Workers move a ladder past exhibits inside the Iraq National Museum in this December 17, 2007, photograph.

In addition to missing artifacts taken by looters after the U.S.-led invasion, the museum has no security or fire prevention systems and electricity is unreliable.

''It's very … painful to see inside the museum,'' Iraq's Tourism and Antiquities Adviser Bahaa Mayah told the Associated Press.

''We lack everything. There is a [just] building. But the building is not equipped, it's not ready.''

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