TUNIS/BAGHDAD, 8 June 2003 — Experts from Arab nations began meeting in Tunis yesterday to draw up a strategy for protecting Iraq’s cultural heritage in the wake of the US-led war, during which the occupying US Army failed to prevent the looting of thousands of priceless antiquities from Baghdad’s National Archaeological Museum. The two-day meeting was organized by the Arab Organization for Education, Culture and Sciences and was expected to involve experts from Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, the Occupied Territories, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen.
Their recommendations will be submitted to a meeting of Arab culture ministers in Cairo on June 27-28. ALESCO director general Mongi Bousnina told yesterday’s meeting it was urgently necessary to draw up a strategy to restore and protect Iraq’s cultural heritage “via a series of measures that take account of the current political, economic and administrative situation in Iraq”.
Looters sacked Iraq’s National Archaeological Museum in the days after the regime of Saddam Hussein was toppled on April 9, removing or destroying thousands of artifacts and provoking widespread criticism of the occupying US army for failing to take steps to protect the building.
Among the items lost was a collection of around 80,000 cuneiform tablets that contain examples of the some of the world’s earliest writing and a 5,000-year-old Sumerian alabaster vase - known as the Warka vase.
Meanwhile, some US and British intelligence analysts who have examined trailers found in Iraq doubt the US government’s conclusion that they were used to produce biological weapons, the New York Times reported yesterday.
Three teams of Western experts have now examined the trailers and evidence they contained, the report said.
