Why did the Iraqis lay waste to their cultural museum? Eric Gibson explains:
Modernist art in Russia all but died in the 1920s, when Lenin denounced it as bourgeois and decadent, decreeing that the purpose of art was to glorify the revolution and the worker. The Nazis’ looting of private art collections from Jewish families was not only mercenary but aimed at destroying a people by robbing it of its culture.
Saddam’s regime was no different. “You have to understand that Saddam’s propaganda ministry made great play on Iraq’s cultural heritage, and he was forever linking himself with the great figures of Mesopotamian history such as Nebuchadnezzar,” Mr. Coughlin says; Babylon was “turned into a Disney theme park.” Saddam bulldozed large parts of the ruins, replacing them with bricked walls. “Tens of thousands of bricks used in the construction bore a special inscription,” writes Mr. Coughlin in his book, “reminding future generations that the ‘Babylon of Nebuchadnezzar was rebuilt in the era of the leader President Saddam Hussein.’ ”
In short, Iraqis laid waste to the museum in Baghdad because it had become the symbol of a hated regime. And little wonder. Saddam stole his country’s treasures, hauling off truckloads for his enrichment. But he also misappropriated Iraq’s history by making it a tool of his personality cult.
Still, Iraq has some cool stuff and it would be nice to get it back, for the children.