Worldandnation: Only 33 items lost, museum now confirms

BAGHDAD, Iraq - In the days after Baghdad fell, Iraq's National Museum of Antiquities was looted, but its Iraqi directors confirmed Sunday that the losses at the institute did not number 170,000 artifacts as originally reported in news accounts.

Actually, about 33 priceless vases, statues and jewels were missing.

"I said there were 170,000 pieces in the entire museum collection," said Donny George as he stood with beads of sweat glistening on his forehead in his barren office at the museum. "Not 170,000 pieces stolen." George is the director general of research and study of the Iraqi State Board of Antiquities and the source for the original number.

On Saturday, a team of U.S. investigators from the Customs Service and State Department released a summary of a preliminary report that concluded that 3,000 pieces were missing. And more important, of the 8,000 or so exhibit-quality, world-class pieces of jewelry, statues and cuneiform clay tablets, only 47 are unaccounted for.

Sunday, Iraqi officials at the museum confirmed the U.S. numbers, with a slight adjustment.

"There are only 33 pieces from the main collections that are unaccounted for," George said. "Not 47. Some more pieces have been returned." Museum staff members had taken home some of the more valuable items and are now returning them.

Also . . .

MISSING KUWAITI'S BODY FOUND: The remains of a Kuwaiti man missing since Iraq's occupation of Kuwait 12 years ago have been discovered at a mass grave near the southern Iraqi city of Samawah, officials said Sunday.

HANDLING OF REMAINS QUESTIONED: U.S. officials on Sunday defended the slow process of identifying Iraqi soldiers killed during the U.S.-led invasion after an Iraqi official in the Health Ministry complained the United States isn't doing enough to arrange burials.

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