I haven’t investigated this enough to make a determination one way or the other.
But the evidence looked credible enough that I decided to pass it on to you.
Staged “toppling” of the Iraqi regime was propaganda stunt

April 6th: Iraqi National Congress founder, Ahmed Chalabi is flown into the southern Iraqi city of Nasiriyah by the Pentagon. Chalabi, along with 700 fighters of his “Free Iraqi Forces” are airlifted aboard four massive C17 military transport planes. Chalabi and the INC are Washington favorites to head the new Iraqi government. A photograph is taken of Chalabi and members of his Free Iraqi Forces militia as they arrive in Nasiriyah.
April 9th: One of the “most memorable images of the war” is created when U.S. troops pull down the statue of Saddam Hussein in Fardus Square. Oddly enough… a photograph is taken of a man who bears an uncanny resemblance to one of Chalabi’s militia members… he is near Fardus Square to greet the Marines. How many members of the pro-American Free Iraqi Forces were in and around Fardus Square as the statue of Saddam came tumbling down?

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Wow. So there it is.
One month of war = 10,000 years of history down the drain.
Hmmm. I wrote about this on March 18, 2003. You would think that our government and military would have been informed of this threat way before the information trickled down to little old me.
Ancient archive lost in Baghdad library blaze
By Oliver Burkeman for The Guardian

As flames engulfed Baghdad’s National Library yesterday, destroying manuscripts many centuries old, the Pentagon admitted that it had been caught unprepared by the widespread looting of antiquities, despite months of warnings from American archaeologists.
But defence department officials denied accusations by British archaeologists that the US government was succumbing to pressure from private collectors in America to allow plundered Iraqi treasures to be traded on the open market.
Almost nothing remains of the library’s archive of tens of thousands of manuscripts, books, and Iraqi newspapers, according to reports from the scene.
It joins a list that already includes the capital’s National Museum, one of the world’s most important troves of artefacts from the ancient Sumerian, Babylonian and Assyrian civilisations…
In Washington Colin Powell, the secretary of state, said the US “will be working with a number of individuals and organisations to not only secure the facility, but to recover that which has been taken, and also to participate in restoring that which has been broken _ the United States understands its obligations and will be taking a leading role with respect to antiquities in general, but [the museum] in particular”.
A Pentagon official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said no plans had been made to protect antiquities from looters, as opposed to ensuring that historical sites were not caught up in the fighting itself.

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On of the oldest libraries in the world burned to the ground yesterday.
There’s nothing left.
“Coalition” troops were five minutes away and did nothing to put out the blaze.
Islamic Library Burned to the Ground
By Robert Fisk for The Independent.

It was the final chapter in the sack of Baghdad. The National Library and Archives

U.S. Govt Accused of War Crimes Against Journalists
By Julio Godoy for the Inter Press Service.

International journalists’ organizations are accusing the U.S. government of committing war crimes in Iraq by intentionally firing at war correspondents.
The Paris-based journalists’ organization ‘Reporters without Borders’ (RSF, after its French name), called on the International Humanitarian Fact-Finding Commission to investigate whether by attacking journalists in Iraq the U.S.-British coalition forces were not violating international humanitarian law.
TV footage shot by France 3 (a French television channel) showing a US Abrams tank firing towards the Palestine hotel in Baghdad killing two journalists(AFP/FRANCE 3)
“A media outlet cannot be a military target under international law and its equipment and installations are civilian property protected as such under the Geneva Conventions,” said Reporters without Border secretary-general Robert M

Looters Swarm Into New Areas as Key Bridges Are Opened
By Hamza Hendawi for the Associated Press

Iraqis expressed increasing frustration over the lawlessness that has gripped the capital since the arrival of U.S. troops and the fall of Saddam Hussein. Looters ransacked government buildings, hospitals and schools, and trashed the National Museum, taking or destroying many of the country’s archaeological treasures…
The National Museum held artifacts from thousands of years of history in the Tigris-Euphrates basin, widely held to be the site of the world’s earliest civilizations. Before the war, the museum closed its doors and secretly placed the most precious artifacts in storage, but the metal storeroom doors were smashed and everything was taken.
“This is the property of this nation and is the treasure of 7,000 years of civilization,” said museum employee Ali Mahmoud. “What does this country think it is doing?”
On Baghdad’s chaotic streets, it appeared American troops were doing nothing to curb the feverish looting. Troops could be seen waving looters through checkpoints and standing idly in front of buildings while they were being pillaged…
“The Americans have disappointed us all. This country will never be operational for at least a year or two,” said Abbas Reta, 51, an engineer and father of five.
“I’ve seen nothing new since Saddam’s fall,” he said. “All that we have seen is looting. The Americans are responsible. One round from their guns and all the looting would have stopped.”…
The State Department said Friday it was sending 26 police and judicial officers to Iraq, the first component of a team that will eventually number about 1,200. The officers will be part of a group led by Jay Garner, the retired general chosen by the Bush administration to run the initial Iraqi civil administration under American occupation.

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Pillagers Strip Iraqi Museum of Its Treasure
By John F. Burns for the New York Times.

The National Museum of Iraq recorded a history of civilizations that began to flourish in the fertile plains of Mesopotamia more than 7,000 years ago. But once American troops entered Baghdad in sufficient force to topple Saddam Hussein’s government this week, it took only 48 hours for the museum to be destroyed, with at least 50,000 artifacts carried away by looters…
As fires in a dozen government ministries and agencies began to burn out, and as some looters tired of pillaging in the 90-degree heat of the Iraqi spring, museum officials reached the hotels where foreign journalists were staying along the eastern bank of the Tigris River. They brought word of what is likely to be reckoned as one of the greatest cultural disasters in recent Middle Eastern history…
What was beyond contest today was that the 28 galleries of the museum and vaults with huge steel doors guarding storage chambers that descend floor after floor into darkness had been completely ransacked…
As examples of what was gone, the officials cited a solid gold harp from the Sumerian era, which began about 3360 B.C. and started to crumble about 2000 B.C. Another item on their list of looted antiquities was a sculptured head of a woman from Uruk, one of the great Sumerian cities, dating to about the same era, and a collection of gold necklaces, bracelets and earrings, also from the Sumerian dynasties and also at least 4,000 years old…
Mr. Muhammad, the archaeologist, directed much of his anger at President Bush. “A country’s identity, its value and civilization resides in its history,” he said. “If a country’s civilization is looted, as ours has been here, its history ends. Please tell this to President Bush. Please remind him that he promised to liberate the Iraqi people, but that this is not a liberation, this is a humiliation.”

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War and Peace: Anarchy in the Streets
In the NY Times

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was understandably defensive but stunningly off message yesterday when he claimed: “Freedom’s untidy. And free people are free to commit mistakes, and to commit crimes.” That was not the vision of freedom the Bush administration was selling when it began this enterprise, and it is not necessarily one the Iraqi people would welcome…
But there is no alternative for the American military other than to restore order. It must police the streets, and above all make Iraq safe enough for humanitarian aid workers to bring in food, water and medical supplies, and it must work to restore electrical and water utilities. The military, which has performed so brilliantly during the war, is going to have to take up this second, and perhaps harder, challenge. This is not only its obligation under international conventions, but also a necessary step in the dismantling of Mr. Hussein’s reign of terror.

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