The Rape of Mesopotamia: Behind the Looting of the Iraq Museum
On April 10, 2003, as the world watched a statue of Saddam Hussein come crashing down in the heart of Baghdad, looters attacked the Iraq National Museum. Despite the presence of an American tank unit, the pillaging went unchecked, and more than 15,000 artifacts – some of the oldest evidence of human culture – disappeared into the shadowy worldwide market in illicit antiquities. Since then the losses of antiquities in Iraq have increased, and include half a million artifacts that had previously been unexcavated.