CBS Reporter Lara Logan Eyed In Theft of Iraqi Items

Reporters are supposed to report on the news, not take items and trinkets from their travels. Lara Logan is being investigated by the feds as to whether she violated a law designed to protect Iraq's cultural heritage:

"The prize pieces are . . . pre-Iraq invasion portraits of Saddam Hussein. In one [he's] shown in military fatigues. Logan told us she found it in pieces, in the ruins of the Olympic committee building after it was bombed," reports Marisa Guthrie of Broadcasting & Cable, the media industry publication that produced the online piece.

"A second portrait recovered from the ruins of a shelled palace in Baghdad shows a paternal Saddam surrounded by a group of adoring children, Hovering above the scene is the disembodied head of a stern-looking elderly woman . . . which Logan says is Saddam's mother."

Taking such items out of the country is considered theft under a federal provision designed to protect Iraqi heritage. One former Fox News engineer has already been prosecuted and placed on probation for smuggling paintings from Iraqi palaces. Other journos have been warned.

"Why is it OK for Lara Logan to be displaying a few of those same kind of items framed on her office walls at CBS News and have public media stories done about them without any US Customs people paying attention?" asks ERSnews.com, a muckraking media Web site.

What gave her the right to take any of these items. It wasn't hers to take.