As time goes on, it’s looking more and more like claims of the loss of Iraq’s cultural heritage in looting were as overblown as the Jenin “massacre” over a year ago.

…While many museum officials watched in horror as mobs and perhaps organized gangs rampaged through the museum’s 18 galleries, seized objects on display, tore open steel cases, smashed statues and broke into storage vaults, officials now discount the first reports that the museum’s entire collection of 170,000 objects had been lost…

…Col. Matthew F. Bogdanos, a Marine reservist who is investigating the looting and is stationed at the museum, said museum officials had given him a list of 29 artifacts that were definitely missing. But since then, 4 items ? ivory objects from the eighth century B.C. ? had been traced.

“Twenty-five pieces is not the same as 170,000,” said Colonel Bogdanos, who in civilian life is an assistant Manhattan district attorney…