Journalists visit an empty gallery at the Iraq National Museum in Baghdad on February 3, 2004.

About 15,000 artifacts have been stolen from the museum since the U.S-led invasion in 2003. During the early days of the war, museum staff removed many of the artifacts from their displays and stored them in vaults to protect against bombings.

As of 2006 about 5,000 items have been recovered, including 1,000 found in the U.S., 700 from Jordan, 500 from France, and 250 from Switzerland, according to the news agency AFP.

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