Ghost of a flea

Iraq museum investigation

The International Herald Tribune reports on tea-consumption in the recovery efforts of investigators working on the Great Baghdad Museum Heist of 2003. It looks like the Americans have the right man on the job. Colonel Bogdanos is movie-of-the-week material:

That leaves just over 10,000 items known to be missing from the museum, Colonel Matthew Bogdanos said at the Pentagon. He was explaining the near-final findings of a five-month investigation by a 13-member team from 10 U.S. agencies, aided by foreign investigators and private art specialists.

Bogdanos, a former New York homicide prosecutor with a graduate degree in classical studies from Columbia University, confirmed much of what has come out since the original, highly exaggerated, reports that more than 170,000 artifacts had been stolen.