Bush Cultural Advisers Quit Over Iraq Museum Theft

The head of a U.S. presidential panel on cultural property has resigned in protest at the failure of U.S. forces to prevent the wholesale looting of priceless treasures from Baghdad's antiquities museum.

"It didn't have to happen," Martin Sullivan said of the objects that were destroyed or stolen from the Iraqi National Museum in a wave of looting that erupted as U.S.-led forces ended President Saddam Hussein's rule last week.

The US assigned a company of troops to guard the Iraq oil ministry, the only ministry or Iraqi government property gaurded except for areas there were being used as staging or command areas.