IRAQ: Leading experts in Mesopotamian antiquities called yesterday for US forces to secure the borders of Iraq to ensure that stolen museum treasures do not end up abroad.
Meeting at the British Museum in London, they also appealed to the UN to urgently adopt a resolution to prevent any cross-border trade in looted Iraqi antiquities.
"It is actually a great loss for mankind," said Mr Donny George, director of research at Baghdad's Iraq Museum.
He blamed US forces for standing by when looters ran amok as they took over the Iraqi capital. "I call it the crime of the century because the looted material belonged to mankind," Mr George said. "That makes it a great, great crime."
Looters ransacked the National Archaeological Museum, removing or destroying thousands of priceless works from some of the world's oldest civilisations.
They also ransacked the National Archives Centre, and set fire to the National Library in Baghdad.
A museum in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul was also looted.
British Museum director Mr Neil McGregor said yesterday's meeting, which drew some 50 experts from around the world, appealed to the US "to urgently secure the borders of Iraq to stop the export of antiquities".
Mr Mounir Boucheraki, the deputy secretary for culture at UNESCO, added that his Paris-based organisation would call upon the UN Security Council to adopt a resolution to ban the import and trade of stolen treasures from Iraq.
That proposal was supported at the meeting, co-organised by the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation and the British Museum, which holds one of the world's biggest Mesopotamian collections.
Mr George said the Iraq Museum had 170,000 items - some dating back 500,000 years - but it was still not known how many had been looted.
He said he believed there were two kinds of looters; common thieves and the professionals who used glass cutters to take away the most valuable objects from showcases.
He said 12 cases of antiques had been recovered at checkpoints on the Jordanian border.
Among items still missing is a limestone Warka Vase dating from 3100 BC, and part of a copper statue dating back to 2250 BC.
Mr George contrasted the lax attitude of US forces vis-a-vis the objects to that of Saddam Hussein, who, he said, executed 10 people who had decapitated an ancient statue of a bull after the 1991 Gulf war.
Experts in Mesopotamian art alleged earlier this month during UNESCO's first conference on the issue that the looting was part of a deliberate, planned action by organised gangs who traffic works of ancient art.
Mr Peter Stone, of Newcastle University, an adviser to the British military on Iraqi antiquities, said before yesterday's meeting that international art dealers could have been behind some of the looting.
"In initial reports we are getting there are indications that replicas of objects have been left in cases," he said.