Word: baghdad
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...artifacts stolen and hunting down the thieves. It was, perhaps, serendipity or kismet, that Bogdanos, who holds advanced degrees in law and classics from Columbia University, would be present to take on the task of recovering some of the world's greatest stolen treasures. In his book Thieves of Baghdad, Bogdanos describes the looting, and the ongoing investigation, with passion, erudition and candor. TIME sat down with Bogdanos on the eve of the sixth anniversary of the beginning of the Iraq war. (Watch the interview with Bogdanos...
...chat first about the reopening of the Iraqi museum recently in Baghdad. When you saw that on the news, what was on you mind...
Correct. In fact the museum was closed in September of 1980 when Saddam Hussein invaded Iran and Iran started lobbing missiles into Baghdad. So the museum was closed from that time until opening for a day in 2003 and then until this opening. [It's] only been open fewer than a half dozen times and never open to the general public. The museum itself, in the last several decades has been called Saddam's gift shop by the average Iraqi. (See pictures of treasure hunting in Afghanistan...
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's repeated calls to amend the constitution to strengthen the powers of the central government in Baghdad at the expense of Iraq's 18 provinces - including the semiautonomous three-province Kurdish region in the north - have faced fierce pushback from his Kurdish allies, some of whom have called him "the new Saddam." That schism is bound to widen in the coming months, when the U.N. issues its findings over the disputed oil-rich northern city of Kirkuk, which Kurds claim as their "Jerusalem" but which Arabs are loath to let go of. (See a TIME...
...long-term influence of Iraq's neighbors on the direction of the country. Iraq shares borders with Saudi Arabia, Iran, Syria, Jordan, Turkey and Kuwait. It's a tough - and nosy - neighborhood, populated by regimes jostling for influence among the various internal factions in Iraq. The key issue is Baghdad's ability to cobble together a semblance of national unity that will enable it to fend off its neighbors. The fear is that Iraq will become a new Lebanon, a multisectarian country whose diversity is both its blessing and its curse. Will Iraq's people be able...