FBI sends agents to recover looted treasures of Baghdad

The FBI has sent a team of agents to Baghdad to help find artefacts stolen from the city's museums after US troops came under intense criticism for failing to prevent widespread looting.

Though the US media has shown limited interest in a cultural disaster with few precedents, two outside advisers to the White House have resigned in outrage. "It didn't have to happen," said Martin Sullivan, who was chairman of the President's Advisory Committee on Cultural Property for eight years. "In a pre-emptive war that's the kind of thing you should have planned for."

His fellow panel member Gary Vikan, who also quit, commented bitterly that, "we certainly know the value of oil, but certainly don't know the value of historical artefacts".

The vandalism and wholesale destruction seemed to be a complete surprise to planners of the invasion, even though some historians and experts say they were assured months ago by the Pentagon that, in the event of war, cultural sites would be protected.

Donald Rumsfeld, the Defence Secretary, has sounded notably unmoved, suggesting that, while the looting was regrettable, it was a normal consequence of war. "It happens and it's unfortunate," he said this week, adding that the US would offer rewards to people who brought items back or helped in their recovery.

More than two dozen FBI agents are in Iraq to search for treasures looted from Baghdad's antiquities musuem and national library. Interpol is also sending a team, while Unesco, the United Nations cultural organisation based in Paris, is sending specialists to assess damage.

At Unesco, however, the suspicion is growing that the looting was more than spontaneous revenge by Iraqis to show their hatred of a defeated regime by ransacking every public building in sight.

Participants at a Unesco meeting on Thursday suggested the pillaging had been carefully organised. Some of the looters had keys to vaults and safes, and some items are already said to have turned up on the international art black market.