Who Owns the Past? Assignment 6

28 The SAA Archaeological Record • September 2010

F ew images of the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq have been as powerful and persistent as those of the looting of the Iraq National Museum. Over three days, approximately 15,000

museum objects representing our shared cultural heritage were taken and hundreds more were damaged. Six years later, there are signs of positive changes in the U.S. military and in the cul- tural heritage professional community which may help prevent such a tragedy in the future.

The story of the looting of the Iraq National Museum has been told in a number of publications over the past several years (see Bogdanos 2005; Rothfield 2009), but a few keys facts bear repeating. As the flagship institution for Iraq’s archaeological patrimony the museum contained as many as 500,000 thousand objects.1 During three days of looting, the staff of the museum estimates that approximately 15,000 objects were taken from the galleries and storage areas. That number would have been high- er if not for the precautions taken by the museum staff to evac- uate most of the collection from the galleries to a secret storage area and to take protective measures for the remaining objects (see Youkhanna and Gibson 2008).

A number of books and articles document the military planning process leading up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq (see Gordon and Trainer 2006; Ricks 2006). Most agree that while a great deal of attention went into planning for the defeat of the Iraqi military, very little thought went into planning for the post- conflict stabi- lization phase. As a nation that had not ratified the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, U.S. policy was to observe those parts of the 1954 Hague Convention that were considered customary inter- national law. This included avoiding targeting of cultural prop- erty and admonishing U.S. military personnel to refrain from looting or defacing cultural property. However, in the months leading up to the war some U.S. academics and cultural her- itage professionals warned Pentagon staffers that many region- al museums in Iraq were looted by Iraqi civilians after the First

Gulf War, and this would almost certainly happen during the U.S. invasion.5 Unfortunately these warnings did not translate into a command emphasis on protecting cultural sites in Iraq, nor did planners adequately provide for supporting Iraqi authorities in their efforts to protect domestic cultural property and sites.

Once stability returned to Baghdad, the Iraq Museum staff returned to begin the slow process of inventorying losses, stabi- lizing damaged objects, and recovery. Some looted objects were recovered under a “no questions asked” policy in which Iraqis returned a number of important museum objects. Others would be recovered during raids within Iraq and at customs entry points in other countries over the next several months. To date, just under half of the estimated 15,000 objects looted from the museum have been recovered.

In addition to the looting of the Iraq National Museum, Iraqis burned the National Library and portions of the Iraqi National Archives were damaged by water. Looters also turned their attention to more than 12,000 archaeological sites across the country. While the Iraqi State Board of Antiquities and Heritage has increased efforts to provide archaeological site guards and refurbish damaged cultural institutions, it is an ongoing chal- lenge of providing training, equipment, and funding while instability still prevents routine safe access to many areas.

As shocking as the looting of the Iraq National Museum was for the international community in 2003, the looting and destruction of cultural property during armed conflict is certainly not new. During WWII, the U.S. Army Civil Affairs Division established the Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives teams to deal with cul- tural property issues. The “Monuments Men,” as they were often called, consisted of individuals with civilian cultural heritage expertise already serving in the military. This handful of individ- uals performed the task of protecting, salvaging, and repatriating cultural property with great passion and professionalism.2

THE LOOTING OF THE IRAQ NATIONAL MUSEUM AND THE FUTURE OF CULTURAL PROPERTY DURING ARMED CONFLICT

©2010 Corine Wegener

Corine Wegener

Major (Retired) Corine Wegener is a former Army Civil Affairs officer, president and founder of the U.S. Committee of the Blue Shield, and an

Associate Curator in the Department of Decorative Arts, Textiles, and Sculpture at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts.

ANTIQUITIES IN WARTIME

29September 2010 • The SAA Archaeological Record

While the successes of the Monuments Men were gradually for- gotten until relatively recently, the U.S. Army Civil Affairs branch still has responsibility for Arts, Monuments and Archives. However, today America’s all volunteer military force has few personnel with civilian cultural heritage qualifications. This proved a critical shortage when responding to the looting of the Iraq Museum. As an art historian and curator serving in the Army Reserves, I was mobilized only after the looting and arrived in Baghdad to find myself the only cultural heritage pro- fessional assigned to work with the Iraq Museum and Ministry of Culture.

The good news is that the looting of the Iraq Museum and dam- age to other important cultural property in Iraq has resulted in several initiatives to train personnel about the importance of cultural property protection during military operations. In 2005, the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare and Center and School at Ft. Bragg published a new handbook on cultural property pro- tection for Civil Affairs units.3 At about the same time, the Archaeological Institute of America (AIA) developed its Troop Training Program in cooperation with U.S. Army Central Com- mand.4 And since 2006, the U.S. Committee of the Blue Shield, in partnership with the Archaeological Institute of American and the American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works, has provided volunteer subject matter experts to provide cultural heritage protection training for deploying U.S. Army Civil Affairs units.5

In addition to encouraging these initiatives, the Department of Defense funded the Heritage Resource Preservation playing cards to raise awareness about respect for cultural property throughout the U.S. military. These standard decks of cards fea- ture lively color images of cultural heritage in Iraq and Afghanistan, along with messages about respecting these sites.6

And last year, new doctrinal emphasis on stability and coun- terinsurgency operations in the U.S. military led to the release of Army Field Manual 3-07 Stability Operations, which stresses the importance of cultural awareness and respect for cultural property and sites as an integral part of mission success.7

The most important development in the renewed U.S. commit- ment to protecting cultural heritage was U.S. Senate ratification of the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Heritage in the Event of Armed Conflict. A number of U.S. gov- ernment agencies, most prominently the Department of Defense, testified in support of ratification and many U.S. cul- tural property organizations joined together in a coordinated effort to promote ratification. The Lawyers’ Committee for Cul- tural Heritage Preservation, the Archaeological Institute of America, and the U.S. Committee of the Blue Shield led a coali- tion of more than twenty cultural heritage organizations who supplied draft testimony to the U.S. Senate Committee on For-

eign Relations in support of ratification. With ratification com- plete, the U.S. joins 122 other nations pledged to protect cultur- al property during armed conflict.8

What does the 1954 Hague Convention do? Simply put, States Parties agree to plan during peacetime for safeguarding their domestic cultural property against the foreseeable effects of an armed conflict, to respect the cultural property of other parties to the treaty so far as military necessity allows, and to establish “within their armed forces, services or specialist personnel whose purpose will be to secure respect for cultural property and to co- operate with the civilian authorities responsible for safeguarding it.”9 The treaty also designates the symbol of the Blue Shield for use in marking cultural property for protection in the event of armed conflict. Similar to the international sym- bol of the Red Cross for humanitarian protection under the Geneva Conventions, the Blue Shield also lends its name to international organizations that support its goals. These include the Paris based International Committee of the Blue Shield (ICBS), established in 1996, and a group of Blue Shield nation- al committees organized in 2008 under the Association of National Committees of the Blue Shield (ANCBS).10

Thirty- six Blue Shield national committees and national com- mittees “under construction” work in their home countries to promote ratification and implementation of the 1954 Hague Convention and its protocols, provide a point of coordination and training between the cultural heritage professional sectors and their respective militaries, and to raise public awareness of the importance of the protection of cultural property during armed conflict. The ANCBS, through its office in The Hague, provides coordination for emergency assistance to cultural her- itage at risk not only from armed conflict, but also for natural disasters.

The looting of the Iraq Museum, a moment when the world rec- ognized an irretrievable loss to our shared past, has served as the impetus for a renewed commitment to protecting cultural property during armed conflict. The U.S. military now recog- nizes the fragile nature of cultural heritage and its key role in a nation’s recovery and has taken positive steps to improve train- ing and doctrine in this area. A number of cultural heritage organizations have joined forces to provide military training and to promote the 1954 Hague Convention. And finally, the U.S. government has recognized the importance of becoming part of the international community that places a special emphasis on cultural property by ratifying the 1954 Hague Convention. Now it remains is to be seen how the U.S. will implement the treaty domestically, particularly without a department of culture at the federal level. Robust and meaningful implementation will require the coordinated efforts of all those who have a stake in protecting our shared cultural heritage.

ANTIQUITIES IN WARTIME

30 The SAA Archaeological Record • September 2010

References Cited

Bogdanos, Matthew 2005 Thieves of Baghdad. Bloomsbury Publishing, New York.

Burns, John F. 2003 A Nation at War: Looting, Pillagers Strip Iraqi Museum of Its

Treasure. New York Times 13 April. Edsel, Robert 2006 Rescuing Da Vinci: Hitler and the Nazis Stole Europe’s Art-

American and Her Allies Recovered It. Laurel Publishing, Dal- las.

Nicholas, Lynn 1995 The Rape of Europa: the Fate of Europe’s Treasures in the Third

Reich and the Second World War. Vintage Books, New York. Rothfield, Lawrence 2009 The Rape of Mesopotamia: Behind the Looting of the Iraq Muse-

um. University of Chicago Press, Chicago. Youkhanna, Donny George, and McGuire Gibson 2008 Preparations at the Iraq Museum in the Lead- Up to War” in

Antiquities Under Siege: Cultural Heritage Protection After the Iraq War, edited by Lawrence Rothfield, pp. 27–32. AltaMira Press, Lanham, Maryland.

Notes

1. Initial media reports were that the collection consisted of only about 170,000 objects, when in fact the 170,000 number came from just one particular inventory (Burns 2003).

2. For a history Nazi looting of cultural property during WWII and the story of the Monuments Men, see Nicholas 1995 and Edsel 2006.

3. U.S. Department of the Army, Graphic Training Aid 41-01-002, Civil Affairs Arts, Monuments, and Archives Guide (2005, 2007, 2009).

4. See “Archaeologists Teach U.S. Troops Iraq and Afghan Her- itage,” http://www.archaeological.org/webinfo.php? page=10319, accessed September 9, 2009.

5. For more information about the U.S. Committee of the Blue Shield see www.uscbs.org.

6. The playing cards project was the brainchild of Dr. Laurie Rush, a Department of Defense civilian archaeologist with the Cultural Resource Management program at Ft. Drum, New York.

7. See U.S. Department of the Army Field Manual 3-07, Stability Operations (October 2008), paragraph 5-52 Shrines and Art. “Except in cases where military operations or military necessity prevents it, the force protects and preserves all historical and cultural monuments and works, religious shrines and objects of art, and any other national col- lections of artifacts or art.”

8. See “The United States of America deposits its instrument of ratification of the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultur- al Property in the Event of Armed Conflict”:

http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev. php- URL_ID=44806&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html, accessed Spetmember 9, 2009.

9. For the full text of the 1954 Hague Convention see: http://portal.unesco.org/culture/en/ev. php-

URL_ID=35261&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html, accessed September 9, 2009.

10. For more information see www.ancbs.org.

SAA NATIVE AMERICAN SCHOLARSHIPS

Since 1998, the Society for American Archaeology (SAA) has awarded scholarships in support of archaeological training for Native Americans who are students or employ- ees of tribal, Alaska Native, or Native Hawaiian cultural preservation programs.

The SAA is pleased to announce 3 scholarship opportuni- ties: SAA Native American Graduate Archaeology Scholar- ship (up to $10,000), SAA Native American Undergraduate Archaeology Scholarship (up to $5,000) and SAA Arthur C. Parker Scholarship or NSF Scholarship for Archaeological Training (up to $4,000). These scholarships are intended for current students—high school seniors, college under- graduates, and graduate students—and personnel of Trib- al or other Native cultural preservation programs. High school students must be currently enrolled as seniors to be eligible. Undergraduates and graduate students must be enrolled in an accredited college or university. These schol- arships are open to all Native peoples from anywhere in the Americas, Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiians, and Indigenous Pacific Islanders. The deadline is December 15, 2010. Application materials and more information may be found online at: www.saa.org/scholarships.

ANTIQUITIES IN WARTIME