In Baghdad, Iraq, on April 9, 2003, “A few hours after the statue [of Saddam] was toppled, looters arrived at the Ministry of Industry… No troops had been sent to protect it because no one in Washington saw the need. The looters set upon the ten-story building and stole computers, telephones, furniture, and file cabinets. Hard-core scavengers pulled out wiring and metal ducting from the walls, and two days later the building was torched. The scene was repeated all over Baghdad as American troops, without the orders or numbers to intervene, stood by as thieves raided ministries, hospitals, and even the National Museum of Antiquities… The only government building protected at the time–other than Saddam’s Republican Palace, the headquarters of the American occupation–was the Ministry of Oil, belying the claim in Washington that oil was not what the war was about.”
– Elizabeth Bumiller, Condoleezza Rice: An American Life, Page 213