Coalition forces 'torturing' Iraqi doctors

"ELEANOR HALL: As a series of bombings in Iraq kills dozens more people overnight, a Baghdad doctor is calling on the international community to help rebuild the health system which he says is unable to cope and is far worse than under Saddam Hussein.

"Doctor Salam Ismael, who helped found the organisation Doctors for Iraq, says doctors are routinely forced by militia members to perform operations at gunpoint.

"But he says the authorities in Iraq are equally responsible for the flight of doctors from the country and for the desperate state of the health system.

...

"ELEANOR HALL: How does the security affect doctors?

"SALAM ISMAEL: The brain drain is one of the major issues affecting our health system, in the sense of if you know that we have 3,000 doctors now left the country, and this is our estimation, Doctors for Iraq, and they left the country between one year and a half. In one year and a half, 3,000 who left the country. In addition to that, we have 61 seniors who have been killed in the last one year and a half, and that's how because of the lack of security, lack of protection.

"ELEANOR HALL: You say that 61 doctors have been killed in the last 18 months …

"SALAM ISMAEL: Senior.

"ELEANOR HALL: … Are doctors being targeted?

"SALAM ISMAEL: Yes.

...

"ELEANOR HALL: So you're saying that it's not just the militias, it's not just the gangs that are creating problems for doctors, it is the authorities who are making life difficult?

"SALAM ISMAEL: Exactly. Exactly. The American coalition forces, they are making retirement of some of the head seniors of doctors. This is exactly after the invasion, and they are forcing them to retire and leave the country because accordingly they are from background of Ba'ath party. And, you know, the Ba'ath party people are joining it because of their need of money at that time.

"Anyway, the other part of it is after that the accusing of doctors of treating insurgents is one of the major cruels that's played in affecting doctors in themselves. In many areas doctors have been arrested, detained, told, I mean torched [tortured] by … and beating inside their own clinics, and that's happened several times in the west of Iraq.

"ELEANOR HALL: You're saying that's by coalition forces?

"SALAM ISMAEL: Yes, by coalition forces. And we have evidence ... "
The World Today [Emphasis mine]

Tagged: iraq, war+on+terror, torture, usa