PARIS - The 170 palaces of former Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein are to be turned into cultural centres, research institutes and libraries, Iraqi Culture Minister Nuri Farhan al-Rawi said Thursday in Paris. "We have already put an appropriate request to the American cultural attache," al-Rawi told delegates to a UNESCO conference on stolen and illegally exported cultural objects.
At the present, most of Saddam's palaces are occupied by American and British soldiers of the occupation force in Iraq, al-Rawi said.
| I'm sure we can get our bases built within the year. |
The two-day conference dealt primarily with the continuing plunder of Iraqi cultural objects. On Wednesday, UNESCO head Koichiro Matsuura called for a "mobilisation" against the pillaging of Iraq's many archeological sites. Al-Rawi said that three different groups were responsible for the damage to Iraq's cultural heritage.
"In the first days after the (US-led) invasion, the Ba'athists thieves took furniture and computers," he said. "Then Ba'athists people who knew art broke into the (Baghdad) museum and stole gems. Finally, what was left was taken by organized bands of thieves."
Of the 15,000 pieces stolen from the Baghdad Museum by Ba'athists, about 4,000 have been recovered, al-Rawi said. |
