Why many of Iraq's elite don't flee
After two of Hussein's lawyers were killed, Khamees al-Ubaidi stayed on the job out of duty. He was murdered Wednesday.
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Dr. Abdallah could not be more low-profile. He treats patients at his clinic and teaches at the medical school, and now lives alone in a house where his family once cheered the toppling of the statue of Saddam Hussein in early 2003 when they watched it live on TV.
His family is safely abroad, fed up with the violence, and pushing him every day to leave Iraq. On the wall are pictures of three generations of graduates, and of weddings enjoyed during safer days in Iraq.
The doctor travels often to conferences abroad, but can't tear himself away from Iraq for good, even though he has insisted that his family leave.
"I have a commitment to my country, to my people," says Abdallah, a pseudonym for a doctor who says that he has yet to be threatened. He would leave "within 24 hours" if a threat came, because "you are taking a chance with everything you have made for yourself."
"I don't know how they choose people," he says. "But I always expect some person to come and kill me, or kidnap me. A kidnapping is worse, because there is humiliation and torture."
Such calculations are more than the rest of Abdallah's family can take. Last year, his wife told him that "enough is enough; I can't live here anymore." She sends him regular text messages: "I'm so worried about you," says one. "[Do] you want to destroy our family?"
When she hears of a bomb, she calls to make sure Abdallah is safe. "Probably she is right," says the doctor, after making tea for a guest in his large kitchen. His furniture is draped with dust covers. "When you are outside [Iraq], it seems impossible to live. When I come back, I ask myself 'Why?' "
Abdallah figures that one-third of his colleagues have left the country. Many are in their mid-40s, he says. "It's a bad thing, the people with experience have gone. The reserve of the country are leaving; they lost faith, and they left."
His family did, too, and not just because of the bombs. The new conservatism that is gripping some parts of Baghdad mean past tolerance is disappearing.
"Keeping [the family] outside is good for them, they are young and live a good life," says Abdallah. "I don't want my daughter to wear hijab [head scarf] and feel restricted in her life. And they don't have to worry about roadside bombs."
For Abdallah, the state of violence today is a betrayal of their high hopes in 2003.
"We were so happy, so optimistic about what the Americans had done, but Saddam Hussein is very humane compared to what is happening now," the doctor says. "I'm sorry to say that – I hate him – but the Saddam time was much better. I blame the Americans; they made so many mistakes. They are the big players."
Still, Abdallah persists in Baghdad. "Iraqis are so committed to our country – it's something in our hearts," he says. "It's not like the Lebanese who go to Brazil, or the Philippinas who go here and there."
The good news, Abdallah says, is that his students "are even more committed to learning than before." The bad news is that, "in the back of their minds, they all want to go abroad."
And his patients? Even when he goes to a conference outside Iraq for a few days, the message is the same, says Abdallah: "Doctor, please don't leave us."
