Hundreds
of Iraqis have demonstrated in the centre of Baghdad demanding the U.S.
troops urgently combat the wave of lawlessness that has swept the
capital.
Powell,
who called the facility "one of the great museums in the
world," said he had spoken earlier Monday with Greek Foreign
Minister George Papandreou, whose country holds the rotating presidency
of the European Union, about possible ways to protect Iraq's cultural
heritage.
In
addition, he said U.S. officials had been in touch with the United
Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to
explore steps that could be taken.
UNESCO's
chief, Koichiro Matsuura, Saturday called on U.S. and British
authorities to immediately protect Iraq's cultural heritage by
monitoring and guarding archeological sites and cultural institutions.
 |
|
Tikrit
museum was destroyed by U.S. missiles
|
The
museums in Baghdad and in the northern city of Mosul should be guarded
by the military, Matsuura said, according to a UNESCO statement released
in Paris.
The
organization also said it had contacted Iraq's neighbors to stop any
"illegal export of Iraqi cultural goods."
Iraq's
national museum fell victim to looters Friday in the lawless atmosphere
that engulfed Baghdad after the arrival there of U.S. occupation troops
Wednesday.
Pottery
artifacts and statues were broken and overturned, while administrative
offices were wrecked, according to witnesses.
Iraq,
among the earliest cradles of civilization and home to the remains of
such ancient Mesopotamian cities as Babylon, Ur and Nineveh, has one of
the richest archaeological heritages in the world.
Shortly
after the invasion began March 20, a group of 18 prominent
archaeologists appealed for the U.S.-led coalition to spare Iraq's
priceless antiquities.
"The
extraordinary significance of the monuments, museums and archaeological
sites of Iraq - ancient Mesopotamia - imposes an obligation on all
peoples and governments to protect them," they said in March 21
open letter published in Science magazine.
They
also called on the international community to take a post-war role in
assisting in the protection of antiquities from looting and themselves
pledged to help Iraqi Department of Antiquities do its job.
Some
of the signatories were among a team of scholars to have worked with the
Pentagon and the State Department before the invasion began to identify
sites that should be protected.
That
team identified about 4,000 sites of significance "not to aid in
targeting, but rather to aid in not targeting," said McGuire
Gibson, the president of the American Association for Research in
Baghdad.
Despite
efforts to avoid these sites, Gibson expressed deep concerns that the
fall of the Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein would erode the control of
cultural watchdogs in the country and spur looting, particularly at the
museums in Baghdad and Mosul.
"Even
if they survive the bombing, any period of chaos or uncertain control
during or after the fighting will render both institutions vulnerable to
looting," Gibson said.
