"Iraq: Italian Archaeologist to Go to Nassiria, Americans Anti," in AGI (Italy), online, February 11, 2006: "Giovanni Pettinato, one of the leading scholars today on Assyria, is to go and work in Iraq on February 23, even though the US has let it be known he is not welcome there. It was Pettinato himself who revealed this state of affairs whilst speaking to journalists when attending a conference he was holding at Rovereto. ... The Sicilian archaeologist [sic; Assyriologist, i.e., specialist in the languages of Mesopotamia] pointed out that the Italian government had decided to send him to Nassiriya anyway, where he is to stay in Italian military quarters. This will enable him to more closely follow the work that he has already set up to reconstruct the huge Iraqi cultural heritage in the south of the country following its devastation by the war and, even more so, by the post-war activities." "Now, as he is about to go back to Iraq to apply the terms of the agreement that he himself endorsed and get the work underway, Pettinato has seen he is 'persona non grata'. However, he himself and the Italian authorities have decided to ignore the fact." [he previously tried to start something up concerning the National Museum in Baghdad (see for example Notiziario NIP July 8, 2004) but this is the 1st I hear about possible projects in the South]

In case you're not familiar with Ms. Osthoff, there's a good article at Archaeology Magazine's web site: