SOME CONTEXT

In 2003 I was approached by the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) to provide assistance with the identification and protection of the archaeological cultural heritage in Iraq (Stone 2005/8). In doing this I had to put aside my own personal opposition to the war and, post-invasion, I had to weather limited, but very vocal, criticism of my actions (see below). This criticism, coupled with my own concerns over providing information to a military involved in what many still regard as an illegal invasion, led me to think far more deeply than I had had time to do in early 2003 about the correctness and implications of my actions, both personally and for cultural heritage experts more widely. I have presented numerous lectures and seminars in seven countries across five continents about the work I did in 2003, its ineffectiveness and my wider concerns as to whether I should have helped the military as I did. Most of these presentations have been directly to members of the heritage community, some to mixed heritage and military audiences, and some to the general public. I have been relieved to note that, in my own totally non-statistical analysis, more than 90% of audiences have supported my actions. The criticism – in a nutshell that my actions had provided an academic legitimacy to the conflict – still gnawed at my conscience, however, and I notched up hours of one-to-one discussions with heritage colleagues, military-related civil servants, serving European and USA military personnel, and others. I was particularly interested to have discussions with religious ministers and medical practitioners for their views not only on what I had done, but on the longterm relationship that their two professions have had with conflict. (A serious limitation of these discussions is that I managed to speak to only Christian clergy.) This book is the result of that seven-year discussion. I have asked and cajoled the contributors to help me put my actions into a deeper historical setting and a wider contemporary context. This is not intended as a post-event justification of those actions, but rather as a means of questioning what I did and teasing out issues relating to the relationship between cultural heritage experts and the military in order that we may clarify the parameters of any future collaboration.