U.S. First Lady Laura Bush on Thursday launched the Iraq Cultural Heritage Project. The project's launch, which took place in the Iraqi Embassy in Washington, is done in partnership with the State Department's Bureau of Education and Cultural Affairs. The project is aimed at preserving Iraq's cultural heritage as well as continuing to develop cultural exchanges between the two nations. “Iraqi heritage does not concern Iraqis only… [but] all humanity,” said Iraqi ambassador to the U.S. Samir Sumaidaie. At the launch, Bush stressed that because the war-torn country is dominating the news today, “many of us may not realize that the people of today's Iraq are the guardians of 10,000 years of history.” She also said that the country's cultural heritage preservation cites have been plagued by “travel restrictions, diminished resources, and violence under Saddam Hussein's regime.” Since the U.S. invasion into Iraq in 2003 and the subsequent overthrow of Hussein, the United States has worked to rebuild the country's cultural institutions, Bush said. She cited the contribution of more than $3 million from the State Department and $13 million from the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad to the heritage project. The funding will go towards creating a new conservation and historic preservation institute to be constructed in Erbil, creating a two-year professional development program will be set up at Chicago's Field Museum of Natural History for preservation training, and the funding will continue improvements to the Iraq National Museum. The project, Sumaidaie said, will not only preserve a “historically rich land,” but will also strengthen the partnership between the United States and Iraq.
