TY  - BOOK
AU  - Baker,Raymond William
AU  - Ismael,Shereen T.
AU  - Ismael,Tareq Y.
TI  - Cultural cleansing in Iraq: why museums were looted, libraries burned and academics murdered 
SN  - 9780745328126 (pbk.)
U1  - 363.6909567 22
PY  - 2010///
CY  - London, New York
PB  - Pluto Press
KW  - Iraq War, 2003-2011
KW  - Destruction and pillage
KW  - BUEsh
KW  - Cultural property
KW  - Protection
KW  - Iraq
KW  - Intellectual life
KW  - MASPPSS
KW  - September2019
N1  - Includes bibliographical references and index
N2  - Why did the invasion of Iraq result in cultural destruction and killings of intellectuals? Convention sees accidents of war and poor planning in a campaign to liberate Iraqis. The authors argue instead that the invasion aimed to dismantle the Iraqi state to remake it as a client regime. Post-invasion chaos created conditions under which the cultural foundations of the state could be undermined. The authors painstakingly document the consequences of the occupiers' willful inaction and worse, which led to the ravaging of one of the world's oldest recorded cultures. Targeted assassination of over 400 academics, kidnapping and the forced flight of thousands of doctors, lawyers, artists and other intellectuals add up to cultural cleansing. This important work lays to rest claims that the invasion aimed to free an educated population to develop its own culture of democracy.
ER  -