In the aftermath of the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, a significant number of antiquities were looted not only from museums but also illicit excavations carried out at archaeological sites across the country, according to a report published on Al Jazeera's English news website on Friday.

The Iraqi government is making efforts to recover those lost cultural relics, but a lot of work remains, according to the report.

"There are no official statistics of how many antiquities were stolen," Haider Farhan, an archeology professor at the University of Baghdad and an antiquities expert, was quoted as saying.

Many Iraqis blamed the United States for the loss of so many pieces of their country's history, the report said.

During the invasion, it was reported that U.S. officials expressed their frustration at the military generals' apparent reluctance to safeguard archaeological sites, including the Iraq National Museum, it said.

"American tanks surrounded the Iraqi Museum during the occupation and chaos, but they did not move a finger in the face of the mafias and antiquities thieves who attacked the museum and stole about 14,000 valuable pieces from it," Amer Abdul-Razzaq, an archaeological researcher, was quoted as saying.

Abdul-Razzaq pointed out the negligence was deliberate. "Although the U.S. army was later committed to protecting Iraqi antiquities due to pressure from Iraqi archaeological institutions, it initially took archaeological sites as bases and camps," Abdul-Razzaq was quoted as saying in the report.

Despite the fact that the U.S. has already repatriated thousands of artifacts to Iraq, Abdul-Razzaq believed that this is insufficient.

"What was recovered is small. There are pieces still sold in auctions in the U.S. and Britain, and in other countries," Abdul-Razzaq was quoted as saying. 

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