Corporate America
Critics, however, have cringed at what is being perceived as a US government sponsored ad campaign for Google, decrying the sheer corporatocracy of it all.
The State Department, has vehemently dismissed such criticism, shrugging the plan off as a "good example of what we're calling 21st-century statecraft." Schmidt is the most famous corporate executive to visit Iraq.
A spokesman for the State Department said it was "not in the business of helping private companies figure out how to make a profit" and claimed around a dozen other companies were involved in the project.
Indeed, some of the museum's collections have already been digitised by Italy's National Research Centre, funded by a million euro grant from the Italian Foreign ministry. Edan, however, claimed the Italians' efforts just hadn't been sufficient, with their web site not being extensive enough.
Schmidt was careful to add that Google's work to digitise the museum's collections wouldn't undermine the institute's ability to make money from selling pictures of its precious exhibits at a later date.
"What typically happens is, it's a demand creator," he said. "They will still own the copyright to the images."
Schmidt also used his time in Iraq to talk to numerous other Iraqi officials about the future of information technology projects in the country.
