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THE WORLD TODAY
US-led forces damaged Babylon, report finds
January 15, 2005
Britain
LONDON -- US-led forces, using Iraq's ancient city of Babylon as a military base, have caused "substantial damage" to one of the world's most renowned archeological treasures, a British Museum report said. The report, quoted in today's Guardian newspaper, said US and Polish military vehicles had crushed 2,600-year-old pavements in the city, a cradle of civilization and home to one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. Archeological fragments were used to fill sand bags, it added. John Curtis, keeper of the museum's Ancient and Near East department, invited to visit Babylon by Iraqi antiquities specialists, also said he had found cracks and gaps made by people who had apparently tried to gouge out the decorated bricks forming the famous dragons of the city's Ishtar Gate. US military commanders set up a base in Babylon in April 2003, just after the invasion to topple Saddam Hussein, and handed it over to a Polish-led force five months later. (Reuters)