BAGHDAD, Aug. 3, 2008
Iraq Appeals To Exiled Doctors To Return
Health Ministry Offers Incentives For Physicians Who Fled Country's Violence To Resume Their Jobs
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A person injured in a truck bomb blast is treated at a hospital in Baghdad, Iraq, Sunday, Aug. 3, 2008. Hundreds of doctors who have fled Iraq over the past several years are being urged to come back to help rebuild the nation's health sector. (AP Photo/Adil al-Khazali)
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U.S. Army Capt. Charles Ford plays a video game with seven-year-old Wa'ad, who lost an arm and a leg to an improvised bomb, during a visit to the child's home near Muqdadiyah, about 60 miles north of Baghdad, Sunday, Aug. 3, 2008. Soldiers from Hammer Company, 3rd Squadron, 2nd Stryker Cavalry Regiment are arranging for the child to be fitted with prosthetic limbs. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo)
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Photo Essay Iraq Suicide Attacks Bombs strike Shiite pilgrimage in Baghdad and Kurdish rally in Kirkuk.
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Interactive Iraq: 5 Years At War Five years after the U.S.-led invasion, the war wears on.
Dr. Essam Namiq, a deputy minister of health, said more than 165 Iraqi doctors have responded and resumed their work over the past 20 days, and he expected more than 90 percent to return this year.
The violence of the past five years, much of which targeted professionals, "had forced the majority of the Iraqi doctors to abandon their hospitals and clinics" Namiq told a press conference in Baghdad's fortified Green Zone.
"After the remarkable progress in the security situation, the ministry e-mailed the doctors who have fled the country in the past to ask them to return back to develop the health sector in the country," he added.
A package of incentives, including boosted salaries, has been made available by the ministry to encourage those doctors to return home, Namiq said. He didn't elaborate.
The U.S. military, which has been hesitant to declare the security gains irreversible, joined in the plea for doctors to return.
"We agree that the return of the fathers of medicine is important to this great country," said Brig. Gen. Joseph Caravalho, the military's surgeon general in Iraq. "They represent a significant population of senior physicians and surgeons and their return is vital to Iraq's success as a regional health care leader."
Since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, Iraqi has witnessed an unprecedented exodus of medical personnel with scores of doctors slain or kidnapped for ransom and that has left Iraq's already troubled system almost paralyzed with poor medical infrastructure and shortage of medicines.
Since then, 618 medical employees, including 132 doctors, as well as medics and other health care workers, have been slain nationwide, according to figures issued early this year by the Iraqi Health Ministry.
Hundreds, possibly thousands, of other medical personnel are believed to have fled to Iraq's northern semiautonomous Kurdistan region and neighboring countries.
The security situation has dramatically improved since last year when Iraqi government and U.S.-led forces launched a widespread military operations against militants and gangs.
In Other Developments:
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- the surge has worked ???
Posted by neoconRcrazy
....................
NOTHING ever works to an immediate gratification child. - Reply to this comment
- chuckle, ha, ha, chuckle some more, laugh out loud.
- Reply to this comment
- So, why in the world would I support the same person that our country''''''''s enemies support?
Democrats should be asking themselves the same question. Of course, my gut tells me they simply don''''''''t care. And what a completely selfish position to take, when you think of it.
Posted by michaelt302
You''re right in my regards. I could care less who the rest of the world wants for our president. I''m voting for who I think has the best interests for OUR country. And it isn''t McCain...
And by the way, you forgot to mention all our allies that support Obama. - Reply to this comment
- news flash:The economy lost 51,000 jobs lost in July..
- Reply to this comment
- A previously undisclosed CIA report written in the summer of 2002 questioned the "credibility" and "truthfulness" of an Al Qaeda detainee who became a key source for the Bush administration''s claims about links between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden.
The statements of the detainee--a captured terrorist operative named Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi--were the principal basis for President Bush''s contention in a major pre-Iraq War speech that Saddam''s regime had "trained Al Qaeda members in bombmaking and poisons and deadly gases." The speech was delivered in Cincinnati on Oct. 7, 2002, just as Congress was taking up the White House-backed resolution authorizing the president to invade Iraq.
www.newsweek.com - Reply to this comment
- NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The nation''s employers continue to put jobs on the chopping block at a steep rate as the economy struggles, according to a new report....chop,chop,chop...
- Reply to this comment
- If I''m an Iraqi doctor or other professional, living in the west, with a good salary does the Iraqi guvment seriously think I''m gonna return to that sand pile?? What have they got in their water pipes?
- Reply to this comment
- Soooooooooo, the ''Doctor Surge'' is not working? lol
- Reply to this comment
- In Other Developments:
The U.S. military said two American soldiers were killed in non-combat incidents Saturday %u2014 one southwest of Baghdad and another north of the capital. A total of three soldiers were injured in the two incidents, the U.S. said.
A truck bomb exploded during rush hour Sunday on a busy commercial street in northern Baghdad, killing at least 12 people and wounding about two dozen others, Iraqi police and health officials said.
Also in Baghdad on Sunday, a police chief escaped unscathed when a roadside bomb exploded next to his vehicle in Nahda neighborhood in northeast Baghdad, wounding 9 people, including 3 policemen, said the police. The blast occurred near a police station.
Elsewhere, a roadside bomb killed six people, including three Iraqi soldiers, and wounded 13 others Sunday south of Baghdad, police said.
In Tarmiyah, north of the capital, a clash between U.S.-allied fighters and civilians killed one civilian Sunday and wounded 10 others, local police said.
Late Sunday, the governor of Babil province escaped injury when a roadside bomb exploded near his convoy in west Baghdad, provincial police said.
the surge has worked ??? - Reply to this comment
- We Americans need to add a class in Critical Thinking Skills to our high schools! Our military personnel are stretched, not only thin, but to breaking point. They are being held together with drugs, and are returning (at BEST) to the US exhausted, depleted, and often completely destroyed. By all means, let us continue doing what has helped the Taliban so wonderfully, to this point. What a complete boon for the Taliban, for us to simply destroy our own military so well, while they bludgeon and destroy Afghanistan, and take over Iran and Pakistan. I am not a Democrat, but to find a better choice for the Taliban than the president of the last eight years is just hard to imagine, unless it is his twin, McCain.
- Reply to this comment
- michaelt302, I find it fascinating that you can assure me that you know the inner workings of the jihadist mind. I really don''t think you''d better tell us how you come to be so familiar with the Taliban mind. I am not a Democrat, but I frankly can''t imagine a better choice for the Taliban, than for the US to continue to destroy its own military personnel by keeping them in Iraq. Nor can I picture anything being more helpful to them than having Dubya stay for another eight years. We have completely played into their hands for eight years. Why would they want a challenge, when we''re offering McDubya? Critical thinking skills, anyone?
- Reply to this comment
- agree 100% with liberty_1776. He is right on the money here.
I assure you , if Al Qaeda and Jihadists could vote in US elections, at least 90% of them would vote for Obama.
So, why in the world would I support the same person that our country''''s enemies support?
Democrats should be asking themselves the same question. Of course, my gut tells me they simply don''''t care. And what a completely selfish position to take, when you think of it.
Posted by michaelt302 at 08:51 PM : Aug 03, 2008
This post is brought to you by a republican supporter.
You know the republicans - the group that let al Qaeda attack us on 9/11, because they were too busy with vacations, and "not worried" enough about ALL of the warnings they received.
Then they provided safe passage for bin laden''s family out of the country on 9/11.
Then they cut-and-ran from the war on terror to instead create a bogus war.
Then they gave Pakistan BILLIONS of dollars in foreign aid, to create safe havens for Taliban friendly warlords.
But it''s the DEMOCRATS that are making us LESS SAFE.
Riiiiiiiiight....... - Reply to this comment
- At the end of the article is a list of car bombings around Baghdad. -- I dont see all that much change that would make a physician want to go there and work again. -- Another problem is that, even if the doctors come back, their religious police will still hold a superior position to the doctors. -- This means that, in a hospital setting, a doctor might be punished for requiring a nurse to wash her hands properly, which might reveal too much skin. -- It is confused and bizarre to have that sort of arbitrary monitoring of scientific and medical pursuits. -- Medical matters are between the patient and the doctor, and religion should have nothing to say about it at all. -- How can the Iraqis stand to have these 15th Century Inquisitionists constantly intruding in their business in the 21st Century? -- It must drive them all bonkers, no? -- How would it feel if we had witch hunters allowed to arrest people and inflict punishments here in this country, today. -- I suppose that would drive us bonkers. -- I really hope they can work out some of those bugs in their culture, so they can successfully join the rest of the world in the 21st Century. -- It could be a very nice world if everybody would stop behaving like idiots.
- Reply to this comment
- Iraq Appeals To Exiled Doctors To Return
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Apparently the docs aren''t buying the neocon line that "all is good", eh? - Reply to this comment
- I assure you , if Al Qaeda and Jihadists could vote in US elections, at least 90% of them would vote for Obama.
Posted by michaelt302 at 08:51 PM : Aug 03, 2008
Based on what? Your say-so?
Sheesh.
Try assurirng me with some facts rather than something you pull out of your a$$. - Reply to this comment
- timdgrim,
Haaaa ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! - Reply to this comment
- Who are YOU voting for?
Posted by liberty_1776
******
I''m voting they put YOU away. - Reply to this comment
- McCain will exterminate the terrorists who want to kill us.
Obama will smile and shake hands with the terrorists, while they finish developing nuclear bombs with which to murder us. - Reply to this comment
- Global terrorists learned a painful lesson after they attacked the US on September 11, 2001:
Attacking US civilians will result in the US military invading and occupying your continent for years to come.
I think that was a pretty good lesson for those cowardly Muslim b@stards. They also learned that G. W. Bush is a true American cowboy who will kick your brown, camel-riding @ss!
If Obama were elected president, the terrorists would feel confident enough to attack us again, because they know Obama would NEVER retaliate militarily! That would be a horrible future for us.
If McCain is elected, the terrorists know 100% that McCain will not p#ssy out and run away. McCain will strike with a VENGEANCE!
McCain is a tough, US war veteran.
Obama is a Muslim sympathizer who wants to befriend Hamas and Hezbollah.
Who are YOU voting for? - Reply to this comment
- BIG DROP IN TROOP DEATHS:
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED AGAIN:
This is Decadent and Racist evaluation!
When counting the dead from the American Slave Trade,
You must include Whites" and the Civil War.
When assessing the state of the Iraq War, you cannot exclude the Coalition, Civilians, Iraq forces & police
Opposition deaths, Afghans, Pakistan Kurds, Turks Lebanese and all Humans and Animals before MISSION ACCOMPLISHED. - Reply to this comment
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