After Looting, Burning, Iraqi Archive Makes Comeback

BAGHDAD, Dec. 16, 2007 — -- In the weeks after the U.S.-led invasion toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003, the charred, partly gutted Iraqi National Library and Archive became a symbol of the chaos and lawlessness that swept through the capital.

During a three-day rampage, looters pillaged and burned the building, stealing hundreds of rare, centuries-old Islamic documents and texts. Fire, smoke and water damaged much of what remained.

Mounir Bouchenaki, the deputy director-general of the U.N. cultural body Unesco called it "a catastrophe for the cultural heritage of Iraq."

Now, on the brink of the first anniversary of Saddam Hussein's death, and some four years since it was looted, the library's recovery is exceeding even the most optimistic predictions.

Windows once shattered by stray bullets have been replaced. Fresh coats of paint cover newly renovated walls, and dozens of new desktop computers line refurbished work spaces. The library employed about 90 people before the war. Today, 400 mostly young staffers have turned it into a hive of activity.

"After the burnings and chaos, no one was in here but the dogs and cats," said Saad Eskander, a Baghdad-born ethnic Kurd who has run the archive since 2003. "Today the library is better than before the war."

An infusion of critical help from foreign non-governmental organizations is playing a key role in getting the archive back on its feet:

The archive is succeeding in other areas, too. Eskander has managed to keep sectarian divisions out of the building by fostering a sense of national pride among his young employees. Pictures of politicians and tribal leaders are banned from the building, as are deep discussions on religion or political policy.