Melik Kaylan: Myths of Babylon. Reports that U.S. soldiers damaged Iraqi antiquities turn out to have been media hype. - 'Whatever other mistakes were made in Iraq, it certainly didn't help the cause of peace that the U.S. and its coalition partners were routinely blamed for the destruction of Iraq's heritage—from allowing the National Museum in Baghdad to be overrun by looters, to neglect of sundry archeological sites, including the most revered ancient site of Babylon. Today, after extensive recovery efforts, the National Museum is again open to the public, with the majority of its greatest treasures back on display. Moreover, we've long known that much of the pillaging had already occurred in Saddam's time, along with the substitution of fakes for many objects. Many of the museum's most valuable items were locked away in a vault, untouched by looters. As for the ancient sites, a June 2008 trip by top Western archeologists to southern Iraq's eight most important sites found little or no post-Saddam damage...'