Iraq’s lost treasures

CHRISTOPHER Knight’s commentary (“A Cultural Casualty of War,” April 18) illuminates the fact that the civilian casualties in Iraq are not only the shattered bodies and lives of its people. The juggernaut launched by the war planners provided technological oversight for the physical structures of the city. If the war planners were able to sufficiently calibrate their bombing to avoid the museums, the library and the hospitals, how can it be, then, that they gave no thought to protecting these very institutions, post-bombing?

Knowing that the treasures of their museum and library had been honored and protected would have been a profound healing balm for the torn spirits of the Iraqi nation. These treasures would have been something with which the whole world could have joined in spirit with a new Iraq.

Will there be an investigation or will these losses be viewed as nothing more than collateral damage?

Elaine Madsen

Van Nuys

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I really have to protest Christopher Knight’s comments regarding the Iraqi National Museum looting. In the midst of the chaos of the war, how unreasonable is it to expect the military to guard Iraqi treasures against Iraqi looters?

I can hardly wait to hear all the rest of the “experts” who will now come out of hiding with their 20-20 hindsight.

Joyce White

Simi Valley