Of the some 14,000 artifacts stolen in Iraq, only about 5,500 have been recovered. “US military sources say forces in Iraq have no systematic way of investigating the missing objects, and in the ongoing insurgency neither US or Iraqi forces can justify using scarce manpower to guard sites in the countryside, where widespread looting has continued since the March 2003 US invasion. Law enforcement organizations worldwide are chasing the lost items, but their representatives said there is no systematic coordination, and they are relying on a shifting set of ad hoc partnerships to bring the thieves to account.”