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WARSAW - Polish Defence Minister Jerzy Szmajdzinski said on Monday that contrary to a report by the British Museum, the presence of foreign troops in Babylon had saved the famous archaeological site for civilisation.
Szmajdzinski, challenging the museum expert, said that ”Any report on Babylon should start by saying that the Americans and the Poles saved Babylon for our civilisation, because that is the truth.”
“If it wasn’t for the Americans, Babylon would have been looted like all other museums in Iraq ... and we would now be buying back Babylon artifacts on bazaars and markets,” Szmajdzinski told public radio Jedynka in an interview.
The US occupation authorities disbanded Iraq’s security forces after the invasion, opening the way to widespread looting of Iraqi museums.
Szmajdzinski said local authorities and archaeologists had been consulted over all decisions affecting ancient sites in the base at Babylon.
“Surely mistakes were made at the beginning, but nobody knows what Babylon was like before the Americans took over. Since arriving, we have carried out full documentation of the site,” Szmajdzinski said.
The Polish Culture Ministry will soon issue a 500-page report on Babylon, he added.
Source: Part of Reuters report
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