The Great Iraqi Brain Drain
Feb. 16 -- The most obvious effects of the U.N. sanctions on Iraq are the starving children, the barren marketplaces, and idle groups of unemployed men.
But some casualties are harder to see, and harder to quantify — like the darkening of Iraq's future, prompted by the country's immense diaspora.
By some estimates, almost 20 percent of Iraq's population has left, 4 million out of a population of 22 million.
They're winding up on shores and cities around the world, from next-door neighbor Jordan to Australia.
And the bad news for Iraq is that this exodus is in large part composed of the country's most-valued individuals: the doctors, lawyers and engineers.
Two million professionals have left the country, one expert said.
Living Beyond Their Means
Many Iraqi professionals are leaving, experts say, because sanctions have made it impossible to keep up a decent standard of living.
An average salary in Iraq is $3 to $5 a month — when monthly food expenses alone can run $2 to $6.
"The official figure on inflation is 900 percent since 1991," said Denis Halliday, the former assistant secretary general at the United Nations.
According to some estimates, Baghdad's unemployment rate is more than 50 percent. In Iraq's second-largest city, Basra, unemployment is around 75 percent.
Out-of-work engineers now drive taxis, and doctors take on second jobs. Others live on cash infusions from overseas relatives, or simply go hungry.
Life in the country's urban centers is at an all-time low, said Rania Masri, of the Iraq Action Coalition. "People living in a city akin to L.A. or Chicago are being forced to live at third world standards," said .
Even those who have jobs still come under pressure. "If you are well-educated, you just can't live by your own, peacefully. You have to be used by the regime," says a spokesman for the Iraqi National Congress, a London-based group of Iraqi opposition leaders-in-exile.
An Immigrant’s Tale
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