26th November, 2009, Baghdad
Amira Edan, the director of Iraq’s national museum, says that soon she will no longer have to worry so much that he famous institution remains closed to the public for the fear of violence. Soon, people will able to Google it, she said, “It’s really wonderful.” Eric Schmidt, the chief executive of Google, has just made the presentation inside the museum, announcing that his company would create the virtual copy of the museum’s collection at its own expense, and make image of four millenniums of archaeological treasures available online, free by the next year. He was addressing Iraqi officials, journalists and American embassy officials. He said, “I can think of no better use of our time and our resource than to make the images and the ideas of your civilization available to all people of the world.”
Ambassador Christopher. R.Hill described the project as, “part of an efforts spearheaded by the state department to bring the technology to Iraq. We thought, what better way to that than bring Eric Schmidt here?” The museum was badly looted during the American invasion, has been declared reopened three times, in 2003 during the American authorities, in 2007 by the Iraqi official, and most recently in February, by Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki.