US damages the cultural heritage of the whole world

U.S.-led forces damaged ancient Babylon

U.S.-led forces, using Iraq's ancient city of Babylon as a military base, have caused "substantial damage" to one of the world's most renowned archaeological treasures, a British Museum report said.

The report, quoted in Saturday's Guardian newspaper, said U.S. and Polish military vehicles had crushed 2,600-year-old pavements in the city, a cradle of civilization and home to one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. Archaeological fragments were used to fill sand bags, it added.

This is just sick. Of course the Bush administration thinks the beginning of civilization was 2000 AD and nothing that happened before that has any relevance. Of course the crew that didn't plan for anything other than protecting the oil ministry couldn't be expected to show any respect for the heart of western civilization.

John Curtis, keeper of the museum's Ancient and Near East department, invited to visit Babylon by Iraqi antiquities experts, also said he had found cracks and gaps made by people who had apparently tried to gouge out the decorated bricks forming the famous dragons of the city's Ishtar Gate.

U.S. military commanders set up a base in Babylon in April 2003, just after the invasion to topple Saddam Hussein, and handed it over to a Polish-led force five months later.

"This is tantamount to establishing a military camp around the Great Pyramid in Egypt or around Stonehenge in Britain," Curtis said in the report.

And it gets worse.

Large areas of the site were covered in gravel, the report said, brought in from outside which was compacted and sometimes chemically treated to make helipads and car parks.

"The status of future information about these areas will therefore be seriously compromised," the report said.

This really makes me hang my head in shame.

"These are world sites. Not only is what the American forces are doing damaging the archaeology of Iraq, it's actually damaging the cultural heritage of the whole world".

Of course the US military has another story.

The newspaper quoted Lieutenant Colonel Steven Boylan as saying the significance of Babylon was not lost on the foreign troops.

"An archaeologist examined every construction initiative for its impact on historical ruins."

I'm sure the archaeologist was chosen by Rumsfeld.