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The ongoing political and economic crisis in Iraq has been rough on the country’s scientists. At least 58 professors, 150 medical doctors and dozens of scientists at institutes and ministries have been killed since the war ended in 2003.
In this feature in Science, Richard Stone describes how scientists are trying to survive despite the violence. Hard-hit by post-Saddam looting, for instance, the country’s only cancer research institute managed to re-equip in 2003. But the founder has received death threats and can see no choice but to leave.
Meanwhile, the atmosphere at universities, where both students and professors have been killed, is becoming even more tense as students separate into opposing Shia and Sunni groups.
Stone also describes efforts to establish peaceful research and development in Iraq, which began two years ago with joint initiatives of the Arab Science and Technology Foundation and Sandia Laboratories in the United States. One of these is the US government’s Iraqi Virtual Science Library, which contains free-access articles from thousands of journals.
Both the United States and wealthy Arab nations have come under fire for spending too little on science projects that could help regenerate Iraq. But one scientist, Jafar Dhia Jafar blames the current Iraqi government. Previously Saddam Hussein’s chief nuclear bomb-maker, Jafar says that Iraqis must be at the forefront of efforts to rebuild the country.
In a profile accompanying the feature, Jafar maintains that Iraq’s nuclear bomb efforts were halted in the 1991 war in Iraq, and never restarted. Now living in Dubai, he runs a firm competing for reconstruction contracts.
Given a choice between safeguarding their families and patriotism, several other Iraqi scientists are opting for the former and contemplating leaving the country for good.
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