"Pillaging Iraqi History"

"Pillaging Iraqi history" by Jon Weiner (Los Angeles Times editorial, August 8, 2008)

Alot worse things have happened in Iraq, but the removal of the Baath Party archives from the country -- 7 million pages that undoubtedly document atrocities of the Saddam Hussein regime -- is significant. The documents were seized shortly after the fall of Baghdad by Kanan Makiya, an Iraq-born emigre who teaches at Brandeis University and heads a private group called the Iraq Memory Foundation. Despite protests from the director of Iraq's National Library and Archives, the documents were shipped to the U.S. in 2006 by Makiya's foundation and in June deposited with the Hoover Institution at Stanford University under a deal struck with Makiya.

The move was criticized in both countries. . . Continue Reading.

Contributed by Stephanie Bayless, Manuscripts Department.