Iraq struggles to stem ongoing brain drain

Baghdad: Naqi Shakir sits on a sagging mattress pushed against a wall. His wife and two daughters perch on tattered sofas and chairs crowded into the one room of the house with signs of family life: personal photographs tacked to the wall, a TV, books, and knickknacks on dusty shelves.

Except for a folding table and chairs in the kitchen, nearly everything has been sold so the family can bolt as soon as someone rents the two-storey home in a relatively safe Baghdad neighbourhood.

At a time when the Iraqi government is encouraging its citizens to return and the US military is highlighting security gains across Iraq, the Shakirs nevertheless want out. They see no future here for Iraqis such as themselves: well educated, affluent, secular or non-Muslim.

Their imminent departure is a major concern facing Iraq, which has suffered a traumatic brain drain in the last five years and is struggling to lure back or hang on to educated professionals.

In June, the government raised civil servant salaries 50 per cent to 75 per cent to bring back state employees such as teachers and doctors, many of whom were fired after the 2003 US-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussain. Iraq's Ministry of Displacement and Migration says tens of thousands of people have returned to Iraq since last fall.

But with more than 2.5 million Iraqis having fled the country, political and business leaders believe it will be many years before the loss of professionals can be reversed.

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said it monitored numbers at the main border crossing linking Iraq to Syria from January to July 2008 and found that 7,200 more Iraqis left than entered. And some say a new US policy opening the door to more Iraqi refugees each year is exacerbating the situation.

"It's counterproductive," said Raad Ommar, president of the Iraqi American Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Baghdad. In the years since the fall of Saddam, the chamber would receive 200 to 300 applications when it placed a newspaper ad seeking a staff attorney, public relations executive, engineer or administrative worker. Now, Ommar is lucky to attract 20, usually from people sorely lacking in experience and with checkered resumes resulting from wartime upheavals. Ommar used to say it would take Iraq a couple of years to recover economically.

"Now, if I say five years, I'm not confident," he said. "I think, in general, people don't really have much confidence in the future."

More than 7,000 physicians have left Iraq since 2003, including virtually all who had 20 years' or more experience, said Mustafa Hiti, a member of parliament who sits on its health committee. About 600 have returned, he said, but none are top-flight specialists.

Most specialists were Sunni Arabs who, to achieve their professional status, were members of Saddam's Baath Party. Even if they did not adhere to its ideology, they were ostracised and forced from their jobs after Saddam was ousted. Now, they do not feel comfortable in a country run by Shiite Muslims, said Hiti.

At the Ministry of Higher Education, spokeswoman Siham Shujairi said 6,700 professors have left Iraq since 2003 and only about 150 have returned. About 300 have been killed.

Hiti, the parliament member, has some hope. He is lobbying the health minister to establish a specially protected zone for doctors and their families to live in, in central Baghdad. That could encourage their return, he said. Recently, the government said doctors would be allowed to carry guns for self-protection.