Insty and others tell us that the Iraq museum looting was way overstated.

This LAT article says:

Galvanized by the ransacking of Iraq's National Museum, computer scientists, archeologists and art historians at UC Berkeley are hatching a plan to help the museum - and the war-scarred nation - resurrect at least some of what was lost.

The project, still in the planning stages, would use computers to recreate the museum's smashed or stolen vases, statues and cuneiform tablets from archived photos and historical records...

At least 38 of the national museum's major treasures are known to be missing, along with thousands of smaller, less valuable pieces. The facility is said to be so badly vandalized that it may take months or even years to figure out just what else was lost.

Their web site is at www.ecai.org/iraq

I reporteth, you decideth.