March 19, 2008—A curator checks artifacts at the Iraq National Museum in Baghdad on March 17, 2008.
Today, the fifth anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, the museum is still struggling to rebuild its vast collections after being looted in 2003.
But even once the latest round of renovations is complete in a few months, officials say the museum will still be too wrecked to reopen, the Associated Press reported.
''We are not planning to open,'' Bahaa Mayah, adviser to Iraq's Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, said at an international conference in Athens, Greece.