US marines desecrate Babylon

Babylon was home to one of the ancient world's Seven Wonders

A senior US marine officer has admitted to damage caused by his troops to the ancient Iraqi site of Babylon.

US forces built a helicopter pad on the ancient ruins and filled their sandbags with archaeological material in the months following the 2003 invasion.

Colonel Coleman was chief of staff at Babylon when it was occupied by the First Marine Expeditionary Force.

Babylon's Hanging Gardens were among the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

Col Coleman hasn't actually apologised for this blatant act of wantonness but said that if the Iraqis wanted an apology for the destruction caused by his men he was willing to give one.

The 2,000 troops who were deployed there did immense damage as they set up camp amidst the ruins of old temples.

A helicopter pad was constructed at the site. The vibration from landings led the roof of one building to collapse.

The soldiers also filled their sandbags with archaeological artefacts, just because they were lying around and easy to pick up.

The head of the Iraqi State Board for Heritage and Antiquities, Donny George, is angry and says the mess will take decades to sort out.

Colonel Coleman's admission comes more than a year after the British Museum said that Coalition forces in Iraq have caused irreparable damage to the ancient city of Babylon. Sandbags have been filled with precious archaeological fragments and 2,600 year old paving stones have been crushed by tanks, a museum report claimed in January 2005.

The US Army says the troops based in the city, some 50 miles (80 km) south of Baghdad, are well aware of its historical significance.

Babylon's legendary Hanging Gardens featured water diverted from mountain streams cascading down artificial hills built upon stone vaults.

American troops occupied the site in April 2003, initially to protect it from looters and vandals. John Curtis, author of the museum's report, said this was "tantamount to establishing a military camp around Stonehenge".

"About 300,000 square metres of the surface of the site has been flattened and covered with compacted gravel and sometimes chemically treated," he said.

"This will contaminate the archaeological record of the site."

He added: "I noted about 12 trenches, one of them 170 m long, which had been dug through the archaeological deposits."

Mr Curtis, who is curator of the museum's Near East department, also found evidence of fuel leaks.

But US military spokesman Lt Col Steven Boylan said the base, which has around 6,000 troops under Police command, is needed to "further defeat terrorists and insurgents".

He claimed: "Any of the excavations or earth work that we have done in order to do our operations... was done in consultation with the Babylon museum director and an archaeologist."

At the height of its power, Babylon was an awe-inspiring sight, with two sets of fortified walls surrounding massive palaces and religious buildings. It became one of the most important cities in Mesopotamia, one of the cradles of human civilisation.

Iraq is home to 10,000 archaeological sites.