That statement has been disavoued by the organization's President.
The rumour that the US is planning to "liberalise" Iraq's tough laws on the export of antiquities, widely reported in the international press, derived from a meeting in Washington on 24 January between the American Council for Cultural Policy (a privately funded association of collectors and lawyers) and Pentagon and State Department officials.

The council's treasurer, William Pearlstein, was later quoted in the US magazine Science as describing Iraq's laws as "retentionist", and he wanted to see "some objects certified for export."

American Council for Cultural Policy president Ashton Hawkins told The Art Newspaper that what Mr Pearlstein had done was to voice his personal opinion after the meeting, and that this, did not represent council policy. He insisted that "there had been no discussion of Iraqi law" at the Washington meeting.