"Stuff happens": a brief overview of the 2003 destruction of Iraqi manuscript collections, archives, and libraries.

ABSTRACT

On March 20, 2003, military forces of the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia invaded Iraq. In the course of this invasion and subsequent occupation, Iraq's cultural infrastructure suffered a great deal of destruction. While international attention has focused primarily on the immense destruction done to the country's pre-Islamic archaeological assets, domestic Iraqi attention has focused equally on the losses suffered by the country's manuscript collections, archives, and document collections. This article provides a general overview of the latter category, including a brief discussion of the events involved, damages sustained, and current status of the collections in question. While in certain key cases the damage sustained by collections was not as severe as initially reported, there were significant losses and a great deal of work lies ahead to reconstitute the facilities involved.

INTRODUCTION

On March 20, 2003, military forces of the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia invaded Iraq. (1) In the course of this invasion and subsequent occupation, Iraq's cultural infrastructure suffered a great deal of destruction. While international attention has focused primarily on the immense destruction done to the country's pre-Islamic archaeological assets, domestic Iraqi attention has focused equally on the losses suffered by their manuscript collections and archives. This article provides a general overview of the latter category, including a brief discussion of the events involved, damages sustained, and current status of the collections in question.

Most of the events relevant to these collections began at least two days after the entry of U.S. troops into Baghdad on April 8, 2003, and continued for several days--until international media attention appears to have forced a policy change. Although several causes are frequently cited--and excuses offered--for the cultural destruction suffered during that period, primary liability appears to lie with occupation forces. Legally, the collections in question were covered under the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict. Even though the United States and United Kingdom are not signatories to this convention, the protocols of this agreement are fully ensconced within customary international law. (2) Ignorance of specific legal and material obligations was also not an excuse for nonintervention: Pentagon officials had been briefed by several experts about the requirements of the protocol, the potential for looting of cultural treasures, and specific facilities requiring protection. (3)

Logistically, although the U.S. government had only recently become the occupying power, the situation on the ground remained in a certain degree of flux, and sufficient forces had not been committed to control the entire city. U.S. forces were capable of providing security to any site designated as deserving protection by senior U.S. officials, such as the Ministry of Oil, the Palestine Hotel, the Sheraton Hotel, the Saddam Hussein [now Baghdad] International Airport, the Republican Palace, and several other strategic locations. Some of the more important facilities covered in this article were concentrated in two small areas that had a sufficient U.S. troop presence (about two to three tank crews) in the area to prevent the events described below. However, when Iraqi staff members asked U.S. soldiers to protect the facilities in question, the invariable response was either that "we are soldiers not policemen" or "our orders do not extend to protecting this facility." The former director of the Dar al-Makhtutat manuscript collection, Osama Naqshbandi, stated that after a tank crew had declined to protect the National Museum and Dar al-Makhtutat facilities when looting broke out on April 10, he and the National Museum director, Jabir Khalil Ibrahim, immediately appealed to a U.S. colonel at the Palestine Hotel for protection. Despite reassurances to the contrary, no protection was extended until April 14, after the looting had become an international scandal (Al-Tikriti, 2003).

Apologists for U.S. occupation policy have striven whenever possible to assign blame for the cultural destruction to Iraqi actors. (4) One British television presenter, Dan Cruickshank, accused certain Iraqi staff members of being Ba'athist operatives who looted their own facilities. (5) Apart from credible claims concerning insider vandalism at the National Library and Archives, none of the collections discussed here appear to have been intentionally damaged by staff. Indeed, most staff members continued to work in trying circumstances, initially without pay or assurance of future job security. (6)

Certain apologists have also argued that occupation authorities were relieved of their legal obligation to protect certain facilities because they were being used for military purposes. Specifically, Cruikshank cited U.S. soldiers who stated that the National Museum had been used as a defensive military position during the April 8 fall of Baghdad (Cruikshank, 2003). However, while Iraqi soldiers may have attempted to defend parts of the city from invading forces on April 8, none of those soldiers were present when staff requested U.S. force protection from looting on April 10. Legally and militarily, the Iraqi resistance faced on April 8 in no way justified the absence of U.S. protection in the following days. (7)

The impression emerges from such anecdotal evidence that those in command of U.S. forces may have knowingly neglected their legal duty under international humanitarian law to "restore and maintain law and order," which includes preventing the looting and burning of public facilities. (8) If this is the case, it can be argued that the U.S. government as a whole is legally liable for the events described below and may someday be obliged to compensate these facilities for their losses. (9)

The discussion that follows is based on the situation report following my visit to Baghdad on May 25-31, 2003, subsequently updated and corrected as further information has become available. During this trip I visited several affected sites and interviewed a number of officials responsible for various manuscript collections, libraries, and academic research facilities. What follows is a general overview of the damages sustained and the current status of several important manuscript collections, archives, libraries, and other document collections. The focus here is on collections with unique holdings in the Baghdad area. General academically affiliated research collections, which also suffered a great deal of loss, should in time and with sufficient support be able to duplicate and expand their pre-invasion holdings.…