Last Thursday, American authorities in Baghdad put objects from the Iraq National Museum on display. But only for two hours. “As propaganda stunts go it was not very successful. American archaeologists immediately accused the authorities of putting at risk the fragile 3,000-year-old golden ornaments by rushing them from the vaults of the Central Bank and back again to show that the looting of the museum had not been as bad as first claimed. ‘I think it is an act of propaganda. It is to show that nothing really happened to the museum. No curator in the world would allow this sort of exhibition unless ordered to do so’.”