No, the people who took them knew exactly what they were going for. Perhaps they had people working on the inside, because the vault door was opened by key not by violence.
I expect alot of the artifacts will be appearing on the antiquities black market very soon.
A long with all the infrastructure installations, the museums should have been secured by Coalition forces. They dropped the ball, unfortunately.
the artifacts are not "gone", the artifacts belonged to the iraq people , and thats who took them, if you would like them back in the museum, ask the iraqis to put them back.
Nope. They will be sold on the antiquities market and be in rich collectors private vaults OUTSIDE Iraq faster than you can say 'chaos'. Don't kid yourself about it being archaological socialism. Those pieces deserve to be in museums so all Iraqis can enjoy them, not just rich, unscrupulous Westerners.