A Guardian report suggests there may be more than just simple negligence behind the failure of American troops to prevent the pillage of Iraq\’s national museum and library:
Apparent lobbying by American art dealers to dismantle Iraq\’s strict export laws has heightened fears about the looting of the country\’s antiquities as order breaks down in the last stages of the war . . .
Dominque Collon, assistant keeper in the department of the ancient near east at the British Museum, said today that alarm bells had been set ringing by reports of a meeting between a coalition of antiquities collectors and arts lawyers, calling itself the American Council for Cultural Policy (ACCP), with US defence and state department officials before the start of the war. The group offered help in preserving Iraq\’s invaluable archaeological collections, but archaeologists fear there is a hidden agenda to ease the way for exports post-Saddam . . .
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