The Intelligence Agency of the Iraqi regime subsequently gathered these books and documents from synagogues and Jewish community institutions, eventually storing them in the basement where they would be found by the US Army.
This plan is controversial: some Middle-East scholars and Jewish organizations have opined that because the materials were abandoned under duress, and because almost no Jews live in Iraq today, the archive should instead be housed in Israel or the United States.
[2] Harold Rhode, a Middle East specialist formerly at the Pentagon who was present when the collection was found, has suggested that it should be placed permanently in Israel.
[2] In February 2014 the United States Senate unanimously passed a resolution calling on President Barack Obama to reopen new negotiations over the agreement on the archive return to Iraq.
[2][4] In September 2017, the State Department said it would not seek to further extend the agreement,[4] but in July 2018 reversed course and announced that it would work with the Iraqi government to delay the return of the archive.