Embassy of Iraq - Press Release - Clarification on Missing Iraqi Artifacts

Another Example of how Iraq is treated as a source of income by this government, No wonder that they are refusing to hand power to the winners of the election.in simple terms the embassy in Washington sent the recovered artifacts to the Prime Minister office in Baghdad through the US Army and all the documents are available that support that, but since it arrived their no one is able to find it. Also I can see that choosing Friday for a press release is pretty good as it get lost in the news and disappear by Monday. 

The Press Release 

The Embassy of the Republic of Iraq in Washington, D.C. would like to clarify Ambassador Samir S. Sumaida’ie’s remarks in Baghdad on September 7th, 2010 regarding 632 pieces of antiquities plus a Bronze figurine stolen from the Museum of Kirkuk in 1991, which are currently missing. These artifacts were retrieved by the U.S. authorities and handed over to the Embassy of Iraq in Washington, D.C.  At the time, the embassy encountered difficulties in finding a carrier willing to transport the artifacts to Iraq and insure them.  Anxious to repatriate this collection as early as possible, the Ambassador asked General David Petraeus, the then Commander of American Forces in Iraq, to transport them to Iraq in a military plane. Gen. Petraeus generously agreed to provide the use of a U.S. military aircraft to safely transport the pieces. The general’s staff took custody of them from the Embassy on December 22, 2008.   Over the following weeks, his staff informed us that they had handed all the pieces, boxed for shipping in 14 small size boxes, to the staff of the Office of the Prime Minister.  We, in turn, passed copies of all correspondence to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for follow-up.  For a detailed description of the items, please see the list of antiquities in question on the following link: https://www.iraqiembassy.us/IraqiAntiquitiesEN.htmThe Embassy of the Republic of Iraq in Washington, D.C. would like to reiterate its unflagging commitment to retrieving looted Iraqi antiquities and that it will spare no effort to that end. Our endeavor was successful thanks to the steadfast support and the unparalleled vigilance of the United States authorities. The statement made by Ambassador Samir S. Sumaida’ie, “We asked the US military to move it to Iraq. When the pieces arrived in Iraq, they were delivered to the office of the prime minister and now we are trying to find them,” was taken out of context and interpreted in a manner that is inaccurate. The Ambassador merely sought to highlight the fact that a large number of invaluable items of Iraqi heritage were missing so that they may be traced and returned to the National Museum of Baghdad