How the US-NATO Alliance has "Killed" Education in Iraq Report on a Conference held at Ghent University http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=23702

From March 9 to 11 a prestigious international seminar on education in Iraq in time of war and occupation took place in Ghent University. Organised by the BRussells Tribunal and the Research Center for the Middle East and North Africa from the Ghent University (MENARG), this initiative brought together up to 200 Iraqi and international experts on education and culture, and activists from all over the world. Prof. Sami Zemni of Ghent University outlined at the opening session a very bleak picture of education in Iraq. A recent UNESCO report states that five of the 30 million Iraqis today are illiterate - even though the country in 1982 from the same UNESCO had received a prize for eradicating illiteracy! 40% of Iraqi children leave school at an early age because of the war: they must work to increase family income, or they are displaced with their families, or it's not safe for them to go to school.

More than 400 academics have been murdered in a systematic campaign.  U.S. officials like Paul Wolfowitz (Deputy Defense Secretary) called this unashamedly a policy of “state ending", the blunt destruction of each state they target. This policy also resulted into a lamentable state of public services: electricity, sewerage, water supply. Health care is a catastrophe. Prof. Saad Naji Jawad (Baghdad University) gave the audience some staggering figures. In a recently released report from the Iraqi Health Ministry it is said that since the invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003 between 8000 and 9000 doctors have fled the country. More than 2000 doctors have been murdered.