Iraq’s education system on the verge of collapse

http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/21472

Iraq’s education system on the verge of collapse
Submitted by davidswanson on Wed, 2007-04-18 22:36. Media

http://www.brusselstribunal.org

Only an end to US/UK occupation can stop the liquidation of Iraq's academics.

Dirk Adriaensens, member of the BRussells Tribunal executive committee (18 April 2007)

snip//

The massacre of Iraqi intellectuals hasn’t stopped since the invasion of 2003. The number of assassinations has not decreased since the BRussells Tribunal started a campaign to save Iraq’s academics, in cooperation with the Spanish based CEOSI (Campaña Estatal contra la Ocupación y por la Soberanía de Iraq) <1>. To the contrary. Since the beginning of 2006 more than 100 academics have been assassinated, according to our sources. And as the cases above show: an end of the killings is not in sight.

Brain drain and murder threaten Iraq’s academia.

Since the war began in 2003, hundreds of Iraqi academics have been kidnapped and/or murdered - and thousands more have fled for their lives (…). So far more than 470 academics have been killed. Buildings have been burnt and looted in what appears to be a random spree of violence aimed at Iraqi academia<2>.

The Iraqi minister of education has said that 296 members of education staff were killed in 2005 alone. According to the UN office for humanitarian affairs 180 teachers have been killed since 2006, up to 100 have been kidnapped and over 3,250 have fled the country <3> <4>. The BRussells Tribunal’s list of murdered Iraqi academics contains 302 names <5>. Anyone who can help us in documenting the killings, the threats and forced emigration of Iraqi academics is welcome to write us: we’re not planning to give up monitoring, certainly not now, at a time when our solidarity is needed most.

Also yesterday we received a message from an Iraqi professor, who has been able to escape the Iraqi Armageddon:

Dear Mr. Dirk Adriaensens,

I am a female Iraqi academic forced to leave Iraq on 2 August 2006. On 17 July 2006 I was kidnapped, tortured and threatened to be killed with my daughter if didn’t leave Iraq within few days. I have a PhD in (omitted) and was a member of staff at (omitted), University of Technology in Baghdad, Iraq.

I had no time to contact the Iraqi Academic Association to report the incident because I hid when received the threat until I fled Iraq.

Thank you for your effort to document the assassinations and threats to Iraqi academics. The real situation in Iraq is much worse than anything mentioned in the news or any report. Not all the incidents were documented in your website. Personally, I knew many academics at University of Technology were threatened and forced to flee Iraq after the occupation and for one reason or another they might not have the time to report the threats to the Iraqi Academic Association. Among them Head of Control and Systems Eng. Dept., Prof Dr Ali Althamir, Spectrum specialist at Applied Sciences Dept., Dr Mohammad Radhi, a member of staff at Building and Construction Dept., Dr Ghanim Abdul Rahman and many others.

The Ministry of Displacement and Migration said that at least 30 per cent of the total numbers of professors, doctors, pharmacists and engineers in Iraq have fled to neighbouring countries like Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt and United Arab States (UAE) but some have travelled to as far as the US, Canada, Australia and Britain. He noted that the numbers of academics fleeing the country or killed could be higher and the ministry has no latest figures <6>.

The universities, which are directly linked to Iraq's future, are on the verge of collapse <7>.

more...

I know they have built schools and handed out candy to all the kids that attend them.
The RW Media tells me that this is true.

The bullet ridden roof's going to cave in any second now.

Disgusting news.
Truly.

BHN

because it's just too dangerous. How do you build a future under these conditions?

Of course it is part of the grand plan- the PNAC design for
hegemony over Iraq.
God damn those PNAC people.
God damn them to hell.

BHN

You are lying. Everyone knows they were incapable of running and rebuilding their own country. That is why we needed to share Halliburton with them.

Of course you are right.
Halliburton has GREATLY improved that country.
WHAT was I thinking?

BHN:banghead: