"Just Come Back From Iraq"

Shihab Almahdawi, The Human Relief Foundation




Introduction

The following speech was given in 2001, at a public meeting of the Coalition Against Sanctions and War on Iraq, the forerunner of the Iraq Solidarity Campaign UK.

We are re-publishing this article, to provide some historical insight into the disaster that was imposed upon the Iraqi people, by the United Nations sanctions.

Sanctions were first put in place after the Gulf War in 1991 and were finally lifted after the US/UK invasion in 2003. By the time sanctions were finally removed, Iraq had lost over 1.5 million children under the age of five, as a result of embargo related causes.

Shihab Almahdawi wrote “Just Come Back From Iraq” in July 2001, after a humanitarian aid mission, with the Human Relief Foundation, a registered charity that continued to provide assistance to the Iraqi people when the world turned a blind eye.

Shihab is the promotions and fundraising officer for the Human Relief Foundation, which is a registered charity and is based in Bradford, England.

"Just Come Back From Iraq"


This was our eighth visit during the last two years; the trip was to review our projects and to try and do more. We visited the 'Misan' water treatment plant, which is in the south of Iraq and is situated about 100km to the north of Al Basra City. This project is now completely finished, apart from a few cosmetics at the cost of £200,000.

Before our rehabilitation project, 50,000 households drank untreated water pumped directly from the Tigress River. Water born diseases are the main child killers around these areas. We also visited Ashama'el primary school, which we renovated at a cost of £15,000. Now the children have cold-water fountains, clean toilets, all windows are fitted with glass and curtains are a new addition.

I wrote about the state of this school in another article, which can be viewed at www.hrf.com. Lastly we visited the "Al Basra Elderly Care Center", the Human Relief Foundation added a third dormitory to house 20 new beds, showers and toilets.

We expected some change to people’s lives, to say the least, especially after ten years of sanctions. The ration has increased a bit, by Nov 2000 but still had no animal protein. For a family of six the ration contained:

4.5 kg Flour. 12.5 kg Rice. 9 pieces Soap. 3.5 kg oil (solid)

2 kg lentil or dry beans. 3 kg dry milk powder. 750 gm tea.

6 kg sugar. 500 gm salt.

Milk for so many families is an unaffordable luxury so the powder is distant to the 'Shorja Market Place' (the biggest market place in Baghdad) to be sold. Some families regard tea as a luxury and can do with out so suger will go to the market as well in exchange of a chicken or fish, although chicken is very difficult to acquire.

I took a taxi and discovered that my taxi driver was a very educated man with an undergraduate degree, MSC and was Iraq's delegate to the UNESCO. And on my way back to Amman our driver was a mechanical engineer who worked as a barber, tourist guide, tabletop seller and finally a driver.

If you were unlucky and had an accident then you would have to be extra rich to have your broken limb X-rayed and it would cost around 15,000 ID to 40,000 ID to have it plastered or to have an operation of some sort.

I met so many middle-aged men with extremely bad teeth, due to the fact that a toothbrush and paste would cost around the third of a primary school teachers salary and dental care i.e. filling, extraction, removal of plaque and the like is very expensive, hence out of the question.

Therefore people have to have two or three jobs to cope or ask openly for handouts. It is very common for a primary school teacher to ask for a financial present when your child passes his/her mid-term or final exam or if she/he were to offer to keep an extra eye on the child so that they could pass with flying colours.

Some visitors note that food and household things are on available in the market place, fruit and vegetables, meat and so on. But these people are usually bound to the main streets and never see what happens to Iraqis at the lower levels of the society. Second hand shops are on the increase and some families are still selling things to survive and send their children to the streets to provide a second income.

A happy family is the one that has a relative or a friend with a good community spirit working abroad and sending whatever he can to his relatives or friends. I was told that a paraffin seller from Al-Hardhead immigrated to the United States where he works at a super market and sends money to his family and to some of his old customers in that area. Not every family is as lucky as these but many families have relatives who work abroad. Almost 90% of Iraqi people are living in dire straits and are in urgent need of support. The rest are either having relatives abroad, businessmen who have more than two jobs or have some super-high-profit yielding enterprises.

DU related cancer and water born diseases are ruthless killers and take no prisoners. Infact erratic and irregular supply of medicine is another killer. Every family has or knows someone with cancer. This state of affairs will stay as long as the sanctions regime; smart or otherwise remains.

Driving through the streets of Baghdad is a very good thing to do; it enables you to see how the majority of Iraqi people live. Some cars go back to the early eighties; some are forty and forty five years old. Bald tires are not an issue; cars can go with no or one light at night. "One light is better than none." one driver commented and smiled, then said "Smile you are in Baghdad." I said to myself "floating on the worlds 2nd Oil reserve and can't afford to have a half decent motor."

"Look! New busses from China we have now," the taxi driver said. He added: "Do you know why we have Chinese buses and not Swedish or European for example?" I was waiting for the answer, the driver didn’t keep me in the dark for long, he said: "Because these have a short life compared to the European makes, so (Sanctions Committee) 661 approved of these together with Chinese power stations, which took two months to put in service, against the Swedish ones, in order that we loose our money and buy new stuff again."

Every person you see asks you how to get out of the country and where to go and how to get there, and you seldom visit someone and leave without being given a prescription to send the medicine to them. Young men have started taking tranquilizers and other such medication from an early age.

"Life is a misery,” a civil engineer told me. "I can't find a job, infact it is difficult to find a job these days. I am happy my brother is leaving the country". His brother is a doctor who managed through a friend oversees to arrange for him to get out the country. Another qualified person is leaving! Iraq will suffer allot because of this brain drain, infact nearly every British hospital will have an Iraqi doctor specialist in one of the unique fields of medicine and science.

When we left, we left a nation submerged in desperation, need, devastation and disease. We couldn't drink the water or eat the vegetables, only God knows what this country is drinking, eating and breathing in. In a nutshell; water, air and food are polluted and no one knows what will happen to these people in ten years time. Dr. Jenan of Al Basra Maternity Hospital had said to us "It's good that you came to see us, in ten years time we will not be around".

On leaving Iraq, our driver took us once again through the long boring journey back to Amman leaving behind us the land where the first writing scrolls were found and the first battery was made.

The cradle of civilization, what will we tell the next generation?