U.S., Allies Leave Mark On Iraq History
U.S., Allies Leave Mark On Iraq History
Associated Press
October 28, 2004
BABYLON, Iraq - Hammurabi the lawgiver was here. So were Nebuchadnezzar, Alexander the Great, Saddam Hussein and now, apparently, Sgt. Woods and "O-Dog."
U.S. soldiers are the latest in a long line of powerful forces visited on ancient Babylon and they've left their mark, in graffiti scratched into walls Saddam added in hopes of joining his predecessors' pantheon.
"Folks come through here and are like: 'Kilroy was here,'" says Maj. David Gilleran, an Army chaplain, guiding 16 U.S. reservists among the crumbling mud-brick walls and shards of cuneiform-inscribed tablets.
Carrying automatic weapons, U.S. soldiers and their foreign allies tromp through the world-famous cradle of civilization, now within the walls of a military base run by Polish soldiers 50 miles south of Baghdad.
"You could almost say all roads lead to Babylon. This is a focal point in history. Alexander the Great was fascinated with Babylon. Saddam, too," said Gilleran, 50, from Daphne, Ala. "This place represents the greatness in human history. We're just passing through."
Iraqi security forces are supposed to take over the base by year's end, and Iraqis say they can't wait.
"For me, Americans and Polish, out!" a man at the site said in English. "Babylon is 4,000, 5,000 years (old). It's for all civilizations, not Americans. They must go." He asked not to be identified.
"The Americans are here. They've occupied the country and put Saddam away, and I think everyone appreciates that," said Donny George, a Ministry of Culture official who directed an archaeological dig at Babylon during Saddam's time.
"But going back to these ancient cities, it does nothing for the image of the Americans," George said.
The English-language graffiti isn't widespread and doesn't appear to have done extensive harm. Arabic script is also scrawled on the walls. Coalition forces have spent tens of thousands of dollars repairing ruins and protecting them from looters, and are investigating whether U.S. and Polish heavy machinery and rotor wash from helicopters are doing damage.
The city dates back some 4,000 years. Hammurabi, credited as the first ruler to encode law, made it his capital. His code, written 1,700 years before Christ, includes the timeworn maxim: "If a man put out the eye of another man, his eye shall be put out."
Rebuilt by Nebuchadnezzar more than 1,000 years later, the city boasted the Hanging Gardens of Babylon - one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.
Nebuchadnezzar sent his vast army from here to Jerusalem to put down an uprising and bring the Jews back as slaves.
"Babylon surpasses in splendor any city in the known world," wrote Herodotus, the Greek historian, in the 400s B.C.
Alexander the Great died suddenly in Babylon around 320 B.C., possibly murdered by poison.
Saddam Hussein rebuilt atop Nebuchadnezzar's original walls, to the chagrin of archaeologists.
"There were direct orders from Saddam to put up the walls. As archaeologists, we didn't like this, but we couldn't say no at that time," George, the ministry official, recalled.
"Nebuchadnezzar unified the country in a well-organized government, in a real empire. Saddam was trying to imitate these ancient kings of the country, but it was just propaganda because Saddam did nothing good for the country or the people," he said.
The site, which includes a 2,600-year old stone lion, its snout missing, drew few foreign tourists during Saddam's paranoid regime.
Now coalition soldiers photograph Saddam's walls, studded with bricks recording his claims of glory.
"My kingdom will last forever," Gilleran translates from the classical Arabic script, to chuckles from the American soldiers.
Gilleran offers words of caution, though:
"America's a young country. We have Jamestown, Williamsburg. This is another, 3,000 years older. Americans need to stop and think a bit. We're a great power, but we weren't the first. We need to treat sites like this with reverence."
Then, pointing up to a Saddam-era palace looming over the ruins, he lays out his own scenario for the future:
"It's possible to imagine a Marriott ... with a five-star restaurant. There could be a bed and breakfast up there."
Ellie