Apparently the number of missing artifacts, originally thought to be 170,000, is far less than that. That number was, logically enough, extrapolated from the total number of artifacts formerly kept in the museum. Since there were none to be seen at the time of the initial reports, all of them were presumed to be looted and gone, according to John Russell of the Mass. College of Art on NPR's Weekend Edition today. It turns out that was an error. Many of them had apparently been stored in bank vaults, some as far back as the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, and were no longer on public display. The number of artifacts still thought to be missing is around 3,000, still a lot, but far better than 170,000. That's extraordinarily good news.
Posted by Linkmeister at June 8, 2003 09:38 AMYes, I agree that this is extremely good news, but still doesn't let our government off the hook for failing to secure either the museum or the library as soon as they entered Baghdad. Our leaders seem to forget that their bombs were falling on what is taught in our universities as the cradle of civilization!
Posted by: fred at June 8, 2003 12:30 PMOh, I don't want Rumsfeld et. al. let off the hook, but I suspect they will be if the bulk of the material is recovered. Call me a skeptic, but I suspect to the media this is last month's story. At the moment it seems to be far more focused on the possible "hype" about actual WMDs, which is fine as long as they remember to follow up on the other irresponsible acts of this Administration.
Posted by: Linkmeister at June 8, 2003 12:43 PMACK,
another freakin' lie we've been told...
Maybe the WMD are stored in the same bank vault...