[CPProt.net] Looted art said used to fund terrorists

[MSN CPPnet]

Thursday, June 23, 2005 . Last updated 12:57 p.m. PT

Looted art said used to fund terrorists

By SOPHIE NICHOLSON
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

PARIS -- Wealthy art patrons are buying stolen artifacts from Iraq and
inadvertently funding terrorist activity, the director of Iraq's national
Museum said Thursday. Some of the objects are entering the U.S., he said.

Iraqi museums were pillaged of treasures dating back 5,000 years during
looting that occurred amid the chaos of the 2003 U.S.-led invasion that
toppled Saddam Hussein.

"Rich people are buying stolen material," museum director Donny George told
reporters. "Money is going to Iraq and they (terror groups) are buying
weapons and ammunition to use against Iraqi police and American forces," he
said.

Police in the United States are doing an "excellent" job of curbing the flow
of stolen artifacts there, but "a lot of material is just penetrating the
country," George said. "A lot of these objects are actually going to the
United States."

"People in the international community must stop buying these things ...
This money is going to the terrorists," he said at a UNESCO conference on
Iraq's cultural heritage.

Iraqi Culture Minister Nouri Farhan al-Rawi, also speaking at the news
conference, noted: "There was a great deal of looting when coalition forces
arrived. Today, coalition forces are helping us a lot, and there are no more
cases of looting or theft."

Of the 15,000 objects stolen from the national museum, almost 4,000 have
been returned to the country and more than 4,000 others are in neighboring
countries for safekeeping, George said.

It is impossible to assess the scale of theft or damage at archaeological
sites outside Baghdad, said a committee of experts gathered at UNESCO, the
Paris-based U.N. cultural agency.

Farhan al-Rawi urged UNESCO to help the Iraqi government transform 170
buildings - including Saddam's former palaces and other government buildings
- into cultural centers, public libraries and tourist centers. Some are
located in Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone, which houses the Iraqi
government and U.S. Embassy.

"Today, the Ministry of Culture is not in a position to recuperate and run
the palaces," said Farhan al-Rawi, noting that guards outside the national
museum were sometimes shot at.

The committee praised efforts by several countries holding Iraqi treasures
for safekeeping, including Jordan, Kuwait, Syria, Italy, Saudi Arabia and
the United States. But it said more cooperation was needed from Turkey and
Iran, which were represented at the meeting.

The cultural heritage committee, formed in September 2003, aims to
distribute international aid to help protect Iraq's cultural treasures.

It has received $3.5 million from direct contributions and $5.5 million from
the United Nations, said UNESCO's deputy director-general for culture,
Mounir Bouchenaki.

UNESCO's World Monuments Fund this week placed the entire country of Iraq on
the list of the world's most endangered cultural sites. It was the first
time an entire country has been listed.