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News from ICTP 111 - Features - Notes from Iraq
After being barred for more than a decade, Iraqi scientists can now visit ICTP. Matti Nasir Abdul R. Makadsi, who visited Trieste late last year, was the first to arrive.
Notes from Iraq
When Matti Nasir Abdul R.
Makadsi, a 69-year-old professor of physics at Baghdad University,
arrived at ICTP in November, he became the first Iraqi scientist
to visit the Centre since the United Nations lifted sanctions
against his home country in June 2004. The sanctions had been
put in place more than a decade earlier following the first Gulf
War in 1991.
By coincidence, he was also the last Iraqi to visit the Centre.
In fact, Makadsi's most recent trip to ICTP had been delayed for
more than decade. "I visited the Centre on three different
occasions in the late 1980s and early 1990s," he explains,
"both as an ICTP Associate and to attend the Centre's colleges
on semiconductors and superconductivity. The last trip, planned
for 1992, was cancelled when the UN first imposed sanctions on
Iraq that prohibited Iraqi scientists and scholars from participating
in UN activities. I still have the invitation letter that Luciano
Bertocchi, who was ICTP's deputy director at the time, sent to
me. No one---least of all me---anticipated then that the restrictions
would last so long."
Makadsi's latest journey to Trieste, which was spurred by an invitation
from ICTP director K.R. Sreenivasan and which began in late November,
was both trying and treacherous. To begin his journey, he hired
a van driver to take him from Baghdad to Amman, Jordan. The 16-hour
trip across the desert terrain began along stretches of highway
in Iraq's battle-torn Baghdad and Al-Anbar provinces that have
become infamous for insurgent car bombings and kidnappings.
After safely arriving in Amman, Makadsi remained at a hotel for
eight days, the time that it took to finalise his travel arrangements
to Italy. A four-hour airplane ride from Amman to Rome, followed
by a seven-hour train trip from Rome to Trieste, brought him to
the doorstep of the Centre. Makadsi's journey concluded with a
15-minute taxi ride from Trieste's main train station to ICTP's
Adriatico Guesthouse.
"My journey took 10 days in all," Makadsi notes. His
stay at ICTP lasted just 25 days.
"Iraqi science," Makadsi acknowledges, "has suffered
terribly under the restrictions imposed by the sanctions. The
two greatest handicaps," he says, "were the inability
to learn first-hand about advances in research in other parts
of the world and the fact that we were unable either to purchase
replacement parts for our laboratory equipment as it wore out
or to buy new laboratory equipment as advances were made in technology."
Despite the difficulties faced by Iraq's scientific community,
Makadsi asserts that "scientific research and teaching continued
to take place through the 1990s and the early years of this decade."
He cites his capacity to publish articles in his field of condensed
matter physics on subjects such as phase transitions in superconducting
compounds and the electrical and optical properties of thin films.
He also cites his ability to create and sustain a laboratory at
the University of Baghdad devoted to the study of superconductivity,
which during the 1990s served as a training ground for seven Ph.D.
students. An additional seven doctoral and two master-degree candidates
are currently conducting experimental research as part of their
training. The creation of the laboratory was sparked by his experience
at ICTP.
While international sanctions virtually froze Iraqi science in
place throughout the 1990s, Iraqi researchers used their ingenuity
both to maintain their equipment and to conduct the most innovative
experiments that they could under trying circumstances.
"We worked doubly hard using our imagination and determination
to compensate in part for our inadequate equipment and limited
contacts," Makadsi notes.
He proudly points to his own experience to confirm his claim.
In the 1990s, scientists in both the United States and Europe
turned to state-of-the-art 'discharge sputtering' laboratories
to conduct research on solar cells, while scientists in Iraq continued
to rely on 'thermal evaporation hydrogenated' facilities to pursue
similar research. "Although we were somewhat handicapped,"
he maintains that "the outdated equipment did not prevent
us from pursuing productive research that has contributed to the
overall understanding of this promising technology."
While Makadsi welcomes Iraq's new-found access to information
and increased mobility, he notes that the chaos and violence that
followed the fall of Saddam Hussein has made both life and work
more difficult and dangerous than during the years of Saddam's
oppressive rule. Last year, Makadsi had his car stolen at gunpoint
while entering his garage and, although average citizens are rarely
a direct target, innocent people sometimes find themselves in
the crossfire between the insurgents and US-led forces or collateral
victims of the car bombings directed against Iraqi public officials
or police. The British medical journal, The Lancet, in
October 2004, conservatively estimated that more than 100,000
Iraqis have lost their lives since the US launched their first
attacks in March 2003---a figure that has been rising ever since.
Makadsi accepts the situation for what it is and remains neither
pessimistic nor optimistic. "In the 1950s," he recalls,
"as a student at the University of Baghdad I was suspended
from school (and even jailed for brief period) for protesting
the regime of King Faisal II, the British-backed ruler of Iraq
and, as a result, I had to suspend my studies for four years.
In the 1980s, under the regime of Saddam Hussein, virtually all
capital funding for university facilities came to a halt and professors'
salaries were cut sharply. In the 1990s, Iraqi scientists suffered
through years of debilitating isolation created by the sanctions."
While he expresses disappointment with the failure of US-led forces
to secure peace ("protection was given only to our oil industry;
even the offices and laboratories of the Atomic Energy Commission
were left unguarded," he laments), Makadsi is eager to pursue
the full range of opportunities beyond Iraq's borders that are
now available to scientists in his country. He is particularly
thankful for his ability to resume his ties with ICTP after such
an extended absence and he hopes that his colleagues---particularly
his younger colleagues---will also be able to take advantage of
the Centre's research and training activities now that the sanctions
have been lifted.
After visiting his sons in Stockholm and London, Makadsi recently
returned home---via the same long and arduous route that brought
him to Trieste. He is now more determined than ever to embrace
the everyday routines of life and work that most of us take for
granted.
"The Iraqi people," explains, "are no different
than other people: the 'silent community' represents the vast
majority of the population. Despite the escalating violence, we
remain hopeful---perhaps wishful is a more accurate term-that
peaceful solutions to the nation's myriad problems can be found.
That would allow us to focus on what we all hold dear: family,
friends, spiritual fulfilment and rewarding work."
ICTP and Iraqi Science
Between 1970 and 1989, more than 200 Iraqi scientists visited ICTP, making Iraq's scientific community among the most active participants in ICTP research and training activities in the Arab world. The number of Iraqi visitors peaked in 1989 when 43 scientists came to Trieste. That number declined to 24 in 1990 as international tensions mounted. It then dropped to zero in 1991, the first year that UN sanctions were imposed. Between 1991 and 2004, not a single Iraqi scientist was able to come to the Centre. Now that the sanctions have been lifted, both ICTP and the Iraqi scientific community hope to re-establish their once-strong ties.