Some military analysts have predicted that Saddam Hussein will use archaeological sites as "cultural shields" for military hardware. "He knows that the west is disinclined to destroy ancient monuments," says Garth Whitty at the Royal United Services Institute in London, who was a weapons inspector in Iraq in 1992.There were reports in the 1991 Gulf War that two MiG fighter jets were parked next to the great ziggurat of Ur, which coalition forces subsequently bombed. However, others claim this was deliberate misinformation issued to explain misdirected missiles.Modern Iraq is the site of Mesopotamia, where the worlds earliest civilisations emerged in the fourth millennium BC. The Sumerians, Babylonians and Assyrians all ruled empires from capitals in the country. Scholars believe the region to be the birthplace of writing and agriculture.
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