This Would Never Happen at MoMA

Matthew Bogdanos is a colonel in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve who is hunting down the approximately 15,000 artifacts that went missing from the Iraq Museum after Saddam fell and working to ensure that the heritage of that country — the heritage of civilization, really, since the first literate people lived here in the 4th millennium B.C. — isn't further pillaged. (He has written a book about his venture titled Thieves of Baghdad.) We spoke with him recently about where his mission stands, and two points, in particular, caught our attention:

Random looting is less of a concern, Colonel Bogdanos said, than a breach from the inside similar to what happened in Russia after the Iron Curtain fell. He stressed that he has no evidence that museum staff or government officials are lifting artifacts from the museum in Baghdad, but that it is the greater threat from the perspective of a law enforcement analyst. (The Art Newspaper recently reported that the museum had reopened to staff.) The inventory conducted by Russia and released in July, which found 160,000 objects missing from the country's museums, ought to serve as warning of what happens when museum security is shoddy and political turmoil leaves cultural institutions to fend for themselves. Which brings us to our next point:

Colonel Bogdanos said that the international community has, with certain exceptions, been outrageous in its lack of support. "I consider UNESCO to be one of the biggest disappointments of my adult life."

UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, claims on its website to "[seek] to encourage the identification, protection and preservation of cultural and natural heritage around the world considered to be of outstanding value to humanity."

UNESCO's side of the story to come.