The Foreign Service Journal, May 2006

60 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / M A Y 2 0 0 6 B O O K S u November, an amendment to an appropriation bill froze State Depart- ment funds for an embassy in Hanoi unless the president certified the Vietnamese were fully cooperative in resolving MIA cases. That con- gressional initiative, in turn, empow- ered Hanoi hardliners at the Eighth National Congress of the Vietna- mese Communist Party to disparage the efforts of those arguing for nor- malization with the U.S. This book puts its finger on an important point outside of its bilat- eral context. If, as Stern argues, for- eign policy for the U.S. and other countries is formulated, channeled and made possible by the interaction of domestic groups, then the Foreign Service needs the resources and robust presence in all democratic countries to obtain a more complete view of the foreign interlocutor’s domestic dynamics. Ignoring the internal politics of other countries is not conducive to sculpting a success- ful U.S. foreign policy. David Reuther, a retired FSO, is AFSA’s Retiree Vice President. He frequently lectures and writes on China and East Asia. Cultural Casualties Iraq Beyond the Headlines: History, Archaeology and War Benjamin R. Foster, Karen Polinger Foster and Patty Gerstenblith, World Scientific Publishing Company, 2005, $38, paperback, 277 pages. R EVIEWED BY A LETA W ENGER The fallout from having inade- quate safeguards in protecting cul- tural heritage during war is the sub- ject of Iraq Beyond the Headlines: History, Archaeology and War , the second installment in a “Series on the Iraq War and Its Conse- quences.” Volume One, edited by Irwin Abrams and Wang Gungwu and published in 2003, is titled Thoughts of Nobel Peace Laureates and Eminent Scholars , a collection of essays by more than 30 Nobel Peace laureates and eminent schol- ars who offer opinions, analyses and insights on the war. Readers will find Volume 2 to be a concise, read- able survey of Iraq’s history, focusing on the discovery, management, preservation and destruction of the country’s rich cultural heritage that explains how much of Western cul- ture traces its genesis to this country and region. At the same time, the work is useful in navigating today’s political reality in Iraq. The authors — two Yale Univer- sity professors of the ancient Near East, and a DePaul University legal expert on cultural heritage law — describe how Iraq went from having one of the best-protected ancient heritages anywhere in the world to one of the worst. In April 2003, the world received numerous reports on the extensive looting of Baghdad’s museums, libraries and other institu- tions in the aftermath of the U.S.-led war. The decimation of the world’s finest collection of ancient Meso- potamian artifacts and a wealth of material from later historical periods was of an unprecedented scale. One small ray of hope: The extent of the looting in Iraq’s capital city may have been slightly less devastat- ing than originally thought, both because some of the lost items and materials had been hidden by the museum staff before the first bombs fell, and because a few looted items have been recovered. But the losses are still incalculable. Chapter 15 offers a very useful illustrated guide to some of the major pieces that were stolen, damaged, or are still missing from the Baghdad Museum. Although the world has under- standably focused its attention on the political, economic and human impact of the war, the authors doc- ument the effects of three years of lawlessness in Iraq’s cities and countryside on the country’s cultur- al heritage. Many of the destroyed sites in the cities and increasingly throughout the countryside had never been scientifically excavated; their devastation and looting de- prived us of essential information for understanding the development of mankind. As the authors observe, “This is far more than scavenging surreptitiously for pots in ancient mounds. Rather, thieves use heavy equipment, large armed teams of men, satellite telephones, containerized air freight and the Internet. Their highly lucrative trade is sustained and paid for by The nationwide plunder of Iraq’s museums and ancient sites should alarm all those concerned about protecting cultural heritage.