I remember the distinguished curator of Pavlosk in St Petersburg telling me that before the Second World War, when he was chief electrician, he had hidden away and buried anything of value. Nothing was lost or destroyed when Pavlosk was bombed. I believe much the same was done by the British and French museum directors.

Why, when most people realised that this Iraqi war was imminent, was nothing done? Should the blame not be with Saddam and his regime rather than the coalition forces?

Yours faithfully,
RAWLINGS,
House of Lords.
May 1.

From Dr Anthony Glees

Sir, You have rightly drawn attention to the appalling looting of Iraqi artefacts. But the failure to secure the government papers of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq is perhaps a greater scandal since they are about issues of life and death.

For this reason, the Foreign Secretary’s pathetic explanation in Parliament for why no one protected them should not be allowed to stand unchallenged. All he could say to two senior concerned MPs, Julian Lewis and Ann Clywd, was that “in the aftermath of a military defeat . . . a degree of disorder and lawlessness was likely” (Hansard, April 28, col 31).

This incredible error has allowed the documentary evidence of an odious regime to be rifled by all- comers and dispersed, making it hard to punish its leaders in courts of law and impossible to subject it to careful historical scrutiny.

Mr Straw should immediately order specialist forces to gather all remaining documents and archive them, as was done in similar circumstances after the Second World War and after the collapse of communism in Europe after 1989. In addition, a law should be passed making illegal possession of Iraqi government documents a criminal offence.

Without these records, those who — like myself — admire the courage of the coalition and our Government in tackling Saddam will feel cheated of the opportunity to explain why this was a just and necessary campaign against a wicked dictator.

Yours faithfully,
ANTHONY GLEES
(Reader in political history),
School of International Studies,
Brunel University,
Uxbridge UB8 3PH.
May 1.

From Mr Michael Cole

Sir, The conference on the looting of the Iraqi National Museum (report, April 26) took place amid the splendours of the Mesopotamian collection at the British Museum. I hope no one was so rude as to ask how in earlier centuries these treasures made their way to London.

Yours faithfully,
MICHAEL COLE,
3 Stanhope Mews East,
South Kensington, SW7 5QU.
mde@michaelcole.tv
April 30.

From Mr Dale Scarboro

Sir, The looting of Baghdad’s Iraq Museum under the careless eyes of the US Army brings to mind the following passage from John Aubrey’s Brief Lives:

Thomas, Lord Fairfax of Cameron, Lord General of the Parliament Army: when Oxford was surrendered (June, 24, 1646) the first thing General Fairfax did was to set a good guard of soldiers to preserve the Bodleian Library . . . He was a lover of learning, and had he not taken this special care, that noble library had been utterly destroyed.

Yours faithfully,
DALE SCARBORO,
54 King George Close, Cheltenham,
Gloucestershire GL53 7RW.
dale.scarboro@btinternet.com
May 1.

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