Photo 1: " Local workers painstakingly recreate the ramp leading up to the Nergal Gate using the authentic Assyrian cobblestone pattern.  Sgt 1st Class Julie Friedman"

Photo 2: " By Sgt 1st Class Julie Friedman - August 6, 2004 - Members of the 416th Civil Affairs Battalion tour the site of King Sennacheribes palace on a hill overlooking the Tigris River valley and the city of Mosul."

Photo: "The ancient city of Babylon is being destroyed by troop activities"

"'There was a lot of pressure to get a precise inventory [of the losses at the Museum],' she recalls, 'because Central Command was getting pounded in the press.' She shakes her head. 'If you showed up here at the MIA and asked for a precise accounting of objects—now—I couldn’t do that. But that’s hard to explain to a colonel who doesn’t have museum experience.' In recounting her experience, Wegener skirts criticism and instead focuses upon what can and needs to be improved. It quickly becomes apparent that this isn’t so much a diplomatic maneuver as an approach born out of Wegener’s own sense of integrity, her respect for the military that she’s served for two decades—and her modesty in downplaying her own considerable skills while praising others. Prior to her deployment, Wegener saw her role at the Iraq Museum as twofold: 'I would assist the museum staff with their relationship with the military, and I would try to coordinate an international relief conservation effort.' [On her computer,] Wegener opens an image of a smashed marble statue in one of the museum’s galleries, taken shortly after her arrival in Baghdad. It shows the pieces still scattered on the floor—and that’s where she wanted them to remain until a conservator could arrive. The military and political command ... [woul]d ask, ‘Why doesn’t the staff sweep up the statues?' Wegener tried to delay them, but as the weeks passed ... one day I arrived and the statues had been swept up,' she recalls with a sigh. ... It was a frustrating situation made worse by the fact that the Iraq Museum had only one trained conservator—who worked solely with brass objects. 'Every day I was writing memos begging, ‘I need help!’' says Wegener. Despite those pleas, and the availability of conservators from a number of countries willing to go to Iraq, help was often withheld for a variety of reasons. At times, the situation bordered on the comic: The British Museum could not obtain visas for its conservators, who ended up tagging along with a BBC team filming a documentary. The staff were only able to work at the Iraq Museum for a few days. Likewise, the U.S. Department of State sent an assessment team, including a conservator, but only for two weeks. Meanwhile, the Dutch, who actually maintain art conservators in their military, deemed the situation too dangerous to send them. One American civilian who did make it to Iraq, and whose help was invaluable to Wegener, was John Russell, ... 'He was really important.' Russell, a trained Assyriologist, provided a valuable archaeologist’s perspective both to the museum and several key archaeological sites in Iraq. Italy provided the most help. Early on, they sent Ambassador Pietro Cordone as an advisor, and he was able to provide the museum with 'cultural carbanieri'—essentially, police specially trained in protecting 'cultural patrimony.' The Italians also provided funding and staff to re-establish a conservation laboratory in the museum. Nevertheless, Wegener was constantly faced with the fact that there was never—and probably never would be—enough help. 'I was disappointed,' she admits. 'I wish I could have done more.'"

"Joining the Army Reserve was primarily a way to earn money for college (she majored in political science at the University of Nebraska-Omaha), ..." "After college, Wegener spent a year in law school before serving as a quartermaster officer in Germany during the first Gulf War. When she returned to the U.S., she began a masters degree in political science, with a concentration in international relations, at the University of Kansas. But as graduation approached, she decided that her goal of working in international affairs was unrealistic. 'Those jobs don’t grow on trees,' she says. 'So I asked myself, ‘What is my ideal job?’ And the answer was easy: I’d work in an art museum.'" "She completed a masters in art history at the University of Kansas in 1996 and moved to Minneapolis, ... She quickly found an unpaid internship in the MIA’s decorative arts department. Over the next four years Wegener assisted the MIA’s curators—while also taking time off to serve in Bosnia and Guam with the Army Reserve. ... last year, she was named an assistant curator." "Then, while preparing for her deployment to Iraq at Fort Bragg, Wegener met Roxanne Merritt, the civilian curator of the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Museum. The pair discussed the fact that the Army, and particularly its soldiers, needed more training in wartime arts conservation. And so, in the aftermath of Wegener’s work in Iraq, Merritt and Wegener are collaborating on a cultural-property guide for U.S. Army personnel, aimed at training them in emergency conservation procedures—work that the pair is doing on a volunteer basis."

"One afternoon, not long after arriving in Baghdad, ... dozens of important antique Jewish manuscripts—including portions of a Bible dating from 1568, and extensive Jewish communal records from the early 20th century—from the flooded basement of the Iraqi secret police headquarters. ... [Dr. Harold Rhode, a Near Eastern expert working for the Department of Defense] and [Kristen] Silverberg, [a political advisor on loan from Vice President Dick Cheney’s office to Ambassador Paul Bremer, had] made the unfortunate decision to dry them in the sunshine before placing them in tin cases, which were left to cook in a small concrete outbuilding behind Ahmad Chalabi’s Iraqi National Congress compound. By the time they went looking for Wegener, the manuscripts were moldering." "'I was like, ‘Duh! You should’ve frozen them!’' Of course, Silverberg and Rhode can rightly be excused for not knowing the correct emergency conservation techniques. Less excusable, perhaps, is the fact that Wegener was the only individual in Iraq with even minimal training or knowledge on conservation matters. 'I remember sitting there and thinking, ‘I can’t believe I’m it. I can’t believe I’m the only one.’' Though she received some training, Wegener is no conservator. 'I could only help them stabilize the situation.' After consulting by satellite phone with MIA staff and with Helen Alten, a conservator in St. Paul, she requested a refrigeration truck. Silverberg, ... obtained one from the KBR division of Halliburton; she also got two 'very brave' conservators flown in from the National Archives to assess the situation." "Freezing them was only a temporary step in their preservation. Further actions would need to be taken—including a month-long freeze-drying process—before actual conservation could begin. 'Yeah, I want to follow international law,' Wegener says. 'But if we didn’t get the manuscripts out, they wouldn’t be a problem for anybody.' The National Archives in Washington, D.C., agreed to accept and conserve the manuscripts for a period of two years, at which time they would be returned to Iraq. In August 2003, Wegener accompanied the collection to Fort Worth, Texas, on a dedicated cargo plane. After freeze-drying, the documents were moved to Washington, D.C., but due to a lack of funding, no further conservation efforts have taken place." [unfortunate contrast with the Ottoman-period archival materials discussed in Bahrani August 31?; see also Middle East Librarians Association Committee on Iraqi Libraries January 12, 2004]

"In Wegener’s photos, both tears and laughter are evident as museum staff handle crowns, jewels, and solid gold chains with somewhat unprofessional abandon. 'But I kept my mouth shut,' she says. 'It wasn’t my stuff.'" [see Feeney and Simmons April 10, 2004]; "Wegener left Iraq on March 2, ten months after her arrival, and half a year after her scheduled departure. 'Leaving the people and the museum was hard,' she says. 'Leaving Iraq was not.' She shrugs and closes her laptop. 'In regard to the museum, I’m not optimistic. But I am hopeful.' She cites the collection and the staff as her primary reasons for hope. 'But it’s all about stability and their ability to reopen the museum to the public.'" "Even more ambitiously, she wants to establish an international organization of combat conservators. 'You know, these are people who would get a call and say, ‘I have to go to Iraq now,’' Wegener says with enthusiasm. 'They come in a flak vest and helmet, I meet them at the airport, take them to work at the museum, and then replace them a few weeks later.'"