Arab nations to draft strategy on protecting Iraqi culture

AFP via Yahoo! ^ | Sat Jun 7, 5:03 PM ET | N/A

[MizSterious]

Arab nations to draft strategy on protecting Iraqi culture

Sat Jun 7, 5:03 PM ET

TUNIS (AFP) - Experts from Arab nations began meeting in Tunis to draw up a strategy for protecting Iraq (news - web sites)'s cultural heritage in the wake of the US-led war, during which the occupying US army failed to prevent the looting of thousands of priceless antiquities from Baghdad's National Archaeological Museum.

AFP/File Photo

The two-day meeting was organized by the Arab Organisation for Education, Culture and Sciences (ALESCO) and was expected to involve experts from Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, the Occupied Territories, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen.

Their recommendations will be submitted to a meeting of Arab culture ministers in Cairo on June 27-28.

Alesco director general Mongi Bousnina told Saturday's meeting it was urgently necessary to draw up a strategy to restore and protect Iraq's cultural heritage "via a series of measures that take account of the current political, economic and administrative situation in Iraq".

Police from Europe, the Middle East and the United States are due to convene in Rome on Monday and Tuesday for a new meeting on recovering Iraq's stolen art treasures.

Looters sacked Iraq's National Archaeological Museum in the days after the regime of Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) was toppled on April 9, removing or destroying thousands of artefacts and provoking widespread criticism of the occupying US army for failing to take steps to protect the building.

Among the items lost was a collection of around 80,000 cuneiform tablets that contain examples of the some of the world's earliest writing and a 5,000-year-old Sumerian alabaster vase -- known as the Warka vase.

Just 3,000 of some 170,000 items originally reported missing still remained unaccounted for, a spokesman for the US forces in Iraq said Saturday.

[MizSterious]

No bias from the French, nahhhh.

"...in the wake of the US-led war, during which the occupying US army failed to prevent the looting of thousands of priceless antiquities from Baghdad's National Archaeological Museum."

Or...

" Looters sacked Iraq's National Archaeological Museum in the days after the regime of Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) was toppled on April 9, removing or destroying thousands of artefacts..."

And...

"Just 3,000 of some 170,000 items originally reported missing still remained unaccounted for, a spokesman for the US forces in Iraq said Saturday."

When in fact, we now know that:

"...fewer than 50 items from the collection of the Iraqi National Museum's main exhibition still are missing after the looting and destruction that followed the U.S. capture of Baghdad." (from this thread, citing an AP source.)

Boggles the mind...

[Paleo Conservative]

Arab nations to draft strategy on protecting Iraqi culture

Only about 1,400 years too late.

[Clara Lou]

It goes beyond "mind-boggling" to positively outrageous. Yahoo should reconsider using AFP as a news source if AFP is going to make such horrendous errors in reporting-- errors which very likely will go uncorrected.

[joesnuffy]

Babble on.......

[MEG33]

Oh Brother!

[MizSterious]

Ping! If you'd like an example (like you need it, LOL) of slanted reporting, here it is!

[FairOpinion]

The one good thing that came out of it, that some 3 Clinton holdovers resigned in protest over the failure of the US troops to protect the Baghdad Museum from looting of all those "priceless arntiquities".