Free Republic

BAGHDAD, Iraq - U.S. soldiers shot back at anti-American protesters after being fired on in a town west of Baghdad, and at least seven demonstrators were hit, a U.S. officer said Tuesday. Residents said 15 Iraqis were killed. U.S. officials also announced that a top adviser to Saddam Hussein, who served as oil minister and earlier headed Iraq's top-secret missile program, had surrendered. The shooting took place Monday night in the town of Fallujah, about 30 miles west of Baghdad. Though residents reported 15 deaths, Col. Arnold Bray of the 82nd Airborne Division said seven people in the crowd were...

The world's leading museums are to join forces to send an emergency team to Iraq to help rebuild its shattered cultural heritage. The Louvre, the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, New York's Metropolitan and the Hermitage in St Petersburg are among those preparing to contribute to a task force led by the British Museum. The alliance is being co-ordinated by Neil MacGregor, the British Museum's director, who last week pledged to send his own curators to help assess the extent of the cultural "catastrophe" suffered by the Iraqi capital. Up to 170,000 priceless antiquities – many hailing from the earliest...

QUESTION: Was the Sinaiticus Codex actually rescued from a wastepaper basket? What is your evidence for this?