Iraqi Museum Sealed Against Looters

George said he acted on his own when he ordered the doors sealed this summer, after government officials did not immediately respond to his request for permission. "It was the only way to guarantee the museum's safety," George told the Art Newspaper. Colleagues say he has moved with his family to Syria.

George did not immediately respond to an e-mail request late Saturday for comment. The culture minister, a Sunni Muslim, could not be reached for comment Saturday, which is not a government workday in Iraq.

Culture Ministry officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they said they were not authorized to comment, confirmed that Haider Farhan, a member of a Shiite religious party, has become the acting head of the State Board of Antiquities and Heritage since George's departure. George told the Art Newspaper that Farhan had no relevant experience for the job. A Culture Ministry official questioned that judgment, saying Harhan was a young official in the department with a master's degree in Islamic manuscripts.

"If they are now going to be projecting an Islamic line, let them do it," Gibson said from Chicago. "They shouldn't be damaging pre-Islamic ones in that effort."

"The destruction that's already gone on in looting since 2003 is irrevocable," he said. "We've lost whole sites. We've lost whole cities."

Meanwhile Saturday, hundreds of Iraqi tribal leaders endorsed a national reconciliation plan that Iraqi and U.S. leaders hope will help restore stability and security after 3 1/2 years of war and growing sectarian and ethnic conflict.

"Realizing the gravity of the situation our country is undergoing, we pledge in front of God and the Iraqi people to be sincere and serious in preserving the unity of our country," declared the pact signed by the tribal chiefs and read aloud by one of them in a live television broadcast.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's Shiite-dominated government is struggling to control sectarian violence that has become rampant in recent months and a Sunni Arab insurgency that has raged since the U.S.-led ouster of Hussein. According to an Associated Press tally, about 10,000 people have been killed since Maliki's government took office in May.

At least 26 people were killed in attacks Saturday, including three boys who died when a bomb planted on a soccer field exploded as they were playing. The bombing occurred in Balad Ruz, 50 miles northeast of Baghdad.

Kidnappers on Saturday freed a female Sunni lawmaker, Tayseer al-Mashadani, who was abducted July 1. Maliki's spokesman, Ali Debagh, said she was released as a result of mediation by a third party, but he gave no other details.

In Basra, gunmen in a speeding car opened fire Saturday on two sisters working as translators for the British Consulate, killing one and seriously wounding the other, police told the Associated Press.

Special correspondent Naseer Nouri in Baghdad and another Washington Post employee in Iraq contributed to this report.