After the US-led forces swept into Baghdad, Su said, the city was plunged into anarchy and turmoil and the world-famous Iraq National Museum was broken into by looters who seized many of the invaluable antiquities dating back thousands of years B.C., and 170,000 pieces of priceless artifacts got lost in mass looting within 48 hours.

The historical region of the Mesopotamia Plain between the Tigris and Euphrates is considered the cradle of ancient civilization, and the Iraq National Museum, as the epitome of the West Asia civilization, was home to a vast number of priceless cultural relics tracing back to Neolithic to contemporary Arabian times.

These invaluable relics include the cuneiform characters, which are said to be the world's earliest characters, and the superb, life-like statues of women as well as a wealth of original manuscripts.

Su, a distinguished researcher with the Chinese State Bureau of Cultural Relics, said he felt grieved and extremely sad about the pillaging.

"The cultural artifacts sorted out and collected through meticulous, painstaking efforts are interrelated, so their destruction will make them become historic granules or insignificant provided that the inter-relatedness is disrupted," Su said. "Moreover, the rampant looting by mobs will inevitably disconnect the historic records in the museum, and the loots would sink into oblivion and may be gone forever. It is an exceedingly grave catastrophe to human civilization."

It is unacceptable to Su that some cultural relics like hieroglyphic and cuneiform character templates were broken, smashed and even disposed of for the inconvenience to carry. "That is very regrettable since the museum has contributed tremendously to the formation of history through individual cultural relics." Su added.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) urged, in a statement on April 12, that the United States and Britain take essential measures to preserve the cultural heritage in Iraq and contacted Iraqi neighboring countries so as to stop the relics from being smuggled abroad.

Su holds the view that the recovery work will last for several generations even if the hundreds of thousands of ransacked relics are returned with the aid of the UNESCO.

Acknowledging that the staff of the museum expressed deep sorrow and sadness over the ransacking, Su said he understood them well as an expert in the sphere of cultural relics, that "they were in fact weeping at heart for the damaged civilization."

Besides the plundered museum, other historical relics around Iraq were also trampled upon as a result of the US military action against Iraq.

The ancient city-states in Iraq were built primarily with clay bricks, with new ones being rebuilt on the ruins when the old ones collapsed. After several centuries of accumulation, there stood eight or nine layers of structures on these projecting mounds, or raised relic sites as named by the locals, which have become the natural grounds for such military facilities as radar and air-defense weapons.

Practically speaking, every mound is an historical relic site, so any military action will certainly lead to the damage of the underground relics with immeasurable losses, according to the expert.

"Although we so far have no idea whether the looting was premeditated or spontaneous, it seems absolutely clear that the US forces should be held accountable as they should take the responsibility, in compliance with international laws, to protect Iraq's historic, cultural and religious legacies from being destroyed or looted amid the chaos and anarchy," added Su.

Early this year, a number of American scholars had submitted to the US military a detailed list of more than 4,000 historic, archeological sites which should be brought under protection, and the US military promised to provide protection. But since the American troops swept into Baghdad, they have done nothing to effectively protect the cultural relics, Su noted.

"When the mobs swarmed into the museum and began to plunder antiquities, the US forces turned a blind eye to it. Whatever point of view we look from, international law or on-the-spot situation, the American armed forces should take responsibility for the catastrophe," Su added.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell said Monday that the United States would resort to measures to preserve cultural relics in Iraq and have the damaged ones repaired and restored.

On the same day, he announced that the United States was working to seek cooperation with the UNESCO, the European Union (EU) and the International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL) to prevent the looted relics being smuggled out of Iraq.

(Xinhua News Agency April 17, 2003)