Rose: Cori, when you speak to the troops today or even when you speak to people in the Bush administration, what do you find the attitude is toward the cultural heritage of Iraq? Have you noticed a change over the years since the beginning of the war?
Wegener: Yes, definitely. I think particularly when you're talking to civil affairs units, who have the primary responsibility for dealing with civilian affairs issues -- and cultural property is one of those issues -- they have a real hunger to learn more about the culture. They're very interested in learning about the important aspects that need to be protected there still. A lot of them aren't as aware of the looting at the archaeological sites and the problems that that brings. These units go to various parts of Iraq and take on responsibilities for their areas. They're anxious to learn who the people are, who the Iraqis are who are in charge of cultural property in those areas, what significant cultural sites are in their area of responsibility. I think it was a very good lesson for everybody to understand the importance of cultural heritage. Seeing the crisis that that caused, the looting of the Iraq museum and the public outcry, was definitely a wakeup call.
Rose: I have to say, when I do archaeological briefings at the bases, and in fact I just did one at Fort Bragg, I've rarely seen such an interested group of people. Far more interested, with far better questions than any of my students at the University of Pennsylvania. These people are hungry for information about cultural heritage in a way that initially surprised me.
Rose: Donny, what is the attitude of the current Iraqi government toward the protection of the archaeological sites and cultural heritage and museums of Iraq?
George: I am sorry to say that the field of antiquities is not getting that much attention from the government. I'm very sorry to say that. One of the things is that they have cut off the budget for the patrolling police that I have started. Police that belong to the antiquities and who are patrolling the archaeological sites. They are cutting the budget for the fuel for the cars. They do not provide them with extra cars. They do not provide them with weapons needed for patrolling the archaeological sites. And this is a tragedy. It's not something big. They can just raise the budget so they can get fuel and go and protect the archaeological sites. In practice, our police have been doing an excellent job when they do have fuel, when they go patrolling. They could stop the looting of the sites. But it's not happening anymore now. It's because of the budget. they do not provide the state board of antiquities with enough budget to support this kind of police for patrolling the sites.
Rose: So in the course of the last year, would you say the lootings have increased exponentially as a consequence of that?
George: Yes, now the looters know a lot ... I think they even know that those patrol police don't have enough budget for their fuel. Or even if the patrolling police would come to one place, they would move to the next province, which they would know they don't have enough cars to patrol all their sites. It's just a kind of, if you stop them here, they will move here. If you stop them, if you go after them. So the idea is that they do not have enough patrolling police, enough cars to stop the looting in the whole country. It's just patches here and there, and it's not enough really.
Garen: I have ... talked to different people in the administration, and I always try to talk about the issue of the looting. If the question is, What is the [attention] to this issue in the administration? it's the same as it was five years ago, which as far as I can tell, is none. No interest. That's just a dead-end for me. And I think numbers speak louder than anything else. And the entire budget for protecting the museum and the archaeological sites in the period when I was in Iraq was $2 million. And that budget came as a donation of $1 million from the Packard Humanity's Fund and $1 million from the State Department. Now when you think today that the budget for the Iraq is $16 billion a month, there's still no budget for protecting archaeological sites five years later.
Rose: Cori, in the course of your conversations with officials, do you have the same sense as Micah?
Wegener: In some respects, with certain people ... I think that we're all aware of this, because we're in this community that pays attention to these issues, but on a greater scale, in the U.S. government, it's kind of not an issue. And when you raise awareness, and when I go to give talks to public groups and at museums, etc., as well as our military training, when I show these photos of the looting and where these vast areas look like craters of the moon where the looters have dug up antiquities, they're shocked and amazed and don't really understand that yes, this is going on as we speak, and I always use those terms. We're sitting here in this auditorium, and as we speak, this is happening in Iraq at over 10,000 archaeological sites that we know of, that are registered. I think there does need to be quite a bit of awareness-raising about this issue.
Rose: We should add that there are a few new programs that have been developed in the wake of the war. One by AIA and another by the U.S. Committee of the Blue Shield, of which Cori serves as president. And then there are a few more in addition. We now go to military bases in the U.S. and actually give briefings on the archaeology of Iraq and Afghanistan, the cultural heritage, on preservation, to the troops that are about to be deployed. So what we've been trying to do is to create a greater sense of cultural awareness on the part of the military. We've done this at a number of bases: Fort Bliss, Fort Bragg, Fort Drum, the list goes on and on. So, it's certainly something we've been trying to work on as extensively as we can. But as I said at the beginning, there was no type of interface between archaeologists and officials involved in cultural heritage and the military, which we now hope will be corrected.
By way of conclusion, I could say that certainly now the archaeologists and the military have the basis for a good working relationship that they didn't have before. And there certainly is a far greater level of awareness of Iraqi culture throughout the world. But of course, as you've all said, looting continues at an increasingly rapid pace, and we still have a considerable distance to go before the plundering of the history of this area is ameliorated in any way. But I want to thank all of you for being part of this conversation.
About the writer
Brian Rose is professor of archaeology at the University of Pennsylvania and president of the Archaeological Institute of America.
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