LONDON, April 15 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - As Iraqis accused U.S. forces of standing witness to the ransacking of their country’s national museum, the British Museum Tuesday, April 15, urged a swift action to rescue the Arab country's ancient treasures and expressed readiness to send a team of conservation experts to Iraq.

"Although we still await precise information, it is clear that a catastrophe has befallen the cultural heritage of Iraq," said Neil MacGregor, director of the world-famous British Museum.

"We hope that the British government and the international community can move quickly to take the steps necessary to avoid further damage and to prepare the way for recovering objects looted, and for conserving those that can still be restored."

Top officials from the British Museum are to attend a meeting of the Paris-based U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) this Thursday to discuss restoration plans, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

"There will be a large conservation task to be done, extending over many years and requiring the widest possible international cooperation," MacGregor said.

"We hope that, under the aegis of UNESCO, an international team of expert curators and conservators, experienced in handling antiquities of this sort, can be put together, so that they can provide the help our Iraqi colleagues decide they need once civil order is restored."

The British Museum boasts the greatest collection of Mesopotamian antiquities outside Iraq.

A spokesman for the museum confirmed that the institution was keen to send out conservators and archaeologists as soon it is safe to do so.

Looters in Baghdad have taken some 170,000 items of antiquity, dating back thousands of years, from the Iraqi capital's main museum.

Another museum in Mosul, in northern Iraq, has also been stripped and its Islamic library, housing one of the oldest surviving copies of the Koran, ravaged by fire.

Iraq, known in ancient times as Mesopotamia, is considered the "cradle of civilization", with thousands of archaeological sites dating back up to 10,000 years.

"The U.S. tanks were standing in front of the main gate of the Iraq National Museum when the looters broke in from a gate a few yards away. They did not do anything," charged Muayyed Said al-Damergi, an archaeology professor at Baghdad University.

"We went up to the soldiers manning the first tank for help and they told us that hey had no instructions to interfere," Damergi said Tuesday.

Iraq's National Museum suffered massive looting after U.S. troops entered Baghdad last Wednesday, April 9.

Damergi said that among the artifacts stolen from Iraq's largest archeological museum was the famous 4,000-year-old Sumerian silver "harp from Ur, the Sumerian vase from Uruk and the Akkadian bronze statue of Basitki."

He asserted that looters stormed every single room, even into the storage basements and they smashed whatever was too big to take.

The former Iraqi official appealed to the UNESCO "to save our archaeological wealth and our museums.

"This is their obligation in line with the Hague conventions to protect antiquities during conflicts."

Jaber Khalil Ibrahim, head of the General Directorate of Antiquities in Iraq, said that he had been promised protection from U.S. officers whom he had visited at their headquarters at the Palestine Hotel in central Baghdad.

"For three days now, nothing has happened. They promised to send tanks and troops and we are still waiting. The museum could still be looted," he lamented.

Ibrahim scoffed at Monday's pledge by U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell that the United States would take a "leading role" in protecting artifacts, repair damage to the looted museum and collaborate with the U.N., European Union and Interpol to prevent stolen objects from being smuggled out of the country.

"We had asked for protection even before the war broke out on March 20. But it is very significant that U.S. tanks only rolled fast to protect the ministry of oil and the oil fields. They want oil and they want to steal our art."

Donny George, the director of research and studies at the directorate, charged that the looting of the museum had been carried out by professionals, offering glass cutters as proof.

"Look, these are only used by professionals. It shows that the mob that vandalized the museum was an organized cover-up operation for selective thefts by professionals who were with them," he charged.

"The looters did not even touch two gypsum copies of famous artifacts which are on display in world museums. They only took real artifacts," he said.

UNESCO chief Koichiro Matsuura renewed Tuesday his call for the protection of Iraqi museums, libraries and other cultural sites.

"Libraries, archives and manuscripts must be preserved as essential parts of the rich heritage of Iraq," Matssura said.