How did America, the UAE, and Israel loot Iraq's antiquities?

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[size=52]How did America, the UAE, and Israel loot Iraq's antiquities?[/size]

[size=45]“The Cradle” website published a documented report prepared by Ahmed Al-Rubaie entitled: “How did America, the Emirates, and Israel loot Iraq’s antiquities?”
The writer emphasized that the American invasion of Iraq paved the way for the systematic looting and destruction of countless artifacts and ancient manuscripts, and stressed that the UAE and Israel also played an important role in the ongoing theft and global smuggling of these items.[/size]
[size=45]The writer mentioned that the Iraqi Ministry of Culture recently announced a major recovery of 23,000 artifacts, most of which were looted during the illegal American invasion of Iraq in 2003. This work was considered an attempt to erase the cultural identity of Iraq. Often overlooked, however, the rich Iraqi Jewish archive remains a controversial topic, as parts of it end up in Tel Aviv before reaching other destinations.[/size]
[size=45]On April 10, 2003, after weeks of American occupation, American tanks surrounded the Iraqi Oil Ministry, the Intelligence Building, and the Iraqi National Museum. While American forces rushed to secure the oil and intelligence buildings, the doors of the National Museum, which was founded in 1924 in the Alawi district of Baghdad, were also left wide open for antiquities dealers to loot and vandalize its contents.
It was not a coincidence that American forces established bases inside important archaeological sites throughout Iraq, including Babylon, which dates back to 2,300 BC, Ur, 3,800 BC, Hatra, Nimrud, and others.
Antiquities expert Haider Farhan said in an interview with “The Cradle”: “The museum contains thousands of artifacts and rare manuscripts, but there are no official statistics on the number of antiquities stolen from the museum in 2003.”
According to Farhan, “American forces are directly and indirectly responsible for stealing the museum’s contents.”[/size]
[size=45]Chaos and Looting
Iraqi reports indicate that approximately 120,000 artifacts were stolen from Iraq between 2003 and 2017, the bulk of them during the American invasion of Iraq, while ISIS bears responsibility for the theft of the holdings of the Mosul Museum in the north of the country and some archaeological sites in the areas that were seized after In 2014.
Director of the Iraqi Manuscripts Department and spokesman for the Ministry of Culture, Ahmed Al-Alawi, told the website that his ministry was able to “recover more than 23,000 antiquities within three years, including 17,300 antiquities that were recovered two years ago.”
The report confirms that the looting of the Iraq Museum did not happen by chance. Organized gangs, including individuals from neighboring Arab countries, took advantage of the chaos. These thieves were familiar with the design of the museum, its halls and hidden storage rooms, and even the most secure places, such as the hidden room inside the museum, were not immune to theft.
According to a former official at the National Museum, “There are organized gangs from the Arab countries neighboring Iraq that stormed the museum, while the American forces present in the museum courtyard turned a blind eye to that.”
The museum official, who requested to remain anonymous, told the website, “The looting continued for nearly three days... We had a secret room in the museum, in which we kept precious archaeological ornaments, and when we returned on April 12, 2003 to the museum, we found that these ornaments had been destroyed.” “It was stolen, even though that room had a hidden door.”[/size]
[size=45]The Emirati role:
According to the report, the museum official claimed the involvement of other Arab nationalities, which was confirmed by the former official spokesman for the Ministry of Culture, Abdul Zahra Al-Talqani, who revealed in a statement in 2011 that “the looted Iraqi antiquities were smuggled to a neighboring country, and from there to America and Europe.”
Ministry spokesman Al-Ayyawi confirmed to the website that the vast majority of the antiquities stolen from Iraq were smuggled to one of the [Persian] Gulf countries and then to the United States, some through the theft of the National Museum, and others through illegal exhumation operations by antiquities mafias that took place in light of security chaos. “.[/size]
[size=45]This was confirmed by Iraqi antiquities expert Sundus Muhammad, who, in press statements, accused the American forces of “contributing to the smuggling of Iraqi antiquities out of the country, after controlling the antiquities of Babylon and Akkad, in agreement with the smuggling mafia.”
According to the report, one of the most important pieces of evidence indicating the UAE’s involvement in smuggling Iraqi antiquities is the ruling issued by the US Department of Justice in 2017 against the American company “Hobby Lobby.” The company was fined $3 million, after it illegally purchased 5,500 ancient Iraqi artifacts from merchants in the UAE, and then smuggled them to the United States and Israel using forged shipping documents.
At the time of the case, The Guardian reported that in September 2011, the company received a package containing about 1,000 clay bubbles, an ancient form of engraved identification, from an Israeli merchant and was accompanied by a false declaration that its country of origin was Israel.
After the US invasion, Washington formed the so-called Coalition Provisional Authority, and tightened its control over key facilities in Iraq, including airports, from where antiquities were smuggled by local, Arab and foreign individuals under its watch. The American forces contracted with a foreign security company to supervise flights, secure the entry and exit of travelers, and inspect their luggage.
An intelligence source who has been working at Baghdad Airport since 2004, and requested to remain anonymous, revealed to the website that “the American forces were in complete control of Baghdad Airport, and it was not possible to transport any goods to and from the airport without the knowledge of the Americans, but they were turning a blind eye to the personalities.” Local and Arab.”
According to the report, other sources talk about the UAE’s involvement in this cultural theft. The former commander of the protection company of the Iraqi politician Ahmed Chalabi, Muhammad Faisal Al-Ghazi, admitted to transporting the antiquities to the Emirates, where they were smuggled to Israel.
Ghazi said in televised statements: “On April 22, 2003, we went to the National Museum by order of Chalabi. We brought a group of antiquities, including a copy of the Babylonian Torah. These antiquities were handed over to Tamara, Chalabi's daughter. “There was talk about protecting these monuments until the government was formed, but that did not happen.”
In May 2023, the spokesman for the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, Major General Yahya Rasoul, announced the dismantling of an international network involved in smuggling antiquities from Babylon Governorate. Among the network members was an Arab citizen.
The website states that Rasoul said in a statement it reviewed: “Based on the tasks assigned to the Iraqi National Intelligence Service in (Babylon) and within the framework of the work it is carrying out to undermine external threats to Iraqi national security, the Intelligence Service was able to dismantle an international network consisting of four people, one of whom is an Arab.” He smuggles antiquities, including three ancient manuscripts.”
According to the report, the Mesopotamian civilization is being marketed via the Internet. Unsurprisingly, the illicit trade in Iraqi and other West Asian artifacts is rife online, with hundreds of items being sold for less than $400 on various websites, including the dark web. This rampant online trade poses a major threat to Iraqi cultural heritage.
The “Live Auctioneers” and “Trocader” websites were among the sites that monitored some looted Iraqi antiquities, as these pieces became available for direct purchase, whether by individuals or companies.
Iraqi archaeologist Abdul Amir Al-Hamdani tells The Cradle website, “Selling Iraqi antiquities on websites at such low prices represents a real disaster for research into cultural heritage.” The value of these artifacts is priceless, and they cannot be anyone’s personal property, because they are the wealth and civilization of an entire people.”[/size]
[size=45]The Israeli connection
An official source in the Iraqi Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Antiquities, who requested to remain anonymous, stated that “from 2003 until their departure in 2011, American forces provided Jewish [Israeli] excavation teams to excavate Iraqi archaeological sites, especially in Babylon and Ur.”
In 2010, Israel's Channel 7 revealed a Torah scroll that had been smuggled from Iraq to Tel Aviv.[/size]
[size=45]This raised questions about how this rare piece got there, considering that it was supposed to be maintained by the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.
Even today, the controversy surrounding the Iraqi Jewish archive continues. Despite an agreement between the Iraqi government and the United States to return it to Baghdad in 2014, the archive mysteriously ended up in Tel Aviv in 2015.
Various reports offer conflicting accounts of how it arrived in the United States, with accusations against the Iraqi Memory Foundation for its involvement in the rendition. Archive to the Americans.
According to writer and researcher Nabil al-Rubaie, the Jewish archive includes 48 scrolls of Genesis passages written on deer skin, calendars in Hebrew, 7,002 books, and a collection of sermons in Hebrew dating back to the year 1692.
It also included, according to Al-Rubaie, 1,700 rare artifacts documenting the first and second eras of the Babylonian captivity, the oldest copy of the Babylonian Talmud, the oldest copy of the Torah, and legal records dating back several centuries left by the Jews of Iraq, along with other valuable items.
According to the report, the Iraqi Memory Foundation, which was founded by Kanan Makiya in 1992, played a pivotal role in collecting Iraq’s archives, including documents from the Baath Party archives and the Iraqi Kurdistan database. It is noteworthy that the former Iraqi Prime Minister, Mustafa Al-Kadhimi, worked in the same institution.[/size]
[size=45]In 2018, the director of the Iraqi Books and Documents House claimed that an officer from the former Iraqi intelligence service contacted members of the opposition after their return to Iraq and offered to reveal the location of the Jewish archive. This raised doubts about the circumstances surrounding its discovery by American forces.
The report confirms that Israel has never adhered to international agreements requiring the return of stolen antiquities. Meanwhile, the United States continues to detain thousands of files from the Iraqi archives under the pretext of “restoration.”[/size]
[size=45]The ongoing war on Iraq's heritage.
The report confirms that American movements in Iraq also had a devastating impact on its enormous cultural heritage. In 1991, Ur was subjected to heavy American bombing, causing severe damage to the ancient ziggurat.
During the 2003 invasion, the Nasiriyah Museum was converted into a military barracks, and the Kish archaeological site was used as a training base, resulting in the destruction of extensive archaeological areas.
What added to Iraq's problems was the emergence of ISIS in 2014, which led to the theft of collections from the Mosul Museum and the destruction of many archaeological sites. However, many sources indicate that ISIS carried out these acts of destruction to distract attention from the actual looting of valuable antiquities. So far, the terrorist organization has sold hundreds of antiquities by smuggling them to Turkey, and from there to Europe.
Iraq boasts more than 15,000 archaeological sites, which have attracted the attention of antiquities dealers since 2003. So far, Iraq has been able to recover 23,000 artifacts, most of them from the United States and Britain, despite the imposition of strong border controls on these two countries.[/size]
[size=45]The author of the report concludes by confirming that the cultural heritage of the “Land of Mesopotamia” faces constant threats, as various parties, namely the United States, Israel, and the UAE, play major roles in stealing and destroying it. He says that recovering artifacts is an ongoing struggle, and the international community must intensify its efforts to prevent further loss and facilitate the return of stolen artifacts to their rightful place in Iraq's rich history.[/size]
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