In the months leading up to the war in Iraq, US scholars repeatedly urged the Defence Department to protect Iraq's priceless archaeological heritage from looters, and warned specifically that the National Museum of Antiquities was the single most important site in the country.

Late in January, a mix of scholars, museum directors, art collectors and antiquities dealers asked for and were granted a meeting at the Pentagon to discuss their misgivings.

McGuire Gibson, an Iraq specialist at the University of Chicago's Oriental Institute, said on Sunday that he went back twice more, and he and colleagues peppered Defence Department officials with email reminders in the weeks before the war began.

"I thought I was given assurances that sites and museums would be protected," Dr Gibson said. Instead, even with US forces firmly in control of Baghdad last week, looters breached the museum, trashed its galleries, burnt its records, invaded its vaults and smashed or carried off thousands of artefacts dating from the founding of ancient Sumer around 3500 BC to the end of Islam's Abbasid Caliphate in 1258AD.

Asked on Sunday about the looting of the museum, US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld blamed the chaos that ensues "when you go from a dictatorship" to a new order.

Iraq also has 13 regional museums at risk, including another world-renowned facility in the northern city of Mosul, as well as thousands of archaeological sites, ranging from the fabled ancient cities of Ur, Nineveh, Nimrud and Babylon to medieval Muslim villages abandoned in the country's vast western reaches.

"To the extent possible, and as soon as though it were yesterday, someone needs to post border guards to intercept antiquities as they try to leave the country," said archaeologist and art historian John Russell, of the Massachusetts College of Art.

In January, a statement from the Archaeological Institute of America called on "all governments" to protect cultural sites during an expected conflict and in its aftermath. Dr Gibson and others said they were especially concerned because of the example of the 1991 Gulf War.

Allied forces scrupulously avoided targeting Iraqi cultural sites during the bombing of Baghdad 12 years ago.

But the end of that war kicked off a looting rampage, and eventually allowed systematic smuggling to develop. Artefacts from inadequately guarded sites were dug up and hauled away during the 12 years between the wars. "We wanted to make sure this didn't happen again," Dr Gibson said.

"They said they would be very aware and would try to protect the artefacts," Dr Gibson said, recalling January meetings with Pentagon officials charged with target selection and the protection of cultural sites.

Pentagon officials knowledgeable about those meetings referred questions to the public affairs office, which said the military had tried to protect the sites.

Since the 1920s, Iraq has required that anyone digging within its borders file a report with the museum. More recently, expeditions had to submit excavated material to the museum for cataloguing after each year's digging season.

Looters apparently burnt or otherwise destroyed most of those records last week, but Dr Gibson suggested scholars worldwide could duplicate the archive by copying their files and reports and resubmitting them to Iraqi authorities.

The museum's artefacts are another matter. Although the damage done is almost certainly catastrophic, Dr Russell said: "It's going to be a matter of weeks or months before we're going to be able to identify any particular thing". The cultural heritage of Iraq, the home of ancient Mesopotamia, encompasses the Sumerians, Akkadians, Babylonians, Assyrians, Chaldeans, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Parthians, Sassanids and Muslims, to name only the best-known civilisations.

* U.S. Marines backed by tanks seize Tikrit, effectively
sealing U.S., British victory in the Iraq war
* Rumsfeld says Syria carried out chemical weapons tests in
last 12-15 months, let Iraqis enter its territory; Powell says
U.S. will examine possible diplomatic, economic or other
measures against Syria; White House calls Syria "a rogue nation"
* Syria denies it has chemical weapons, says it never
cooperated with Saddam's administration
* Iraq's main Shi'ite opposition group says will boycott
U.S.-sponsored meeting Tuesday to map country's political future
* Saudi Arabia plans first regional emergency meeting on
Iraq since war began

QUOTES
Rumsfeld: "I would say that we have seen chemical weapons
tests in Syria over the past 12, 15 months."
Powell: "With respect to Syria, of course we will examine
possible measures of a diplomatic, economic or other nature as
we move forward."
Syrian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman: "Syria has no chemical
weapons and that the only chemical, biological and nuclear
weapons in the region are in Israel, which is threatening its
neighbours and occupying their land."

EVENTS (TIMES IN GMT)
Tuesday -
* Straw visits Qatar, Saudi Arabia
* U.S. convenes meeting of Iraqis in Nassiriya to discuss a
postwar administration in Iraq
* Schroeder, Blair meet in Hanover

Wednesday/Thursday -
* Annan attends EU leaders' meeting in Athens, to meet
Blair, Chirac, Schroeder

CASUALTIES
* U.S. - 119 killed, 4 missing
* Britain - 30 killed
* Iraqi military - more than 2,320, according to U.S.
military. Iraq has given no figures for its military losses
* Iraqi civilians (Iraqi estimates up to April 3) - 1,254
killed, 5,112 wounded

MILITARY ACTION
NORTHERN IRAQ - U.S. Marines backed by tanks and helicopters
enter Saddam's final stronghold, seizing control of his home
town Tikrit.
BAGHDAD - U.S. Marines exchange fire with snipers near the
Palestine Hotel for several minutes, capture three men. U.S.
troops set up round-the-clock patrols in some quarters; More
than 2,000 Iraqi policemen report back to work.
CENTRAL IRAQ - Aides to Iraq's top Shi'ite Muslim cleric,
Ayatollah Sistani, say armed siege of his home has ended and
tribal leaders in control of the city.
SOUTHERN IRAQ - British military has moved to policy of zero
tolerance on looting in Basra. U.S. spokesman says British
forces have taken over from U.S. 1st Marine Division at Amarah,
extending area of British control from Basra.
GULF - U.S. carriers USS Kitty Hawk, USS Constellation have
received orders to leave the Gulf in coming days, Navy officials
say. That will leave three carriers in waters near Iraq.