Watched a BBC program late last night about this guy travelling through Iraq on the eve of the 2nd Gulf war and visiting all these archeological sites. Great program.

When he was in Mosul he went to visit the Commenwealth War Cemetery in that city. To his (and mine) horror there was nothing there! All the headstones had been smashed and thrown away. The big cross that is always there was smashed too. Aparantly by disgruntled iraqi's. A 'hermit' had build a dwelling out of several headstones, in a corner of the cemetery. Readable was the name of one 'Connor, Royal Artillery, died 1942'.

I had heard that the cemetery in Bagdad was in need of some repair and that the CWGC was looking into it, but the complete desecretion of this site was appaling!

__________________
"Facts are meaningless. You could use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true!" - Homer Simpson

Sad to hear this has happened...

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Morning folks, back again to confuse Ottos admin..

Anyone remember my passwords, anyone remember my login names, anyone remember my icons and medals.

Ah well start again, hey be scared, I work in IT...

Stevin, I mailed CWG way back this year and posted this up at time. They were going to keep me informed, might write em again shortly..

If anyone is interested:

Thank you for your e mail of 3 April 2003.

There are more than 54,000 Commonwealth war dead buried or commemorated at
13 locations in Iraq. The majority of these casualties occurred during the
Mesopotamian campaign against the Ottoman Turks in World War One.

Maintenance became difficult during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s but
continued until the onset of the Gulf War in 1990. Since 1996 Commission
staff have made a number of visits to Iraq and some renovation work was
possible before the resumption of bombing in 1998 brought further delays.
These and the effects of two wars and years of sanctions have left all of
the cemeteries in need of attention and although there has been considerable
damage to the fabric of the cemeteries, there has been no threat to the land
or disturbance of the burials.

Persistent visits by Commission staff since 1998 secured an agreement to
resume work in December 2001 and plans were laid for a rolling maintenance
programme with the full agreement and co-operation of the Iraqi authorities.
By the end of February this year the first phase of work had been completed
in the largest of the Commission's cemeteries in Iraq, Baghdad (North Gate)
War Cemetery, with the installation of a new perimeter fence and
construction of a caretaker/watchman's quarters. More than 500 new
headstones had also arrived in Baghdad in the first phase of a major
headstone replacement programme.
The current crisis has, of course, brought all work in Iraq to a halt.
However the Commission takes the long term view of the situation and
although we have suffered many setbacks, parallels can be drawn between the
current difficulties in Iraq and those faced in the Lebanon some years ago.
As a result of the long civil war Beirut War Cemetery became a wilderness
but it has now been fully restored by the Commission. The task is much
greater in Iraq because of the number and spread of the cemeteries but the
Commission wishes to reassure the public that when circumstances permit, it
will do everything in its power to restore the graves to a fitting standard.

Thank you for your interest in this matter.

Yours sincerely,

Julie Somay (Mrs)
Enquiries Section

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Prepare to repel borders.
William L. McGonagle, MOH, U. S. Navy, Commanding Officer, USS LIBERTY 1967.

Hi Urgh...

Guess we have to make you say 'Scheveningen' to make sure you are not an imposter (the Dutch resistance made "newcomers" into the organisation say this. Germans are not able to pronounce this word properly...)

Thanks for posting this again. I remembered there was a post about this some time ago, but when I saw that program about the complete and utter destruction of the Mosul cemetery, I just felt compelled to post.

Do keep us up to date, Urgh....Good to have you back!

__________________
"Facts are meaningless. You could use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true!" - Homer Simpson

Stevin was this the Cruikshank guy on BBC1, the archeogist who visited Isreal, Iraq, Afghanistan and finally last night Iraq again, flaming good television...

Started off with old Cruikshank a mild mannered Brit, cucumber sanwich and cricket type, who was bemused at what he saw and finally ending last night with an incredulous Cruikshank as angry as a stiff upper lip Brit could get over the Iraqi museum fiasco, as angry as the flaming good USA colonel who had had enough of the Iraqi museum people and sorted it all out himself..

His programe on Israel and Hebron was utterly depressing though.

__________________
Prepare to repel borders.
William L. McGonagle, MOH, U. S. Navy, Commanding Officer, USS LIBERTY 1967.

It was...This was the only one I have seen though. I love these programs. Also that series by ??? who follows the trail of Alexander.

Yes, this guy was very impressed with what he saw, as was I, yet he did have this underlying thing going that "we" were about to destroy it all in the next war. Like when he was at a site that was bombed by the americans in the 1st Gulf war, because the Iraqis had parked jets near it. When they showed the damage, which was unfortunate, but not devastating at all, he was kinda "damn the americans". Of course, the Iraqi's said they were never any planes even near the site. But when he was on top of the thing, he was only allowed to film to the south, otherwise the camera would film the military airfield which was purposely build there.....

I thought it was an interesting mix of enthousiasm for archeology, which I share, and a concern for times to come....

A very good program. I really enjoyed it. Said that I missed the other parts...

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"Facts are meaningless. You could use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true!" - Homer Simpson

He did opposite last night, he praised the USA troops who were critisised for not protecting the museum by the media, once on the site he could see for himself that the stories were unfounded and critisised the museum staff for allowing the place to be used as a defence position even slating the museum director as a Bhaist who orginsed the setting up of military positions around museum, he had nothing but praise for USA forces that were considerate in not destroying the place even though rpg rockets galore fired from the place.

The yank officer presently in charge of museum security, was fantastic once he realised the Iraqi staff were not going to be helpful, and it seems down to him and Cruikshank himself that the majority of the artifacts were found before they could be secreted off.

Cruikshank blundered into a conference room in the hotel he stayed at before the war, and blimey if it was not the room Sadman was in in the famous tv reel during war with Udi and brother on his left, room not changed, meal still waiting to be eaten, amazing stuff, not shown elswehere.

Cruikshank Im afriad is damned though no matter what he does, I know he was critisised by US for the aircraft parking story etc, and damned by Isreal for showing the ruins of Hebron even though no spokesman would speak to him, and damned by the Iraqis for the museum piece last night and the wsw sociaist movement who didnt like him getting to the truth of the Museum stories that in fact showed up our Yank cousins to have done their best in saving the artifacts etc. Good series try to watch the repeats, they were all pretty good.

__________________
Prepare to repel borders.
William L. McGonagle, MOH, U. S. Navy, Commanding Officer, USS LIBERTY 1967.