Sherry Chandler

The National Museum in Baghdad

from “The Ghost in the Baghdad Museum” in the NYTimes:

Three years have now passed since the chaos accompanying the arrival of American troops in Baghdad set off looting at the museum. Mr. [Donny] George [the museum's director] fled through the back door, he says, when Iraqi militias began firing rocket-propelled grenades into the grounds. The plundering prompted international outrage, finger-pointing and a frenzy of political spin.

Initial reports of 170,000 stolen artifacts were exaggerated, as were wild comparisons to the sack of Constantinople. But the real number, about 15,000, still amounted to a tremendous loss. Reversing the damage has been arduous.

Largely through American assistance, both public and private, the museum has been restored and modernized. Mr. George, an Iraqi Christian who speaks excellent English, has proved adept at garnering this aid, forging good relations with several American officials while nursing an undiminished anger at the way, in his view, the United States “dismantled the whole former system only to leave a void.”

Even with thousands of pieces still missing, the museum houses an extraordinary collection by any standard. What is lacking is the peace it needs to admit the public.

“When a museum is reopened, it means that peace has come,” Mr. George said. For now, it is a hollow place, devoid of life, empty of discourse. This echoing museum at the heart of Baghdad — that is to say, at the heart of the American project in Iraq — is an image of hope frustrated.

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