Many Iraqi Intellectuals Seek Exile

[Rose Siding]

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- The walls of Iraqi universities were once festooned with announcements of coming forums and lectures. Now, many are draped with black mourning banners inscribed with the names of professors who have been slain in the country's spiraling violence.

Since the war ended 18 months ago, at least 28 university teachers and administrators have been killed, while 13 professors were kidnapped and released on payments of ransom, according to the Association of University Lecturers. Many others have received death threats.

The result: an exodus of academics and other intellectuals, who are urgently needed by a shattered society, from their schools and often the country, joining an earlier generation of exiles who fled the regime of Saddam Hussein.

"The brain drain may cause serious problems in rebuilding a country that has just emerged from wars," said Mohammed Qassim, a lecturer at the Iraqi University of Technology in Baghdad. ..........

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/wire/sns-ap-iraq-academics-in-peril,0,5096200.story?coll=sns-ap-nationworld-headlines

[AlCzervik]

1. I heard on NPR maybe a month ago a report

on the targeted killing of Iraqi intellectuals and haven't heard much since. thanks for the article.

[Zorra]

2. Hey, Bob Jones University could send Iraq some of their *snarf*

"professors and intellectuals".

Bu$h could turn Iraq into his long dreamed of conservative state based on non-knowledge.