The
misery in Iraq after six years of occupation
BISMILLAH AL RAHMAN
AL RAHEEM
The Honourable Ms. Luisa
Morgantine,
Vice-President;
European
Parliament
Members of the European Parliament
Ladies and
Gentlemen,
Allow me to thank you very much, as well as our
colleagues who have given us this opportunity to have the honour in
meeting with you and speaking to you; to convey to you a clear and
honest picture of the health situation as well as the dire
humanitarian situation experienced by the afflicted people of Iraq.
It is an excruciatingly tragic and unbearable situation which cries
out to all the liberals of the world and to all those interested in
the lives of people in this vast universe, to get seriously and
effectively involved, to proclaim the word of truth and to standup
and work to save mankind, to provide and preserve the minimum of the
simplest and most basic rights for a happy and dignified life,
freedom, secure habitat and prosperous employment in a state of
mental and physical energy without suffering and pain, hardship and
discrimination, especially when this person lives in a land and
country like Iraq, to which God has given such great natural wealth
of water, oil, precious metals, and a rich soil all of which
guarantee achieving a decent living.
I come from Mesopotamia,
(The Land Between The Two Rivers), very ancient and has always been
called "the black land" because of its prosperity, its
crowded population and its abundance of good living conditions;
because of its people's ancient civilization and its contributions to
human civilization: the first letter and alphabet, the pen, and law,
thousands of years ago, as you have read in ancient history.
Iraq,
ladies and gentlemen, with its wealth and its generosity, attracted
many peoples and ethnicities over the ages, as a result of which the
aforesaid elements have made up a mosaic of the people. It has been
inhabited by peoples of numerous different nationalities, ethnicities
and religions in security and peace, as well as in compatibility,
harmony and stability in spite of the fact that it has experienced
numerous foreign waves of invasions, and large attempted invasions,
desirous of its great wealth and its geopolitical strategic position
over the ages. Iraq has come out of these experiences after fighting
to the death and defending its land and territory to emerge
victorious, united and unified.
I, an experienced doctor and
cardiac specialist, who is experienced in the treatment of heart
disease and who has served in his specialty in The State of Iraq for
the past 4 decades, stand in your presence and addresses you. I have
lived with and through the rule of several successive governments and
political regimes which you know. I haven't any particular party or
political fealty and affiliation. My people as well as my students
and my colleagues in Iraq bare witness to my service in the medical,
health and military and civilian medical services fields,
professionally as well as academically. I specialized and trained in
European hospitals in England, Italy, Ireland, France and here in
Belgium, specializing in heart disease during the critical periods of
the long war and the chocking embargo. I transferred the most up to
date technical skills and research you had achieved in the cardiac
field in order to benefit Iraq's patients as well as its doctors at a
time when Iraqis suffered from the scourge of a technical, scientific
and economic embargo which lasted for 13 years; I also witnessed the
invasion of Iraq and when I also saw with my own two eyes, on the 9th
and 10th April, 2003, how the invading tanks invaded my cardiac
center and burned, looted and plundered the largest center for
cardiac surgery in the center of Baghdad in plain sight of the entire
world, for it to be left open for further plunder for many days to
come under the invader's auspices.
In this center we used to
perform 8 open heart surgeries on Iraqi adults and children, daily.
European doctors from England, Switzerland, France, Italy, Spain and
Germany volunteered their work there as a humanitarian contribution
to the center. I recall a telephone call from a colleague from the
South of France who had worked in the past with us in the Center,
when Baghdad and the area in which the center is situated was
undergoing heavy aerial bombardment, during the invasion, begging me
to leave the center with the rest of my colleagues in order to escape
because the center was a target, as he seemed to believe from the
direct satellite pictures. I remember when tears poured down my
cheeks whilst watching the Cardiac Center burn and I was screaming at
the commanding officer of the group which supervised the operation
from the top of a tank, saying to "me stop your tears, we will
build you a greater, larger and more up to date Center”.
Gentlemen,
Members of the European Parliament and Distinguished audience, when
my colleagues and medical students in Iraq knew that I was going to
be present amongst you, I was asked by their Union which was lately
formed and carries a membership of more than 350 doctors, to carry
forth their concerns and suffering as a result of the seriously
deteriorated health situation in Iraq; their letter which arrived 2
days before my arrival, here, is in my possession. I left Iraq after
continuing to work and restore parts of the Center with my
colleagues, up to 5th March, 2005, when I received a letter
threatening to liquidate and kill me in company with 10 other
colleagues who are all cardiac specialists, should we not leave Iraq
before this date. Its letters still follow me like ghosts and the
style in which it was written still fills me with horror and
pain.
Gentlemen, before the invasion and despite the cruel
embargo, there were 18 Faculties of Medicine, six of which were
established during the period of the embargo, six dental colleges,
four pharmacological faculties, and tens of colleges, institutes and
schools of nursing, assistant doctors and aides, in Iraq. The first
Faculty of Medicine in Baghdad, was opened in 1927 whose first dean,
for a very long time, was the English Doctor, Sanderson, the author
of the golden memories of his decades long medical service in Iraq
called "10,000 Nights and a Night in Iraq".
In Iraq,
we had more than 39,000 hospital beds in efficiently run teaching
hospitals, as well as city and town hospitals, as well as medical
clinics and centers in the country. We had more than 34,000
registered doctors, 20% of whom were specialists and we used to
graduate more than 1,000 doctors annually. We also had 30 Post
Graduate Studies of Medical Specialization, granting the Iraqi Board
to more than 250 doctors annually. These personnel carried out their
duties and responsibilities with great efficiency towards the injured
and the disabled during a long war and during the period when Iraq
was boycotted scientifically for a very long time.
The
Founding Constitution of The Iraqi State in the 1920s granted the
right to all Iraqis to free education and state medical treatment and
preventative medicine (national health insurance). These services
were established throughout Iraq's countryside, villages and cities,
throughout all its provinces.
The Educational system in Iraq
is British in its method since its establishment, and Europe
understands and knows the standards and efficiency of Iraqi doctors
as well as the standards of medical teaching and health care in Iraq;
a large percentage of these doctors, today, is spread throughout
Europe and Britain. The World Health Organization, UNESCO, UNICEF,
THE INTERNATIONAL COMMITTEE OF RED CROSS, and other world
organizations evaluated Iraq's achievements positively in vaccination
programmes, family medical care, general health, child health,
rehabilitation of the disabled, birth control and the decline in
mortality of the under 5s and of the newly born since 1980, which put
an end to the spread of infectious diseases and epidemics such as
Cholera, Infantile Paralysis, Meningitis, Diphtheria and Whooping
Cough, and Tuberculosis. In addition to this, Iraq was the foremost
in the region in controlling HIV Aids and in fighting addiction and
drug abuse as well as establishing School Health Programmes and
establishing Protective Child and Maternal Centers as well as
establishing specialized centers for Fertility, Cancer, Cardiac and
Vascular, Orthopedic, Glandular, Radio Isotopes, Nerves,
Ophthalmology, Paralysis, Rehabilitation and Prosthetics, Toxicity,
Herbal Medicine, and even Acupuncture Treatment.
Iraqi women
have contributed heavily to Iraq's medical journey and history, and
in addition to all the aforementioned the great success of The Food
Programme and the Dispensing of Medicines for all chronic disease, as
well as the widespread institution of local health clinics and
national health insurance. The beneficial use of the Oil For Food and
Medicine Programme led to mitigating the bad effects of the imposed
embargo on Iraq on its medical imports before the occupation.
The
method of importing medicines and medical equipment and supplies
since the '70s in the last century was successful in importing safe,
effective and solid medicines from international, multi national
solid, well-known companies, so was the local manufacture of
medicine, enjoying the same specifications as that of the imported,
both of which succumbed to identical analyses and tests as well as to
efficient central registry in order to safeguard society from its
possible resultant catastrophic effects. The importation of medicines
was limited to the Organization for Medicinal Imports – The
Ministry of Health, with scientific supervision of a committee
specially chosen for its efficiency.
Gentlemen,
Members of the European Parliament and Distinguished Colleagues and
Audience:
What did the invasion of Iraq after April 2003 do
to the health and humanitarian situation in Iraq, as we commemorate
its repugnant and abominable anniversary?
To abbreviate my
talk, and because of the constraints of time, leaflets in English
will be handed out to you which will give you a clear picture in
numbers which reflect the state of my country's health. These numbers
are not a figment of the imagination, but numbers extracted from
studies and follow up reports carried out by international
professional and humanitarian organizations, institutions and
societies, referred to, opposite each fact and number mentioned.
As
for the reality on the ground, CDs will be handed out to you which
will, in pictures, reflect and document a little of the suffering of
the Iraqi people from the terror of bombardment and bombing, the
destruction of infrastructure, violence and terror, the killing which
has targeted the people and its doctors, its efficient professionals,
and its scientists and academics as well as the forced displacement
of people inside and outside Iraq; the suffering of women as well as
the widows and the orphans and the spread of crime and sickness and
epidemics; the spread of commercialization of bad medicines and
addictive drugs; the internally displaced refugee camps; their
conditions as well as the condition of the detainees in the prisons
of the occupation as well as in those of the imposed authority.
However, suffice it for me to state that we are in a country that
:
1- 70% of its doctors have emigrated.
2-
It has lost more than 5,500 of its scientists and academics, killed,
imprisoned, or emigrated.
3- 70% of its hospitals have minimum
standard performance, below the required standards in the remnants of
what is destroyed, raided, or stolen.
4- 90% of medicines in
pharmacies is neither analysed nor is it registered or is bad or
corrupt and contaminated; it is brought on to the black market across
the borders by ghost companies and a country in which thousands of
unlicensed pharmacies and drug depots exist, run by people who are
not pharmacists.
5- Its hospitals are used as centers for
ethnic and sectarian physical liquidation and terror by the
militias.
6- The Ministry of Health is part of a sectarian
quota division system that specifies the identity of the minister and
the directors general and is controlled by the theocratic political
parties as well as the religious and sectarian militias. It is an
institution in which financial and administrative corruption prevails
and according to the Transparency Committee, more than 2 Billion US
Dollars have disappeared as a result of phony ghost contracts and
bribery.
7- There is no supervisory or monitoring role to be
mentioned by the present parliamentarians who are doctors, but on the
contrary, their interference may cause a negative effect on the size
and the nature of the financial and administrative corruption.
8-
Widespread mental illness and drug addiction and the widespread
growth of opium poppy plantations and opium for the first time since
occupation.
9- Alteration of basic medical purchase
requirements and their replacement with insignificant lists and
invoices.
10- The spread of epidemics and the loss of
credibility of all statistics and the lack of statistics of cholera,
Measles, Diphtheria and Whooping Cough, and Toxoplasmosis and a
worsening situation of Tuberculosis and HIV Aids.
11- Unsafe
imported foods.
12- A rise of incidence in cancer and the
nature of the registered cases recently and a rise in cases of
congenital malformation as due to the aggravated complications as a
result of radioactive pollution and the burning down of trees.
Pollution of rivers, as a result of the collapse of the sewage
system, particularly in the Middle and the South caused by the use of
Depleted Uranium and White Phosphorous as well as Cluster Bombs, and
the prevention by the occupation forces of remedial measures and
surveys to discover the polluted locations for sterilization and
cleansing.
13- The proliferation of landmines in the sites of
the old wars, as well as unexploded ordinance, especially in Basra
and in the border areas.
14- Loss of cooperation and harmony
with the humanitarian and voluntary organizations, such as the Red
Cross and Red Crescent Societies and others, as well as financial
corruption in the Iraqi Red Crescent Society, and the escape outside
Iraq, of its President with US protection.
15 - Lack of
medicines and supplies and, as well as minimal financial allocations,
since they did not exce 4% of the overall budget allocations in the
best of cases, and because of rampant corruption.
16
- Lack of safe potable water for more than 70% of the population and
the continuing lack of electricity as well as the lack of proper
sanitation.
17 - The highest rates of infant and newborn
mortality in the world.
18 - In Iraq after the occupation:
o
More than five million are displaced.
o More than 4 million
are below poverty level.
o Approximately, 2 million widows.
o
Five million orphans.
o Insufficient food for more than eight
million.
o More than 400,000 have been detained and
prisoned.
o More than 28% of the population is
unemployed.
Conclusion:
It is clear that human
health and safety is being targeted as well as the Iraqi identity;
depersonalization, and interference in the process of education and
upbringing in order to weaken and divide Iraq by depletion of its
capabilities and its scientific resources which is being implemented
by devising a political process and service institutions based on
ethnic and sectarian quotas which are inconsistent with efficiency,
integrity and reconstruction, transparency and
construction.
Distinguished Members of the European
Parliament:
Occupation, invasion, murder, terrorism,
intimidation, and threats would not put an end to the aggravated
violence because of the worsening oppression of peoples and
unjustified wars that do not create freedoms and democracy. All that
the occupation built as a political process which it alleges to be
legitimate, has proved that it is a failure, for the Government of
Iraq is classified as the most failed in the world, and the most
financially and administratively corrupt.
Thus, I urge you to
work on expelling the occupation out of Iraq as soon as possible and
to allow the Iraqi people and international will to achieve genuine
national reconciliation between the patriotic forces and the
components of the mosaic of our people and its factions so that it is
an Iraqi solution with regional and international support and so that
it is not a forced solution as a result of force, invasion and
threats.
International law obliges the occupying power to pay
equitable compensation for all the damage committed after the
occupation while the country was under its patronage. We also hope
that all those involved in all the political administrations formed
during the occupation, be made accountable and tried for their
planning for, and execution of the invasion of Iraq, without any
justification. Your stance with the will and aspirations of the
ill-fated Iraqi People is required and is basic for what it expresses
in its message of justice and support for all the oppressed peoples,
in opposition to and a cessation of all lethal wars and all
occupation and imperialistic projects in the world, for they will
only contribute to further violence, tension and political and
economic instability which threaten the world today, with choking
crises as well threatening the heart of humanity and the achievements
of the peoples of the world.
Finally, please accept from our
people and ourselves, words of the deepest gratitude, of thanks and
of praise as I also ask of The Brussels Tribunal for helping in
granting me this opportunity.
Dr. Omar Al–Kubaisy
Brussels,
Belgium.
March 18th, 2009.