Protecting Cultural Property in Iraq: How American Military Policy Comports with International Law

Abstract

As American troops entered Baghdad as a liberating force on April 9, 2003, a wave of looting engulfed the city. Iraqi looters ransacked government buildings, stores, churches, and private homes stealing anything they could carry and defacing symbols of the defunct Hussein regime. American authorities had not anticipated the magnitude or the fervor of the civil disorder. But the looting over the course of two to three days at Iraq's National Museum, home to the world's greatest collection of Babylonian, Sumerian, and Assyrian antiquities, stood apart from the rest of the pillaging and vandalism in Baghdad. Months before, prominent members of the international archaeological community contacted the U.S. Department of Defense and U.S. State Department with concerns about the Museum. Nonetheless, as the threat materialized, American forces largely stood idle as a rampaging mob ravaged the collection. Initial reports noted that 170,000 objects had been taken including some of the world's most priceless ancient treasures. In the following weeks, the anger of Iraqis, archaeologists, and cultural aesthetes bubbled over in a series of accusatory and condemnatory newspaper reports and editorials Although the Museum's losses were far less than originally feared, (amounting to the loss of only about thirty-three major pieces and an additional 8,000-18,000 artifacts), the incident focused international attention on an important issue of international law, namely the protections afforded cultural property during armed conflicts. The looting of the Museum and several other important cultural sites in Baghdad and throughout Iraq has raised important political, moral, and legal questions: Does the United States have an obligation to protect the greatest cultural assets of the Iraqi people? Does American military policy provide adequate guidance to ensure that the cultural property of the Iraqi people will be preserved? Finally, at what point is the responsibility to protect cultural property waived by countervailing principles of military necessity?