American troops and contractors caused substantial damage to the archaelogical site at Babylon in Iraq after the 2003 invasion, a new UN report says.
The report says key structures were harmed and the site was subjected to “digging, cutting and levelling”.
But UN cultural officials stress the damage did not begin when the Americans arrived, or end when they left.
The US says looting while Babylon was under their control would have been worse had they not been there at all.
The new report was issued on Thursday in Paris by the UN’s cultural agency, Unesco.
