In this part of the study we continue our discussion for the city of Baghdad, the heart, soul, and eternal identity of Iraq.
In the previous study, we talked about a summary of the most important circumstances that have passed and are going through Iraq in general and Baghdad in particular, which are undoubtedly things that are not hidden from the citizens of the country, but it is necessary to remind them so that the citizen knows the truth of what the country is going through and what is being exposed to it by the political clique and those who support it.
As it is known to everyone, if a will is issued to destroy a country or a certain society without waging direct wars, then what you have to do is to destroy the human energies, active minds and scholars of that country. in short, meaning the destruction of the effective entity of the country, which is what Iraq and Baghdad have been exposed to, and in particular we can summarize it as follow:
1- Skilled migration
Since the beginning of the nineties, many qualified Iraqi people and scholars have set their sights on leaving the country because of the devastating blockade that imposed during that period and the successive crises and wars that the country went through, so that period was one of the most important reasons for this disaster, yes the disaster, which is a disaster that we will explain in our narration for this matter. As for the period after April 9 of the year 2003, things have been developed for the worse. The competencies and scholars became explicit targets for assassinations and liquidations caused by regional and internal forces supported regionally for the previously mentioned reason which is the impoverishment of the country and emptying it of minds and competencies, for example: Britain embraces the oldest Iraqi communities in Europe. Statistics showed that the percentage of educated people from this community are very high, as the percentage of university degrees is 75 percent, and the percentage of those with higher degrees is 33 percent for males and 9 percent for females, which is an indication of the high emigration of highly qualified people, and that more than 2000 Iraqi doctors work in British Hospitals.
Perhaps many do not realize that the cost of teaching and graduating medical students in Iraq reached to more than 15 thousand Iraqi dinars in the seventies, or about 45 thousand dollars. In other words, the presence of more than 2000 Iraqi doctors working in British hospitals now cost the state treasury more than $ 100 million.
In a study prepared by the Iraqi Atomic Energy Organization in 1989, the cost of studying for a PhD in science and technology was estimated at (140) thousand dollars. In another study, the cost of emigration of (17500) master’s degree holders and (7,500) doctoral degree holders was estimated at (4550) million dollars, while the cost of attracting them was (1125) million dollars, and this means that Iraq has provided to these countries up to (3425) A million dollars, in addition to shortening periods of time ranging between (15-20) years for them and the need for Iraq for the same period to compensate for the migration of these competencies, the example is for approximation and explanation purposes.
Since the year 2003, Iraq has lost nearly 5,500 scientists between dead and immigrants outside the country, and this matter alone is a great disaster as it is impossible to compensate for these numbers and fill the imbalance that this disaster left, and the matter continues to this day. The reader may ask, what is the relationship of this matter to Baghdad? Baghdad bears the largest share of the number of these scholars, since Baghdad used to be a large scientific research center with its various university and its many research centers. Therefore, the scholars were a loss for Baghdad in particular and Iraq in general.
2- As for the second axis
which is the most important factor in ensuring a decent life for the citizen is “safety”, the government with its political parties in Baghdad for over the past 17 years failed in achieving safety due to the increasing influence of its parties and militias! how can the citizens wait such system to achieve the security for them where the system itself lack from it?!
Rampant corruption and the increase in the power of militias cost the Iraqis a lot of Iraqi sons, and we will give a simple example that illustrates the seriousness of the matter according to the Iraqi parliament. Here we mention what was said in the text: “Of the corruption deals that we uncovered, a deal to build 16 checkpoints in the vicinity of Baghdad with 170 billion Iraqi dinars, which was linked to security leaders, the former governor of Baghdad and the Contracts Department. We voted to cancel it, but according to Iraqi law, contracts that were signed cannot be canceled.”
Among the images of corruption is the arrest of an accused or a criminal, and at night the arresting party is called and orders to release the detainee because he is affiliated with such a party, whether national or partisan.
According to all the plans and strategies internationally, the ratio of the distribution of the police is determined according to the calculated population area. It is a police station for every 6,500 homes, and it includes 12 members. Today, the numbers have doubled to tens, but without any production. The security services are slack and weak and have corruption on all levels: salaries, financial and administrative corruption.!!
Indeed, just to ask what the central government lacks in Baghdad and the Kurdistan Regional Government does not lack, in which the security system in terms of providing security for the citizen in kurdistan is best not at the level of Iraq but the region, so the region has become the destination for tourism, treatment and entertainment for all the people of other provinces.
The House of Representatives returns to the front to assume greater responsibility for this failure. If laws were passed instead of postponing them, the situation would be better than this, but ….
3- The third axis is Baghdad as a city and what possesses from advantages:
The fact of the matter that Baghdad, with its unique location, the surrounding areas and a flowing river between its sides, which made it an integrated economic, political and cultural entity, so it was, as we mentioned earlier, the focus of attention from immemorial time.
Today, with the government’s neglect of the water issue, and Iraq falling between Turkey on the one hand and Iran on the other hand, the Tigris the righteous son of Baghdad, has become truly threatened by drought.
The areas around Baghdad, which are a food basket for the capital, with its orchards, were subjected to bulldozing and the distribution of their lands for residential investments. This is another catastrophe that threatens Baghdad with its food security and environment. This dangerous phenomenon changes the nature of the regions from agricultural to residential. The fact that the agricultural lands were divided to sell part of it as residential plots of land expanded the imbalance in agricultural production, and caused the waste of the green areas, the accumulation of building rubble as a result of construction operations, the distortion of the image of agriculture in Iraq in general, and the change of the nature of the areas from green to barren in a land that was once called the land of blackness, due to its agricultural wealth, but without a doubt, who is not able to preserve the souls of people for sure will not preserve anything else.
4- As for the fourth and last axis for today is industry
the industrial sector in Baghdad in particular and Iraq in general, before the American occupation of Iraq in the year 2003, the number of factories in the country reached 178 thousand factories, among small factories that looked like workshops and giant factories, all of which were working and producing. Most of them turned little by little to deserted areas, then became, due to the multiplying import, into warehouses containing goods manufactured in all parts of the earth, except for Iraq, and their buildings teemed with porters, after they were filled with skilled workers, in various industrial fields. This was a “slaughterhouse” to liquidate factories and, consequently, Iraqi industry.
Factories are classified according to the Ministry of Industry and Minerals into two categories: public sector laboratories, which are 285, of which 85 are idle, and 72093 private industrial projects, all of which are idle, and according to the Ministry of Planning data, the number of large industrial establishments reached 1161 in 2018, according to the latest statistics, 600 are operating establishments and 591 are not, and the number of industrial enterprises registered in the Federation of Iraqi Industries does not exceed 54 thousand, 90% of them are stopped, and only 10% that work and produce. As for the industrial cities, their number are only five, four of them is in Separated governorates , these are Baghdad, Basra, Dhi Qar, Anbar, and the last one is on the Iraqi-Jordanian border, but all of them are incomplete and most of them do not witness industrial life. And let us not forget that Baghdad also has the lion’s share of these numbers.
In conclusion, who is responsible for everything that happens? will the day come when the government, with its political parties, will bear responsibility for what has happened and has happened over two decades …?
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