Iraqi refugees from chaos
Tens of thousands of Iraqis have left their
homeland to escape the terror. Some knew enough to expect it.
* Some of those interviewed requested their real names not be published for fear of reprisals against family members in Iraq
With the cold Mosul winter winds lashing against his reddened face, Kathim Raad* embraced his wife and promised they would meet again once he resettled in Jordan.
The US military was weeks away from launching Operation Iraqi Freedom, but Raad was not convinced that a post-invasion Iraq would herald an era of civil liberties and economic prosperity.
“I knew the whole country would descend into chaos,”…”I refused to raise my family, my two sons, in the despair most of us knew was coming.”
Zeyad Alwan*, 30, a doctor in Baghdad, says the carnage in the city has convinced him he must leave by any means possible.
“I simply don’t want to get killed by an illiterate, black-clad slum dweller, or a militiaman dressed in police uniform, or a young confused soldier from Texas, or a bearded fundamentalist from Yemen or Saudi Arabia,” he said.
Imad Khadduri, a former Iraqi nuclear scientist and physics professor residing in Canada, believes the brain drain has sealed the future of the country’s education system.
“With no one left to train Iraqis to teach and instruct a new generation, any hope of reconstruction in the country is lost.
The terror instituted by the U.S. to return the Shah to power — and destroy the first democratic Iranian government in the 1950’s — led inexorably to today’s theocracy. By the time we stop killing Iraqis and sacrificing Americans, I expect the same sad result as in Iran.
Posted: Sun - March 26, 2006 at 06:36 AM