Who will be blamed for allowing the looting of Iraq’s museums? “Many Iraqis already believe that allied forces targeted ancient sites during the first Gulf War out of malice; this new destruction of Iraq’s cultural heritage may soon be attributed not to Iraqi criminals but to coalition intentions. In this war US commanders were already provided with a list of the most important of an estimated 10,000 ancient sites in Iraq. The Americans claim that they took great care to avoid hitting these but say that Saddam Hussein deliberately sited many of his defences near such places to give them cover.”