toadspittle: Actually, I’d like to find a good site on that as well. It’s because I’m not entirely sure what’s going on in Babylon that I worded the first sentence of my post above as a question–in a way, I was sort of fishing for more info, myself. Since you posted, I did a quick Google search with a couple different combinations of saddam hussein babylon archaeology rebuild, and failed to come up with much. I found stuff like this, which, near the end, mentions Saddam Hussein’s Babylonian activities, but not in any detail–also, I don’t know if the Guardian is a good source or not, having only read that one page. Most of what I saw online seemed to be various Christian organizations linking the rebuilding of Babylon to various Scripture passages about the END OF THE WORLD–much of it looked like what you termed fundamentalist Christian fantasy. My original information on this subject comes from television, which isn’t much of a source. I want to say that I’ve come across articles about this in reputable magazines, but I can’t with certainty.
I do know that Iraq is doing something with its ruins, but I don’t know what exactly–I wish I did. It could be that some Iraqi archaeologists are doing something relatively modest at some ancient Babylonian sites, which has since been exaggerated by the Iraqi propaganda people and/or certain Christian groups who are ready for The Battle of Armageddon. Or perhaps all that archaeological digging just makes for a good bunker-building-and-weapons-of-mass-destruction-hiding cover.
Regarding the OP: There are Iraqi archaeologists doing work throughout the country (how good they are, I don’t know), so at least some knowledge continues to be unearthed and preserved, which is good news. For example, some Assyrian stuff.
However, I also know there’s destruction and loss of knowledge in Iraq because of the current situation. Link: 