Iraq's reconstruction and development

[Malik Alashter]

Dismay, poetry as home of Jew who helped found modern Iraq is destroyed
Tourism Ministry, historians and a poet decry demolition of 100-year-old villa of Sir Sassoon Eskell

BY JTA AND DOV LIEBER August 12, 2016, 10:47 pm

Sir Sassoon Eskell (center, in fez) sits directly on the left of King Faisal I of Iraq (with dark beard) in Baghdad in a photo from the 1920s. (Wikimedia Commons)

The 100-year-old home of Iraq’s first finance minister, Sir Sassoon Eskell, has been bulldozed, even though it was earmarked for preservation as a historical monument.

The 19th-century villa of the respected Jewish minister was destroyed so that the site could be handed over to a developer, under the authority of the Baghdad municipality.

An official in Iraq’s Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities slammed the move as a “violation” of the law, and several Iraqi intellectuals decried the demolition of the historical building as indicative of corruption under Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi.

Eskell, who was born into an aristocratic Baghdadi Jewish family in 1860, was instrumental in founding the Iraqi government’s laws and financial infrastructure.


Sir Sassoon Eskell, a Baghdadi Jew who served as Iraq’s first finance minister and was a key player in the founding of the early kingdom. (Courtesy: wikipedia)

Eskell, who died in 1932, is held by many in the country in high esteem as a patriot and an accomplished civil servant.

“Seen in the context of the urban history, heritage and architecture of Baghdad, the demolition of the Sasson residence is a catastrophe,” Adel al-Ardawi, a historian specializing in Iraqi heritage, was quoted by Israel’s Maariv newspaper as saying on Thursday. “If the rule of law were a reality, the people responsible for changing Iraq with such actions would’ve been harshly punished.”


Rubble of the destroyed home of Sir Sassoon Eskell (AlMada TV screenshot)

The villa, located on a desirable riverbank street, was sold to a developer who had it torn down to make room for a high-rise apartment complex, according to Maariv.

Nabil al-Rube’I, an Iraqi historian specializing in the history of Babylonian Jewry, told the newspaper that “the news of the demolition was received [in Baghdad] with great sadness,” adding: “Every Iraqi intellectual, or even just anyone interested in the country’s past, knows who Yechezkel Sassoon was.”

He sarcastically added: “I would like to thank our country, our government and its institutions for its honoring, with the demolition, of Sassoon’s great contribution as a devoted civil servant who acted in good faith and honesty with public funds.”

Heritage sites of all stripes have been neglected and plundered in Iraq since the overthrow in 2003 of the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein, who had ruled the country since 1979. But “this is especially true for Jewish sites,” al-Rube’I said.

The demolition moved a young poet, Mohammed al-Rakabi, to write a protest poem, which was shared online.

“Sassoon, your abode is in our heart. Love remains and will not die in chains. He you been born in a country that recognizes its founders, it would not have given rise to ignoramuses turned masters,” reads the poem.

Iraq’s tourism ministry blamed the municipality for the demolition, which the ministry said the city approved illegally.

Eskell, who is buried in Paris, attended the Alliance Jewish high school in Ottoman-ruled Baghdad until his father, lawyer Ezra Sasson, sent him to Istanbul to complete a law degree. He spoke Greek, German, French, Latin and English and served as an interpreter for the Baghdad district administration, landing a senior position at the water administration service before his election in 1908 to the city council as an alderman.

Favored by the Ottoman rulers of Iraq, he served for two terms before he was appointed a special advisor to the agricultural and trade ministry and later, when he was 61, as finance minister. He died 11 years later, while still presiding as the chairman of the local parliament’s finance committee. His private library was at one point one of Iraq’s finest but it was plundered and the collection was lost after 2003.

The Baghdad municipality, announcing the imminent demolition of his home a week ago, said in a press release that it was “not a heritage site according to the book of the heritage department.”

“The home was constructed 100 years ago on Rashid Street, in central Baghdad, and is presently granted to a citizen to invest in,” the statement continued, stressing that “the investment is done in accordance with the law.”


Sir Sassoon Eskell, a Baghdadi Jew who served as Iraq’s first finance minister and was a key player in the founding of the early kingdom. (Courtesy: wikipedia)

But Sa’id Hamza, head of the investigation department of heritage sites within the ministry, accused the municipality of “violating the law” by giving away the home for investment.

“Who in Baghdad’s municipality considered the home to not be a heritage site?” he asked.

Hamza added that Eskell’s home was composed of two parts: one that was meant to be handed over to the Finance Ministry, and another that was supposed to be returned to his scion Albert Sassoon Eskell.

Eskell, who was knighted by King George V in 1923, was a key figure in the founding the Iraqi state in 1920, and served five terms as the country’s finance minister. He also served as the deputy for Baghdad in the first parliament of the Kingdom, and was reelected to all successive parliaments until his death.

When Winston Churchill convened the Cairo conference in 1921 to discuss what would become Iraq, Jordan and Israel, Eskell was one of two Iraqis sent to determine the fate of his country and choose its king.

Eskell was so well-regarded for his strict managerial ethic, with employees, officials and even King Faisal, that his last name has been transformed into a verb meaning “to be strict in holding people to account for their actions,” Assabah al-Jadeed reported.

The famed English writer Gertrude Bell wrote admiringly of Eskell’s personality and political talents.


Photo taken at the 1921 Cairo Conference. Seated: from right: Winston Churchill, Herbert Samuel. Standing first row: from left: Gertrude Bell, Sir Sassoon Eskell, Field Marshal Edmund Allenby, Jafar Pasha al-Askari. (Courtesy: wikipedia)

“The man I do love is Sasun Eff. [Eskell] and he is by far the ablest man in the Council. A little rigid, he takes the point of view of the constitutional lawyer and doesn’t make quite enough allowance for the primitive conditions of the ‘Iraq, but he is genuine and disinterested to the core. He has not only real ability but also wide experience and I feel touched and almost ashamed by the humility with which he seeks — and is guided by — my advice,” Bell wrote in 1920.

That is capitalism it doesn't care about heritage.

Mr. Sasson is a respected man among Iraqis for his work he is way better than many Iraqis today who steal their country any way we talk about Iraqi noble man regardless his religion.

In my holly city " NAJAF ALASHRAF " we still have an ally called the jewish ally.

 

[TheCamelGuy]

Baghdad mall has been opened today

 

[Falcon29]

Baghdad mall has been opened today

Beautiful man, it's nice to see Iraq recovering and going straight into development. Wish you guys peace and prosperity. Iraq will be something else 20 years from now, looking forward to that day.

 

[TheCamelGuy]

Beautiful man, it's nice to see Iraq recovering and going straight into development. Wish you guys peace and prosperity. Iraq will be something else 20 years from now, looking forward to that day.

The real development that is needed is not directly visible, corruption. Recently it was discovered that some government employees in Mosul channeled millions of dollars to IS financing them internally straight from the gov.

As for the mall it is nice for sure though Baghdad being a big city has very bad infrastructure of every type (transport, electricity, IT, water). I will visit in a few months for the first since a decade ago, will leave an update on that.

 

[Falcon29]

The real development that is needed is not directly visible, corruption. Recently it was discovered that some government employees in Mosul channeled millions of dollars to IS financing them internally straight from the gov.

As for the mall it is nice for sure though Baghdad being a big city has very bad infrastructure of every type (transport, electricity, IT, water). I will visit in a few months for the first since a decade ago, will leave an update on that.

That sucks, although you can't expect no corruption coming out of a war. Definitely update us on the situation and stay safe!

 

[Deliorman]

Iraq has a huge potential for development with the huge resources they have, their location and history. If they manage to fight corruption, to invest more in education, to bring stability and security back Iraq can prosper. Unfortunately most leaderships in the Muslim world are blind and incompetent and the potential is wasted.

 

[Mhmoud]

SALAM AL-ASKARI: 'THE PHYSICS OF THE 20TH CENTURY IS JEWISH'
Iraqi cleric praises Jews, says Muslims seen as ‘world’s headache’
Shiite clergyman calls on Muslims to imitate Jews, who 'were killed and burned' by the Nazis, but emerged to win 'respect of the world through science'
By TOI STAFF September 22, 2017, 6:26 pm

• 
  Iraqi cleric Sheikh Salam Al-Askari gives a sermon on August 28, 2017 praising Jews. (Screenshot/MEMRI)
  
  
  An Iraqi cleric recently praised the Jewish people for having emerged from the Holocaust following World War II and managed to win the “respect of the world through science,” while Muslims are seen as having become “the world’s headache.”
  
  In a sermon posted to YouTube last month titled “Don’t Be Mad. Strong Words. Imitate the Jews in This,” and translated this week by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), Shiite cleric Salam Al-Askari said that after suffering in Europe during the Holocaust, where “Nazis killed and burned them” and they were “killed in droves,” the Jews, he said, “put their greatest minds into science” and “made the entire world kneel before them, and accept and respect the Jewish nation.”
  
  
  
  
  In a departure from much of the content translated from Arabic by MEMRI, rife with statements from religious officials and others attacking Jews and Israel, and accusing them of being behind a host of disasters, the sermon shows the cleric listing what he describes as Jewish achievements, including the invention of acetone and nuclear power, and describing how the Jews “won over” Europe.
  
  “The Jews suffered,” he said. “The Nazis killed and burned them. They were brought in groups to special places, where they were gassed and they suffocated and died. The Jews were killed in droves. They wanted to emigrate but some European countries banned the Jews from entering. ‘We will not accept them,’ they said. They were tormented in Germany… Today, when our countries suffer, the youth emigrate to Europe. But back then, Europe shut its doors to the Jews.”
  
  Al-Askari continued, later in the sermon: “What tipped the balance in WWII in favor of the Allies were the two bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan. You’ve all heard about this, right? This bomb that terrified the world was manufactured by Jewish minds. It was designed by the minds of Jewish physicists. Europe declared officially: ‘We need the Jewish nation,'” he said, according to the MEMRI translation.
  
  Turning to the Muslim nation, the cleric referred to an article he said was published by a European writer questioning what would happen should Muslims “be removed from the face of the earth.”
  
  The conclusion of the article, al-Askari said, “was that if Muslims were removed from the face of the Earth, there would be no more headaches in the world – no bombings, no bribery, no plundering, and no kidnapping.”
  
  “We are two billion Muslims in the world. How many Jews are there worldwide? 17 million. 17 million… There are more people in central and southern Iraq. That is the number of the Jews in the whole world,” he went on.
  
  “How many Nobel prizes in the field of science have they won, and how many have we won, in the last century?” he asked.
  
  “We, with almost two billion Muslims, have won 10 Nobel prizes in a hundred years. They number 17 million, and how many prizes have they won in the past hundred years? 200. They have won 200 prizes, 50-60 of them in physics alone. In other words, if we were to say that the physics of the 20th century is Jewish, nobody could call it an exaggeration.”

If you quote MEMRI, don't expect to be taken seriously.

 

[damm1t]

Baghdad mall has been opened today

Looks like a MarkAntalya copy.. Who built it?

 

[TheCamelGuy]

Looks like a MarkAntalya copy.. Who built it?

Turkish company I think

 

[PAKISTANFOREVER]

I wish our Iraqi brothers and sisters all the best and hope they recover fron the hell imposed on them. I have a VERY soft spot in my heart for the Iraqis as they are the REAL victims of american atrocities. I hope they rise powerfully from this INSHALLAH.

 

[Solomon2]

If you quote MEMRI, don't expect to be taken seriously.

In over a decade of quoting MEMRI translations only one instance of an error was discovered: when @Ceylal, who was familiar with the dialects and accents, pronounced that a video MEMRI translated had been re-dubbed and thus MEMRI had been fooled. So MEMRI seems to be very accurate.

 

[Solomon2]

The Islamic State’s toxic farewell: Environmental sabotage and chronic disease

By Tamer El-Ghobashy and and Joby Warrick February 4

A dried sulfur spill, caused by a factory fire set by ISIS fighters, extends from a wall around the plant to the road on Jan. 18 in Qayyarah, Iraq. (Alex Potter/For The Washington Post)

QAYYARAH, Iraq — Like any typical 15-year-old, Ahmed Jassim stays glued to his smartphone, watching music videos and playing games. In his family’s modest living room with dark concrete walls, the light from the phone’s screen illuminates his handsome but gaunt face.

But unlike his peers, Ahmed doesn’t go outside to play soccer or fly kites. Simple activities tire him out quickly because his heart is permanently damaged, the result of inhaling the smoke that blanketed this town of farmers and shepherds after Islamic State militants ignited nearby oil wells.

“He hates life. He just hates life,” his mother, Rehab Fayad, said wistfully. “It’s affected him not just physically, but psychologically.”

The militants detonated 25 oil wells in a desperate and ultimately unsuccessful effort to defend their terrain against Iraqi security forces in 2016 and wreck a prized national asset. For nine months, a thick, blinding cloud of smoke engulfed Qayyarah and the villages that surround it, turning people’s skin and sheep’s coats black from soot.

The Islamic State footprint on Iraq’s environment may be unprecedented and permanent, with a toxic legacy that includes wide-scale cattle deaths, fields that no longer yield edible crops and chronic breathing complications in children and the elderly, doctors and experts said.

Up to 2 million barrels of oil were lost — either burned or spilled —between June 2016 and March 2017, when firefighters put out the final blaze, according to a U.N. report citing Iraq’s Oil Ministry. Environmental experts worry that much of the oil has seeped into the groundwater and the nearby Tigris River — a lifeline for millions of Iraqis stretching more than 1,000 miles to Baghdad and beyond.

The militants also torched a sulfur plant north of Qayyarah, spewing 35,000 tons of the stinging substance into the air, the United Nations said. Reportedly containing one of the largest sulfur stockpiles in the world, the plant was set ablaze in part to help hold off Iraqi security forces, according to human rights and environmental experts.

Still unknown is the full extent of the impact. Studies into the long-term health effects have been halting, with Iraq’s government putting greater urgency on rebuilding, resettling displaced people and the clearing of explosives.

“The effect of what happened here will be felt for many years and decades, and the worst of it hasn’t even shown up yet,” said Abdelmeneim Tabbour, the head of Qayyarah’s health department. “The government has other priorities.”

[video]
ISIS fled this Iraqi town, but left behind highly toxic oil fires
The Post’s Tamer El-Ghobashy went to Qayyarah, Iraq, where fleeing ISIS fighters set off oil wells that burned for months. Residents are still plagued. (Tamer El-Ghobashy, Joyce Lee/The Washington Post)

U.S. officials who have monitored the destruction say that it recalls the environmental damage done to Kuwait by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s forces when they set fire to the country’s oil fields in 1991. But unlike in Kuwait, the toxins emitted around Qayyarah have settled over populated areas and farmers’ fields. Qayyarah and the surrounding villages and settlements that abut the oil fields are home to about 100,000 people, according to the last census in 2011.

The fires in Qayyarah were an especially stark case, but the Islamic State carried out a variety of environmental sabotage and degradation that blight a vast area, extending north to Iraq’s Hamrin Mountains and west to the farms and oil fields that line the Euphrates River near the Syrian city of Deir al-Zour.

[Graphic: How the Islamic State is using scorched-earth tactics as it retreats ]

“The damage on the Syrian side is right in the country’s breadbasket, and [the Islamic State] contaminated it through industrial practices and deliberate sabotage,” said a U.S. official who closely tracked the destruction over the past three years. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the issue publicly.

“You’ve got trenches filled with oil, oil spilled into the river, and soot from burning oil contaminating the fields,” the official said. “All of it makes it harder for the next leaders to govern, or even to provide clean food and water.”

‘Pure nihilism’
“We went through a disaster,” said Ramadan Mahjoub, the head of Qayyarah Hospital, recalling the days and months the smoke covered the area.

Children and the elderly rushed to the hospital with breathing problems, up to 600 in a three-hour period, said Ali Farraj, an internal medicine specialist. After the sulfur plant was burned, the cases became more severe, involving skin rashes, severe bronchitis and suffocation deaths, he said.

Ahmed Jassim sits inside his home in Qayyarah, Iraq, scrolling through his Facebook page. (Alex Potter/For The Washington Post)

For months, children playing outside or waiting for a handout from passing Iraqi troops had faces caked with soot. Dead sheep and cows littered fields and roadsides.

“The level of disregard by the Islamic State was pure nihilism,” said Wim Zwijnenburg, a Dutch researcher and co-author of “Living Under a Black Sky,” a report on environmental destruction in Iraq, sponsored by Pax, a Netherlands-based nonprofit organization. “The burning of the sulfur factory was a real case of using environmental damage as a weapon of war.”

Ahmed was 13 when he awoke one humid September night choking from the toxic air. His face and legs were swollen, and he complained to his mother that he couldn’t breathe.

His mother rushed him to a nearby clinic run by Doctors Without Borders, the French aid group, where they discovered that fluid was collecting in his lungs. He was taken to a hospital in the Kurdish capital of Irbil, 65 miles to the north.

After he arrived at the hospital, Ahmed suffered a stroke. In a handwritten report given to Ahmed’s mother upon his release, doctors noted that he had suffered “severe heart failure,” possibly a result of his lungs expanding and putting pressure on his heart.

“He will live with this for the rest of his life,” his mother said.

Ahmed’s prospects for proper treatment are not good, and his chances of receiving psychological care for his trauma are even worse.

Qayyarah’s main hospital is still being repaired from the damage it sustained during the battle to evict the militants. The closest hospitals equipped to deal with delicate cases such as Ahmed’s are in Irbil and Baghdad — a lengthy and costly trip. Ahmed’s father is a municipal employee who does not receive a regular salary.

“We can only afford his heart medicine,” his mother said, adding that psychological care is out of the question.

Ibrahim and Yaseen al-Agedi, brothers, examine the land they farm in Ijhala, Iraq. They fear that when growing season arrives, the soil, dried from sulfur, will no longer produce crops. (Alex Potter/For The Washington Post)

In some areas of the Agedi brothers’ farm, grass still grows. (Alex Potter/For The Washington Post)

Other parts are dry. (Alex Potter/For The Washington Post)

A toxic legacy
In the village of Ijhala, an hour’s drive from Qayyarah’s center, farmers have struggled to grow their traditional crops of okra, tomatoes, cucumber and watermelon. Herds of sheep that once numbered up to 50 are now limited to about a dozen.

“The smoke destroyed us; people are not working,” said Ibrahim al-Agedi, a 52-year-old farmer. The meager crops that do grow are useless. No one wants fruits and vegetables “that have been poisoned,” he said.

“Other cities and towns have had physical destruction when they were liberated,” Agedi said. “But none are going through what we are going through. Our land, our air and our water have been destroyed.”

For Agedi, the loss of income is compounded by the health issues afflicting him and his family. There are 16 children in his household, all with various respiratory ailments.

“I don’t have money to go to a doctor; I’d rather feed my children,” he said.

Instead, Agedi and others in his village rely on Amin Youssef, a 40-year-old nurse who treats people free in a humble one-room clinic.

Nurse Amin Youssef examines Hamza, whose parents say he just had a febrile seizure, in Ijhala, Iraq. (Alex Potter/For The Washington Post)

Youssef looks for medicine for Hamza to prevent more seizures. (Alex Potter/For The Washington Post)

Hamza didn't cry when he was given an injection. (Alex Potter/For The Washington Post)

During a recent sandstorm that lasted several days, Youssef said he was seeing 100 patients a day with persistent coughs and difficulty breathing.

“This never happened before, and we can only guess that is a result of the smoke,” he said.

“I can only provide a simple service,” Youssef said, noting that many of the people he serves can’t afford the treatment they need.

He blamed the Islamic State for the condition of his village.

“They claimed to be Muslims,” he said. “They left behind a symbol of their Islam: a toxic environment that will affect future generations.”

An unknown future
Mahjoub, the head of Qayyarah Hospital, said the long-term health concerns from the toxicity in the soil and water are many. He worries most about birth defects, cancer and malignant tumors.

Local and international experts say a sustained study of the contaminated area is urgently needed to prepare for future health effects and contain any spread of toxins. The United Nations said in a report last year that ongoing efforts to remediate the environmental impact of the 1991 Kuwait oil fires are expected to last until 2020.

Iraqi men and women wait for their prescriptions from the Qayyarah Hospital. (Alex Potter/For The Washington Post)

Saif al-Badr, a spokesman for Iraq’s Health and Environment Ministry, said the government is aware of the matter but is overwhelmed by the magnitude of the post-Islamic State reckoning — with land mines and mass graves receiving most of the attention.

Human rights groups that work in war-ravaged areas say environmental contamination from military conflict is a problem that is often far down the list of priorities for governments.

“With other threats, such as land mines, there are funding streams and a well-developed legal mechanism. There’s nothing like that for toxic remnants of war,” said Doug Weir, manager of the Toxic Remnants of War Project, a research organization based in Britain. “Most of the time, it’s just left to the affected state, where there are lots of competing needs.”

As usual, he said, the most vulnerable groups in society are also most likely to experience harm.

“It’s children, it’s the elderly, it’s people with existing medical conditions,” he said. “At this stage in Iraq and Syria, there’s not enough data to know what’s safe.”

Warrick reported from Washington. Mustafa Salim in Qayyarah contributed to this report.

 

[TheCamelGuy]

^^ Khilafa rats, close the mosques

 

[EgyptianAmerican]

In over a decade of quoting MEMRI

Memri is a propaganda site funded by the Israeli government. The reason why no one has brought up the obvious mistakes is because they don't want to be bothered correcting your dumbass posts all the time.

 

[Che palle]

Very beautiful pictures. Hope to go there one day