopen

My ideas are entirely indifferent to both versions since the fact remains that the troops did not stop the looting.

Of course it is much better if 2,000 compared to 170,000 priceless artifacts were lost, but it's still not good at all that any were lost.

Quote[/b] ]seems like the museum staff decided to safely guard the artifacts until things settle down. guess they didn't trust anyone and decided to keep it a secret to protect the artifacts.

Version #3. Kind of clashes with ITYJW's version where the museum staff were the bad guys and involved in the looting.

See my point?