RESTORING IRAQ’S HEALTHCARE SYSTEM REQUIRES TEAMWORK
AINA
Assyrian International News Agency
GMT 9-29-2009 21:5:6
I am a retired American Army officer. Since my retirement, I have
been hired by both the private sector and federal government to act
as an advisor to friendly foreign governments. I recently spent two
years as a State Department civil servant living in Baghdad, where I
worked with the Iraqi police, judges, courts, and the Ministries of
Interior and Justice.
During that period, I consulted with people from many nations and
I also came to know Iraqis who are Assyrians, the descendants of
the people we read about in the Old Testament, whose capital city
was Nineveh. Among other things, they gave us writing (cuneiforms),
the first legal system (Hammurabi’s code), and many of the original
folk stories and knowledge we credit to the Greeks (Aesop’s fables)
or the Persians/Ottomans (Tales of the Arabian Nights).
Education and the pursuit of knowledge have been important throughout
the whole history of the Assyrian people, traditionally given to start
in 4750 B.C. Their education helped them prosper — but it was also
a source of contention even in modern times, including during the
time of Saddam Hussein. Since the invasion of 2003, large numbers of
doctors, lawyers, bankers, university professors and other educated
professionals have been targeted by insurgents and are now refugees.
When I write about the Assyrian people I am talking about the
ethnic group who trace their heritage back 6759 years to Ashur in
Mesopotamia and includes the entire native, non-Arab peoples of the
Tigris and Euphrates valleys. They may also be called Chaldeans and
Syriacs depending on what part of the region they originated in and
confessionally are Eastern Rite Catholics (Assyrians, Chaldeans,
and Syriacs), Orthodox (Syriac) and members of the Assyrian Church
of the East. The Assyrian Church of the East Patriarch resides in
Chicago, The Chaldean Catholic Patriarch resides in Baghdad, Iraq and
the Syriac Orthodox Pa ria. All these groups share a similar ethnic,
cultural and religious background.
Iraqi Women Religious at Work
After I returned to the United States, I remained in contact with
many of the friends and colleagues I met while in Iraq. In February
of this year, one of the Americans contacted me. He was an advisor
with one of the Provincial Reconstruction Teams at the same time I
worked with the Iraqi Ministry of Justice. This friend had been asked
by the Papal Nuncio for Iraq and Jordan to try to assist a group of
Iraqi women religious.
These Sisters–the Dominican Sisters of St. Catherine of Siena in
Iraq–had operated various institutions in central and northern Iraq
for a long period of time. Since the First Gulf War in 1990/1991 and
the sanctions imposed on Iraq by the United Nations, their capacity
to provide healthcare and education had been severely tested. After
the invasion of 2003, a number of their institutions were attacked
and several Sisters injured.
Despite the dangers and hardships, these Sisters have availed
themselves of every reasonable opportunity to serve God through
service to neighbor, including healing and teaching in Baghdad,
in Mosul, and in the refugee camps of Syria, Lebanon and Jordan.
The Prioress of this order is a 69-year-old Iraqi, Sister Maria
Hanna. She has a deep and abiding faith in a merciful God, a profound
love for her neighbors, and extraordinary hope for a better future. Her
order is consecrated in the Eastern Rite of the Catholic Church and
includes women of all the backgrounds which represent Iraq. Their
spiritually is Dominican and they are part of the world-wide family
of St. Dominic and St. Catherine of Siena.
Seeing that conditions in Iraq were not going to be normal for some
time, she reached out to Dominican communities throughout the world and
established many worthwhile partnerships with them. These partnerships
allowed a number of her Sisters to enter advanced education programs
to study medicine, education, languages and information systems,
knowledge they returned home.
Sister Hanna and the other Dominican Sisters who remained in Iraq
also continued to work for Iraq’s future. Among other ministries,
today they operate a Baghdad maternity hospital considered by many to
be the finest medical facility in the country. They serve all Iraqis
in their healthcare and education ministries.
Dreams of a New Hospital
The specific reason that the Nuncio asked for assistance is that
Sister Hanna has dreamed for more than ten years of a new maternity
hospital in the stretch of fertile land near the city of Mosul known
as the Nineveh Plain. Violence there is still high but the need for
the hospital is even greater. This is the area where most of the
remaining religious minorities of Iraq live (north and east of Mosul).
Sadly, very little aid of any kind has gone to this area. The
U.S. Congress, noticing this lack, now requires that the
State Department account for all money that is spent in Iraq
for the religious minorities. Champions of this effort have been
Representatives Frank Wolf (R-VA), Mark Kirk (R-IL), Christopher Smith
(R-NJ) and Anna Eshoo (D-CA). In spite of the reporting requirement
clearly identified in law, no specific efforts have been created by
the Executive Branch to assist our friends in Iraq.
After our initial contact with the Prioress and the Nuncio, we
worked to put together a team of people to assist. One team member,
Marty Hudson, was the Acting Health Attache at the U.S. Embassy in
Iraq. Her contacts in Iraq and in the United States were invaluable.
Once the team was assembled, we engaged in a series of long distance
discussions with Sister Hanna. Where exactly would the hospital be
located? Who would staff it? How much would it cost? Who would provide
security, etc.? Many of these questions require a deeper understanding
of Sister Hanna’s dream so we requested a meeting with Sister Hanna
and the Nuncio.
We were able to secure an invitation for the Nuncio to attend the
Annual Catholic Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C., held in May
of each year the Latin Archbishop Jean Sleiman of Baghdad to come in
his stead.
Fortunately, Sister Hanna was already planning to visit the U.S. at
that time. We developed an itinerary for Archbishop Sleiman and
Sister Hanna so they would have the opportunity to tell their story
themselves.
Since the Dominican Sisters already operate a maternity hospital
in Baghdad, they know what is required to duplicate that effort in
another part of Iraq. The floor plans and cost estimates they provided
us captured the current hospital’s resource requirements.
If we were to accomplish this effort in another country (e.g., the
U.S., the Philippines or Nigeria), it would be a fairly straightforward
effort. We would develop plans for building construction, equipment,
personnel, ongoing operations, and recurring maintenance. But this
is Iraq (and specifically the Nineveh Plain) so we needed a detailed
political-military security plan as well.
We included current and former members of the Iraqi government in
our efforts, along with the larger private sector or Iraqi civil
society. We are developing with them something like a "Medical
Green Zone"–a safe and secure location for healing and teaching
in the north of Iraq. But the term "Green Zone" has very negative
connotations with Iraqi people since they consider Iraqis who live
or work there corrupt and uninterested in what is best for the nation
as a whole. We settled on using the term "health security" instead.
A Model for the Future
This Iraq Health Security (IHS) complex will form the backbone for
any public or private effort. We a envision this as a partnership
between the private sector, the Governorate of Mosul, and one or
more Iraqi federal executive branch ministries (e.g., the Ministry
of Higher Education and Scientific Research).
The mission of the IHS is to develop and secure the environment
so that individuals, entities and communities like the Dominican
Sisters are freed to do what they do best without being burdened by
activities for which they are not trained or equipped will provide
security, negotiate among the various ethnic and religious groups,
and develop regional and, if necessary, national and international
protocols (the area borders both Syria and Turkey).
With the establishment of the IHS, the Dominican Sisters will
be relieved of the burdens concerning security, utilities and
transportation.
Specific to the question of constructing a hospital, a typical "brick
& mortar" facility is very time and material-intensive. One option
that we are exploring with Sister Hanna is the idea of acquiring a
prefabricated, modularly constructed facility. The obvious benefit
is a significant decrease in time to complete the facility once the
first shovel of dirt is moved.
Additionally, the political and military situations in the Nineveh
Plain are still very tenuous so the IHS will need some time to
establish a charter, work out relationships, and build a peaceful
(or at least more secure) environment. Should the IHS effort fail, any
monies expended for a Dominican Sisters’ operated maternity hospital
are not at risk. The final location of the hospital can easily be
moved to a more secure location inside Iraq or the modular sections
can be stored in a secure place until the Nineveh Plain region is
ready for them.
One of the first commitments we made to Sister Hanna was that any
monies acquired for her hospital would go to her directly through a
preexisting mechanism–and not be filtered through new charities or
offices. We have included in all of our discussions the Papal Mission
to the Middle East (the Catholic Near East Welfare Association or
CNEWA) as well as Caritas Iraq, the Catholic Relief Services and,
domestically, U.S. Catholic Charities. CNEWA already assists the
Dominican Sisters’ current hospital and other projects through online
donations ().
We have received the full cooperation of the U.S. Conference of
Catholic Bishops. The USCCB graciously sponsored lunches for both
Archbishop Sleiman and Sister Hanna during their respective stays in
Washington We are often asked why we should do this. Why should we
not just assist the religious minorities’ efforts to leave Iraq and
go someplace safer?
Archbishop Sleiman provided part of the answer during his short speech
at the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast. He emphasized that we
worship a God of Justice but also one of Mercy. He reminded us that
Mosul is the ancient city of Nineveh, which was the capital of the
Assyrian Empire–an ancient enemy of the Hebrew people. After the
nation of David and Solomon was split into two (Israel and Judah),
there was still hope that it could be reunited until the Assyrian
Empire conquered Israel and dispersed its people. Nineveh killed
the dream.
This is the background for the story of the prophet Jonah. Jonah’s
antipathy to all things Assyrian was on a level with most Americans’
attitudes toward Osama bin Ladin and al Qaida. Jonah was directed by
God to preach to his sworn enemies. He was so upset about this task
that he decided that he would rather go into exile than head east to
preach to the Ninevites.
But God had other plans since, as Archbishop Sleiman’s reminded
his listeners, God is more interested in saving people than
punishment. Sister Hanna and the Dominican Sisters are clearly
listening to that call.
Why? The Historical Context
What raises the Sisters’ witness from humanly sufficient to
theologically heroic is this: the Christian heritage of Iraq is one of
the oldest in the world. Christians in Iraq claim the Apostle Thomas
as their patron as he reportedly traveled through the region on his
way to India and martyrdom.
The1900-year history of Christianity has been anything but
peaceful. The Christian population of the late 7th century was
virtually wiped out by an Arab Muslim invasion. One Assyrian news
service has chronicled a litany of assaults against the Christian
population in the region and has identified a major event with
significant casualties and damage inflicted against one or more of
the Christian communities on an average of once every 50 years si .
The worst most recent event occurred during the First World War. The
Ottoman Empire was besieged on all sides; by Russia in the North and
East, Britain and France in the South and West and by the Greeks and
Serbs as well. All her enemies were Christians.
Inside her borders were significant populations of various–mostly
Christian–ethnic minorities that were at best restive if not in
outright rebellion. In what probably started as a defensive measure,
the Ottoman leadership developed a plan to deal with these minorities
that morphed into the 20th Centuries 1st significant example of
ethnic. Strong security measures degenerated. Over the course of
the war, the Armenian, Pontic Greek, and Assyrian communities were
systematically terrorized by professional Ottoman military units as
well as hired militias. Hundreds of thousands died.
At that time, the Assyrian population was spread in a wide arc
from what is now Syria across northern Iraq / southern Turkey,
and across northern Iran. Kurds were commingled with the Assyrian
Christian populations, and the Ottoman Empire encouraged the Kurds
to ethnically cleanse their region of Assyrians.
Direct acts of violence, starvation, disease and exposure resulted
in the deaths of up to three-quarters of the Christian populations in
Iraq and Iran. Sister Hanna is a child of this murdered generation. She
has responded to the violence by dedicating her life to healing and
teaching, as have the other Sisters. This is true peacemaking.
After the assaults committed against the Christians in the Ottoman
Empire ended with the Armistice of 1918, the various communities of
Catholics, Orthodox and Assyrians were scattered throughout the Middle
East and the world. The League of Nations recognized the injustices
inflicted on them and worked to provide them a homeland. However,
nothing was accomplished. The ones who continued to live in Iraq were
an important element of the security forces which guarded this English
protectorate. A unit called the "Assyrian Levy" was instrumental in pr
nspired Arab-Iraqi uprising against the British in the spring of 1941.
The Assyrians were significant contributors to the economic, health
and cultural fabric of Iraq since its establishment as an independent
country following the 1st World War. This continued through the
wars with Iran and Kuwait. It was only during the period of the
U.N. sanctions that conditions took a precipitous decline as this
was the time that Saddam Hussein "found religion" and shut down
industries which he considered contrary to his interpretation of
Islam. The invasion of 2003 exacerbated an already difficult situation
for Iraq’s religious minorities. They had no tribe or clan structure,
no militias and no guns.
During my time in Iraq I attempted to take advantage of the experience
and wisdom accrued by my predecessors and the Iraqi people I worked
with. Upon reflection, it appeared to me that it was the Iraqi
Christians who were most interested in the best outcome for "IRAQ"
and not just their own personal interest or that of their tribe or
family. The unfortunate thing I also noticed was that because they did
not have guns, militias or use car-bombs, road-side bombs or suicide
bombers to get our attention, they were usually ignored. I do not
know of any programs which we created that specifically supported
the religious minority groups. Very few programs spent any money in
Christian (or other religious minority) areas.
On the other hand, the militias certainly knew the Christians were
vulnerable and specifically targeted them. Their churches were
attacked, individuals were kidnapped and killed: one teenage boy was
literally crucified rather than convert to Islam.
I found this situation at best professionally embarrassing. The
religious minority communities deserved our support every bit as
much as the people and groups which we were already helping. In
fact, a case can be made that if we had supported their local
leadership we would have been able to get a better return on our
investment. It never happened while I was in Iraq. Sub he contacts
I made in Iraq and work with individuals and groups to continue the
progress we started. Helping Sister Hanna and the Dominican Sisters
of St. Catherine of Siena is a pleasure. These are Iraqis who are
doing following through on the promises that we Americans made to
the Iraqi people for their health and security.
Making the Dream a Reality Our goal in this project is to assist Sister
Hanna. There are specific dollar amounts that we hope to achieve in
order to support her new hospital.
Secondarily, we hope to bring about the IHS and the public-private
partnership needed to develop a sound social, economic, political
and secure environment.
A third goal is to try to look at ways to help individuals who
have been victims of the violence, their family members, and
perpetrators. This goal is similar to those in South Africa after the
Apartheid regime ended as well as in post-conflict Balkans and the
Sub-Sahara Africa. We are addressing the possibility of having the
Ministry of Higher Education sponsor a facility we are tentatively
calling the Iraqi National Reconciliation Institute (INRI). Sister
Hanna’s faith is clearly the source of her ability to not only forgive
but to live out in her own life Christ’s vision that all of us are
His brothers and sisters and must be treated with dignity and respect.
This is a remarkable project because of the remarkable people who
will make it work. Frail and broken humans are offering their lives
in service to God and we can witness God’s grace on earth through
them. Secularists will just see this as an act of medical diplomacy.
Please continue to pray for peace — and especially for those who are
trying to live out that vocation in a place that has not seen peace
in recorded history.
John Stinson is a West Point graduate and retired Special Forces
Lieutenant Colonel who served in Iraq for almost 2 years.
By John Stinson