Iraq's Insurgency, Funded by Treasure

April 11, 2006 — -- The financing behind the violence that continues to disrupt Iraq may have an unlikely source: ancient treasure.

"The people that are murdering men, women and children in the streets are getting some of their funds from the current trade in antiquities," said Marine Col. Matthew Bogdanos. "In Afghanistan the Taliban are using opium to support their activities. The cash crop in Iraq is not opium, it's antiquities."

Bogdanos, who's been labeled the "Indiana Jones" of Baghdad, was conducting counter-terror actions in southern Iraq in April 2003 when he heard from news reports that 170,000 artifacts had been stolen from the Iraq Museum while U.S. troops stood by idly.

Bogdanos, who has a master's degree in classics from Columbia University, decided to do something about it.

"I heard the same reports you did and I was outraged," he said. "I'm with Voltaire on this one: Every man is guilty of the good he doesn't do."

The initial reports turned out to be inaccurate -- in fact, far fewer items were stolen. But still, Bogdanos had a mission. From among his team of about 100, he assembled a group of law enforcement investigators and New York City police officers and set off after Iraq's stolen treasures.

When he arrived at the Iraq Museum he began to investigate what had happened, and found some disturbing evidence -- a hole in the side of the Children's Museum from what appeared to be the shell of an American tank.

He learned Iraq's Special Republican Guard had been using the museum as a firing position, and in fact, the U.S. forces had fired only in defense.

"This is war; this is combat," Bogdanos said. "The tank commander, ironically who was a former high school history teacher, had the moral courage to tell his troops, his tank battalion, to pull back because he was concerned that any additional fighting in the vicinity of the museum would actually destroy the museum."

But the good intentions backfired -- in the wake of the army's withdrawal, the looters moved in.