An American professor is speaking out about an archive of Jewish texts, records and materials he discovered in an Iraqi government building during the 2003 war.

Dr. Harold Rudd was instrumental in salvaging much of a Jewish archive damaged during an American airstrike in Baghdad and retrieving the documents for restoration in Washington, D.C.

Rudd, a Pentagon consultant at the time, was on the ground during the initial American invasion of the country.

But after an American missile struck the then-internal intelligence agency's headquarters in Baghdad, Rudd received a surprising phone call.

A...