The New York Times reports that the claims of massive looting of cultural artifacts in Iraq were, in fact, grossly inflated. Instead of 170,000 items missing, it looks more like, um, 25 that are for sure missing:
Col. Matthew F. Bogdanos, a Marine reservist who is investigating the looting and is stationed at the museum, said museum officials had given him a list of 29 artifacts that were definitely missing. But since then, 4 items — ivory objects from the eighth century B.C. — had been traced.
Twenty-five missing pieces out of an inventory of tens of thousands really isn’t a story.