Dahr Jamail: Meanwhile, In Baghdad...

[marmar]

Meanwhile in Baghdad ...
By Dahr Jamail
t r u t h o u t | Perspective

Tuesday 12 September 2006

I've recently received several emails from Iraq. Some, like the first, have been sent to me from people I know. Others were passed on by my friend Gerri Haynes, who receives emails regularly from friends she made during her several trips to Iraq. I include them here, as the brunt of this piece, because they show the living hell that Iraq has become under US occupation.

Here is an email from a doctor living in Baghdad:

Although I have perfect job satisfaction as a full professor with an MRCP, FRCP, and two more degrees from London and France, things are so unhappy here in Baghdad. There is no quality of life at all. There are no services; we are loaded with garbage as it is not collected more than once every so many weeks. Garbage collectors are also afraid of being killed. We have almost no electricity, no fuel, bad water supply and what is more, you could get killed whether you are Shi'ite or Sunni if you fall into the wrong hands! I nearly got killed on several occasions!

As for our colleagues, nearly none are with me from our class since most have left the country. The last one to leave was Abdul Aal, who left two months ago to Oman. The only one left with me is Khdayyer Abbas, who is a physician in the department of Medicine.

It is not a miserable life; if there is a grade more than miserable, then it will be ours!!! We work no more than three days a week in the university. The medical city, which was elegant and beautiful before the occupation, is now surrounded by garbage, barbed wire and concrete blocks from all directions. We don't spend more than three hours maximum at work so that totals nine hours a week!!! This is the maximum that anyone is working. In the afternoons, most of my colleagues say that they have completely stopped going to their private clinics for fear of death or abduction.

I work no more than one hour and a half hour in the afternoon. I come back rushing to my house after that. We lock our doors and do not leave at all. What about shopping? It is called "Marathon Buying," for I try to spend no more than ten minutes getting all the needed vegetables, fruits and food items. This is on my way back from university, three times a week. I also spend another ten minutes in the afternoon on my way back from the clinic buying car fuel for my home electric generator. It is all black markets now since the lines are so long at the pumps, reaching four to five times the official price. If I need to get it officially, I have to spend the night in line in front of the gas station where people bring their blankets, water, food and sleep in the street in front of the gas stations. Sometimes I speak nicely to the guard of the gas station, presenting my ID and my business card and ask them if I can fill my car out of line. Sometimes they kick me out, other times I am lucky and the guard has some rheumatic complaints, back pain or knee pains, and bingo, I can fill my car out of line with a promise to bring him medicines to where he is. Of course, this is without any physical exam or investigations. If I was really lucky and the stars were on my side that day, then I might even be allowed to get an extra 20 liters of gas for my generator!!!

One month ago there were militia men with their guns storming the dormitories of the resident doctors in the medical city. They were looking for doctors from Mosul or Al-Anbar province. There was a big fuss, and the targeted doctors went into hiding so none were caught. The next day, two of them who were rheumatology post-graduates under my supervision asked me to give them leave to go to their hometowns and not be back except for their exams. I agreed, because they were leaving anyway. They would have been killed if they were caught, not because they have done any crime, but just because they are Sunni from Mosul or Al-Anbar. I believe that many doctors from southern parts of Iraq who were Shi'ites also left the dormitory that day because they feared that they were not safe anymore and it would be their turn with maybe Sunni militia gunmen who will come sooner or later. So everyone left!!!!

The complete piece is at: http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/091206E.shtml

[ChairmanAgnostic]

1. for more than a year, I had been keeping in touch with

one of the guys trying to rebuild the Museum in Baghdad. We had met while his boss was in Chicago giving a speech and raising funds to rebuild.

I have not heard from him in 6 months, my emails go unanswered. I wonder if he is still alive.

Don Rumsfeld knew of the rioting and massive theft, and he did nothing. He knew that professionals were trying to keep control over the city, and he denied his generals permission to talk and cooperate with them.

Don Rumsfeld is a war criminal and should be tried. If convicted, he should be shot.

[marmar]

2. I hope he is still alive...

Rumsfeld is a true psychopath, and that's not being hyperbolic.

[enough]

3. k&r