From the
Guardian:
Troops from the US-led force in Iraq have caused widespread damage and severe contamination to the remains of the ancient city of Babylon, according to a damning report released today by the British Museum.
John Curtis, keeper of the museum's Ancient Near East department and an authority on Iraq's many archaeological sites, found "substantial damage" on an investigative visit to Babylon last month.
The ancient city has been used by US and Polish forces as a military depot for the past two years, despite objections from archaeologists.
The full report is enough to make you weep, and it's all too plausible. The world's inheritance of one of the great sites of early civilization has been decimated by the American Leviathan.
Our occupation of Iraq is going to go down as a tragedy almost par to the burning of the library of Alexandria. And it doesn't seem to have made any American papers as of yet.
All I can say is I hope that Babylon was not treated so abysmally because of some bizarre Fundamentalist Christian desire for vengeance against the Biblical "enslaver" of the Hebrews. But I am afraid that for too many of our military and Pentagon personnel, Babylon is only known because of its Biblical references.
And now - will we pay to restore and mend? Or will we just move the troops out, in our lumbering destructive way, and let the Iraqis control security on the site, thus leaving it open to even more looting?