Iraq - open to looters now, as Iraqi National Museum Director flees for his life

The Assyrian International News Agency reports that Iraq's most prominent archaeologist has resigned and fled the country, saying the dire security situation, an acute shortage of funds, and the interference of supporters of the radical Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr had made his position intolerable.

Donny George, a Christian, who was president of the State Board of Antiquities and Heritage, achieved international recognition for his efforts to track down and recover the priceless antiquities looted from Iraq's National Museum in the mayhem that followed the fall of Baghdad in 2003.

But this week he revealed that he had resigned and was in hiding with his family in the Syrian capital Damascus.

"The board has come under the increasing influence of al-Sadr," claimed Dr George. "I can no longer work with these people who have come in with the new ministry he told the Art newspaper. "They have no knowledge of archaeology, no knowledge of antiquities." Dr George says that over the past two years excavations and conservation work in Iraq had ground to a halt and all the foreign archaeologists had left the country.


He said the 1,400 members of the special antiquities protection force would be going without pay, meaning there would be little to stop further looting at the country's 11,000 archaeological sites. "From September there is no more money for their salaries," said Dr George. "The coalition has to do something about this."

The bottom line, is of course that the funds made available by the US Congress for the re-construction of Iraq have run out, after filling the pockets of US companies and private security armies and theft and general corruption by staff at all levels of the various US sponsored Governments since the illegal invasion.