BAD NEWS AND GOOD NEWS FROM THE SITE OF BABYLON. The New York Times reports in "Babylon Awaits an Iraq Without Fighting." There's been lots of bad news for a long time and up to the present:

Mr. Hussein started in 1985 with a project that was part restoration, part new construction and all ego. He imported thousands of Sudanese laborers (Iraqi men were tied up with the Iran-Iraq war) to build an ancient-looking palace right on top of Nebuchadnezzar's original one. Yellow brick walls 40 feet high and stamped with Mr. Hussein's name replaced the stumpy mounds of biblical-age mud.

To be fair, Mr. Hussein did shore up Processional Way, a wide boulevard of ancient stones, and the Lion of Babylon, a black rock sculpture around 2,500 years old.

After the Persian Gulf war in 1991, he commissioned a modern palace, again over some ruins, done in the pyramidal style of a Sumerian ziggurat. He called it Saddam Hill. In 2003, he was about to begin construction on a cable car line stretching over Babylon when a certain invasion got in the way.

American marines stormed up the Euphrates River valley on their way to Baghdad and turned Saddam Hill into a base. Their graffiti is still scrawled on the walls, including, "Hi Vanessa. I love you. From Saddam's palace" and "Cruz chillen' in Saddam's spot."

But more serious than that, archaeologists said, was the use of heavy equipment, like helicopters and armored vehicles, which may have pulverized fragile ruins just below the surface.

Mr. George, who was Mr. Hussein's field director for Babylon in 1986, said he remembered once scraping a few inches beneath the topsoil and unearthing a "wonderful little plate."

"So just imagine what we have lost," he said.

Looters did not help, either. After the invasion, a locust-like swarm of thieves descended on Iraq and picked clean countless historical sites. (Iraq has more than 10,000 of them.)

Babylon was not as badly hit as others, but many of its prized artifacts disappeared from museums. By the summer of 2003, cuneiform tablets, among the oldest examples of writing, were being sold on e-Bay.

Ancient artifacts and even bones have also ended up in sandbags filled by soldiers who were defending the site, according to an investigation by the British Museum in 2004.

Elizabeth Stone, an archaeologist at the State University of New York, Stony Brook, who is helping to restore Babylon, said troops "took big scoops out of major ruins."

According to a recent BBC report, an American Marine colonel said he was willing to apologize for the damage caused by American troops, but added that the ruins would have been worse off if no troops were there to protect them. Americans are now staying out of the site and allowing Iraqis to guard it.

He's probably right, but it's hard to imagine how the securing of the site could have been handled in a more ham-fisted, damaging way.

But there's good news too and I hope it represents a turning point:

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is pumping millions of dollars into protecting and restoring Babylon and a handful of other ancient ruins in Iraq. Unesco has even printed up a snazzy brochure, with Babylon listed as the premier destination, to hand out to wealthy donors.