I still find it hard to understand why America was blamed when the museums were looted after the invasion of Iraq. No matter what level of catastrophe happens here, our first thought is never "let's go loot the museums."  In Iraq, we have looting and re-looting. And now looting by members of the top levels of government without any concern or sense of responsibility to the past or to future generations. NYTimes:

BAGHDAD - Iraq announced on Tuesday the return of hundreds of looted antiquities that had ended up in the United States, even as a senior official disclosed that 632 pieces repatriated last year and turned over to the office of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki were now unaccounted for.

The latest trove reflects not only a history dating from the world's oldest civilizations but also a more recent and tortured history of war, looting and international smuggling that began under Saddam Hussein, accelerated after the American occupation and continues at archaeological sites to this day.

The returned items include a 4,400-year-old statue of King Entemena of Lagash looted from the National Museum here after the American invasion in 2003; an even older pair of gold earrings from Nimrud stolen in the 1990s and seized before an auction at Christie's in New York last December; and 362 cuneiform clay tablets smuggled out of Iraq that were seized by the American authorities in 2001 and were being stored in the World Trade Center when it was destroyed.

There was also a more recent relic: a chrome-plated AK-47 with a pearl grip and an engraving of Mr. Hussein, taken by an American soldier as booty and displayed at Fort Lewis, Wash. Kitsch, certainly, but priceless in its own way.

While Iraqi officials celebrated the repatriation of what they called invaluable relics - "the return of Iraq's heritage to our house," as the state minister of tourism and antiquities, Qahtan al-Jibouri, put it - the fate of those previously returned raised questions about the country's readiness to preserve and protect its own treasures.

Appearing at a ceremony displaying the artifacts at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Iraq's ambassador to the United States, Samir Sumaidaie, pointedly said a previous shipment of antiquities had been returned to Iraq last year aboard an American military aircraft authorized by Gen. David H. Petraeus, only to end up missing.

"They went to the prime minister's office, and that was the last time they were seen," said Mr. Sumaidaie, who has worked fervently with American law enforcement officials in recent years to track down loot that had found its way into the United States.

It was not immediately clear what happened, and Mr. Sumaidaie said he had tried and failed to find out. He did not directly accuse Mr. Maliki's government of malfeasance, but he expressed frustration that the efforts to repatriate works of art and antiquities had resulted in such confusion and mystery.

Ali al-Mousawi, a government spokesman, demanded that the American government account for the artifacts since an American military aircraft delivered them. "We didn't receive anything," he said in a telephone interview.

Mr. Jibouri, one of Mr. Maliki's advisers, said that if the relics were not somewhere in the prime minister's custody, then they would probably be with the Ministry of Culture, which oversees the country's museums. Its spokesman declined to comment....