Iraq’s cultural and historical losses from US-led invasion in 2003

The 2003 invasion of Iraq by the US-led coalition of Western states not only destroyed the country’s statehood and its military, economic and social foundations, but also severely damaged its cultural and historical heritage. According to Saad Eskander, Director General of Iraq’s National Library and Archive, Iraq’s cultural and intellectual losses during the war were “a national disaster beyond imagination.”[1]

When US troops occupied Bagdad on April 9, 2003, the city was plundered and looted. Even the capital’s main landmarks were not spared. The most damage was done to the collections of the State Board of Antiquities and Heritage, the Iraq Museum, the Iraq National Library, the Triumph Leader Museum of state gifts presented to Saddam Hussein, and other important facilities.

There is a record of numerous attempts by the US military to smuggle antiquities out of the country. Many artefacts taken out Iraq during the occupation period were stolen by coalition officers and privates, including at the request of concerned US agencies and private collectors.

The damage done to the Iraq Museum in 2003 is incalculable. Its records, which were not ideal before the war, were partially destroyed and damaged by looters. It is believed that some 15,000 exhibits are missing. Fewer than 6,000 of them have been recovered so far, and they are far from the most valuable items, judging by the exhibition held in 2021. The process of restitution is not over, but it turned out that not all the items restored to Iraq’s main museum were stolen in 2003. Many of them were taken out of the country under different circumstances much later.

One of the most important institutions that was decimated was the House of Wisdom, the famous library and academic centre, which contained the archaeological evidence of the Abbasid era that remained after the Mongols pillaged the city in 1258.

The greatest tragedy befell Iraq National Library and Archive, which was not just looted but deliberately destroyed. Some of the stolen documents were later offered for ransom, but the new government refused to pay the extorters. Many manuscripts were deliberately destroyed with white phosphorus and powerful water cannons.

After a visit by the American GIs, the library and archives were looted by local residents, because the occupiers neglected their duty to safeguard Iraq’s cultural heritage. Thankfully, the staff managed to weld the steel door to the library, which is why books suffered less damage than archival documents. Overall, losses amounted to 25 percent of the books, including rare books, and 60 percent of archival documents, including part of the documents from the Ottoman and Hashemite periods, as well as all the library holdings from the Republican period.

In April 2003, the American forces overcame the resistance of the Iraqi army in Nasiriyah, a large city in southern Iraq. Marines occupied the Nasiriyah Museum, which safeguarded artifacts from seven human civilisations and was the seat of the regional archaeological inspectorate. After the Americans left, the museum staff found that many exhibits were missing.

The most direct damage from the presence of Western troops was reported in Babylon, one of Iraq’s most archaeologically important ancient cities. The invaders destroyed several archaeological landmarks and removed some of them to build a large helipad in the city. To protect the air base, the US military filled many containers with archaeological soil, thereby violating the integrity of archaeological landmarks. Archaeologists, museum staff and cultural heritage specialists from several countries did their best to draw the attention of the miliary command and the public to that problem, but the helipad was only dismantled after the US troops pulled out.

During the expansion of the Tallil Air Base near Nasiriyah in 2004-2005, the coalition forces destroyed (levelled to the ground) the ancient town of Eridu 13 dating back to the early second millennium BC.

The history of the post-war reconstruction of the premises and collections of Iraqi cultural and historical institutions abounds in examples of heroism on the part of local staff who risked their lives daily trying to salvage whatever was left. Some of them were killed or kidnapped at different times.

According to John Russell who served in 2003-2004 as an advisor to the Iraqi Ministry of Culture with the Coalition Provisional Authority (occupation administration) in Iraq, tens of thousands of antiquities from Iraq were openly sold on the US market, and the law enforcement authorities have never once shown any interest in it.

The plunder of archaeological sites, as well as the looting of artifacts from museums and libraries are serious crimes committed by the local population. The country’s historical memory was damaged irretrievably, and the blame for that lies entirely with the occupying authorities. Even though most of the perpetrators were Iraqi citizens, it was the coalition forces’ irresponsibility and the Westerners’ indiscriminate actions that made this possible and created a market for the stolen antiquities. During that period, there was virtually no legal prosecution or moral condemnation for buying antiquities with fake or missing export licenses. The United States and its allies are also responsible for the desperate poverty of the local population and the ineffectiveness of the newly minted law enforcement authorities in Iraq at the time.

A truly monstrous, unprecedented wave of looting swept the country when the war was unleashed in 2003. The invasion by coalition forces disrupted Iraq's economic mechanisms. As a result, disadvantaged peasants joined forces with the profit-seekers and the poorest citizens. The old government that used to buy their crops no longer existed. The occupation authorities had no interest in procurement. Iraqis employed in agriculture lost their livelihoods. Also, looters often included local workers from pre-war archaeological excavations, both foreign and Iraqi nationals.

Today, there are hundreds of ancient cities and towns in Iraq that have been raided by looters. What is left of huge cities that took up hundreds of hectares, is now cratered by thousands of illegal excavations. Part of the sites have been destroyed to the point of making any serious archaeological research no longer possible. According to one report, of the 1,457 landmarks in southern Iraq (from small villages to the largest ancient cities), 597 had been plundered to varying degrees by the end of 2003. At some of the sites, illegal excavations continue to this day. It is noteworthy that even today, with the windfall profits from oil exports, Iraq is still not in a position to organise the full-fledged protection and subsequent restoration of all its heritage sites, which are often located far from major cities. Protecting and studying this heritage (whatever is not yet destroyed) requires the coordinated efforts of the international community.

The US military intervention in 2003 unleashed the chain of cause and effect that ultimately led to the atrocities committed by ISIS in Iraq after 2014. To this day, local and foreign researchers are unable to even roughly estimate the damage the terrorists did to the country’s cultural and historical heritage.