LOOTING UPDATE:

Matthew Campbell, Baghdad
THE furore over the looting of Iraq’s national museum took an unexpected turn yesterday when workers accused their director of conniving in the theft of priceless antiquities during the chaotic collapse of the regime in Baghdad.

Fifty museum employees staged a protest in which they waved placards under the noses of American investigators proclaiming that Jabir Khalil, chairman of the Iraqi state board of heritage and antiquities, was a “dictator” and a “thief”. . . .

The investigators, too, have expressed suspicions that the plunder was facilitated by museum employees. Objects had vanished from a storage vault outside the museum to which museum officials had access. “It may turn out to be an inside job,” said one investigator. “Whoever did this seemed to know exactly what they were looking for.”

A full account of what is missing has yet to be given. Even so, officials concede that the losses may be less severe than at first thought, when talk of looters carting off thousands of ancient carvings and crushing pottery underfoot prompted international outrage at America’s failure to intervene.

Since then, indignation has been fuelled by suggestions that some of the thieves were directed by professional collectors abroad. Museums around the world have pledged not to trade in items that may have been stolen in Baghdad.

Suspicions about the involvement of staff with knowledge of the underground vaults are growing.

Stay tuned.

UPDATE: Roger Simon was ahead of the curve on this story!