BAGHDAD: Tarik al-Kubaisy, vice-president of the Iraqi Society of Psychiatrists, is a worried man. It’s not just that the queue of patients suffering from severe stress disorders in Iraq’s war-torn society is growing longer by the day.

Nor that a country of 25 million has fewer than 100 psychiatrists and many are planning to emigrate now that Saddam Hussein’s restrictions on foreign travel have gone.

The other concern for Dr Kubaisy, who was awarded a London University PhD after four years at the Maudsley hospital in the British capital, is that the Americans have taken away his job. Like many young Iraqi professionals, he joined the Baath party several years before Saddam Hussein became its leader and turned Iraq into a one-party state. But under Order Number One, issued by Paul Bremer, Iraq’s US administrator, — the so-called “de-Baathification” decree — Dr Kubaisy’s position as a professor in Baghdad university’s college of medicine has ended.

When Baghdad University and Iraq’s other colleges re-open next week, around 2,000 senior staff have been told to stay at home, Dr Kubaisy estimates. Although they were Baath party members, none was connected to the former regime’s security apparatus.

“It’s collective punishment. It’s conviction without any charge,” Dr Kubaisy said on Friday . “I’m becoming a bit paranoid but I think the Americans intend to force Iraqi brains to go abroad”.

Coalition officials argue that every Baathist has not been purged. Only those who held one of its top four ranks are barred from public service.

“The de-Baathification decree is the most popular thing we have done here,” a senior coalition official said.

It was strongly promoted by Washington neo-conservatives like Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy secretary of defence, and his friend, Ahmed Chalabi, a businessman convicted in Jordan of fraud who is now a member of Iraq’s governing council.

“The problem is they didn’t look at who were really leaders. They made the issue of rank too important and went down too low,” said Husam al-Rawi, a member of the Royal Institute of British Architects and a professor in Baghdad University’s architecture department. “Instead of targeting a thousand or a few hundred people, they targeted 80,000.”

Prof Rawi joined the Baath party as a 15-year-old in 1958 and was a section head, the third rank down. Dr Kubaisy was even lower, a secretary of a branch.

Prof Rawi joined the Baath party when it stood for socialism and opposition to religious extremists. “After Saddam Hussein took power, the party became a skeleton with no spirit.” By then it was too late to get out.

The de-Baathification decree is also causing turmoil in government ministries, hospitals and other bodies considered part of the civil service. Anyone in the top three levels of management loses their job if he or she was a party member, regardless of rank.

The de-Baathification decree provides for appeals and exemptions, if a person has the support of staff, for example, and their jobs are judged indispensable. A petition for Prof Rawi, signed by 350 students and 30 staff, was sent to the US administration two months ago, so far to no avail. With the weeks ticking by and universities about to re-open, most sacked academics have lost hope. The decree says nothing about protecting pensions and they may not be paid. At least half the 2,000 university staff who have been dismissed are likely to lose their government housing too.

Prof Rawi said this violated the fourth Geneva convention. “An occupier cannot dismiss people from jobs, administer collective punishment, and discriminate against people on the basis of political belief”.

A coalition spokesman said that only between 15,000 and 30,000 people had been affected: “The suggestion that there are lots and lots of innocent people who have been unfairly dismissed is not true. Less than five per cent of the Baath party members are covered”.—Dawn/The Guardian News Service