Cultural Cleansing in Iraq: Why Museums Were Looted, Libraries Burned and Academics Murdered

Why did the invasion of Iraq result in cultural destruction and the killing of intellectuals? Conventional wisdom portrays these events as the result of poor planning and accidents of war in a campaign to liberate Iraqis. However, the authors of this book argue that the reality is very different.

The authors reveal that the invasion aimed to dismantle the Iraqi state in order to remake it as a client regime. The post-invasion chaos was not an accident but a deliberate aim of the invasion, creating conditions under which the cultural foundations of the state could be undermined. The authors painstakingly account for the willful inaction of the occupying forces, which led to the ravaging of one of the world's oldest recorded cultures. In addition to the destruction of unprotected museums and libraries, they document the targeted assassination of over 400 academics widespread kidnapping and the forced flight of thousands of doctors, lawyers, artists and other intellectuals. All in all, they show that Iraq suffered a comprehensive cultural cleansing which was part of a deliberate attempt to weaken and ultimately to end the Iraqi state.

This important work lays to rest claims that the invasion aimed to free an educated population to develop its own culture of democracy.