Purpose of the website: This website brings together my published award winning articles both on Iraq and Africa from the Irish Medical Times and the Irish Medical News. In some ways this website could be seen as an extension of the travel website www.patricktreacy.com detailing mostly the period working as a doctor in Iraq. It also contains some reprints of my original political and ethical articles, including many about the contaiment of HIV disease in Africa. The reader must remember these articles were mainly written and published in the period 2000-2003 in the days before the US led occupation of Iraq. World opinions regarding this war have largely changed since then with more knowledge of unfolding events and in this context some of the articles are largely prophetical. The site also details my personal memories of being a doctor in Baghdad in the days of early 1990 just before the war commenced. I put them here mainly to keep them together as I was once going to publish a book on the subject. The larger website www.patricktreacy.com is meant to be a apolitical travel reflections type website. This website is not meant to be critical of anyone and the author is aware the U.S. rationale for the Iraq War has already faced heavy criticism from an array of popular and official sources both inside and outside the United States. However, in the interests of being the author, I felt if I did not express my own thoughts about political matters (1) I probably would never have got incarcerated in either Iran or Iraq in the first place and (2) it would not accurately reflect the thoughts of an educated European living and travelling in this age of wonder. As the Iraq war has progressed, many critics have also rallied against the high human and financial costs. Most significantly, critics have assailed the U.S. and its allies for not devoting enough troops to the mission, not adequately planning for post -invasion Iraq, and for permitting and perpetrating widespread human rights abuses. My own feeling is that America, for better or worse, should stay and finish the job they have already started. If not, the world will become a place where a darker place to live. We should also remember, the ordinary people of the United States see themselves as a righter of wrongs around the world, continuing a pursuit of tyranny and a moral defence of freedom no matter what the place or cost. This war has pitted this ideology against a variant reality. Ultimately, the decision to go to war is now past and the criteria must now be to obtain a just and durable peace, which will remain if the interpretation of any durable peace is really based on the principles mentioned above. We should also remember the jehad or violent aspect of Islamic fundamentalist ideology is nothing new. I have predicted and for many years now both here and internationally, that it would emerge as a backlash against American policies in the changing political order of the new world. In retrospect, I have many fond memories of my travels amongst Islamic peoples, including the fact that I was roving in the nigh regions of Israel when its army invaded the Lebanon in 1982. During this period, I visited as many as twelve Islamic nations, from the nomadic pastoralsit in the desert lands of Algeria across the Hindukush mountains to the Pushtun of Afghanistan. In the intervening years, I have watch a saffron sun set on many Islamic conflicts, including those of the Lebanese, the Persians, the Kurds, and the Afghans. In my heart, I miss not been able to go back to travel and work in Iraq as I did in the days before the Iraq War commenced

Background to The Iraq War

The Iraq War, also known as the Second Gulf War or the occupation of Iraq, is an ongoing conflict, which began on March 20th 2003 with the United States led invasion of Iraq by a multinational coalition composed of US and UK troops supported by smaller contingents from Australia, Poland and other nations.The main rationale for the invasion offered by US President George Bush and coalition supporters was the allegation that Iraq possessed and was actively developing weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in violation of a 1991 agreement. U.S. officials argued that Iraq posed an imminent, urgent, and immediate threat to the United States, its people, allies, and interests..At the time, many people including myself wrote about the justification of going to war on this basis. The supporting intelligence was widely criticized, and eventually weapons inspectors found no evidence of WMD. After the invasion, the Iraq Survey Group concluded that Iraq had ended its WMD programs in 1991 and had none at the time of the invasion, but that they intended to resume production if and when the Iraq sanctions were lifted. Although some earlier degraded remnants of misplaced or abandoned WMD were found, they were not the weapons for which the coalition invaded. Some U.S. officials claimed Saddam Hussein and al-Queda had been cooperating, but no evidence of any collaborative relationship has been found. In the period before the invasion I wrote " one of the continuing realities of human existence is war. From earliest recorded human history through to modern times, communities have engaged in armed conflict as a method of dispute resolution. The basic theory, which has arisen within Western culture to evaluate the legitimacy of military action is called ‘just war’ theory and includes the contributions of philosophers and theologians dating back to Roman times. Just war is a historical tradition that is neither theological nor philosophical, but rather something influenced by the traditions of chivalry and practices derived from the experience of many battles. It is a theory often used by Christians to determine whether the decision to go to war and the means used to prosecute that war are just and has been used as a method of evaluating military actions by thinkers as varied as St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas and Grotius. Interestingly, most early Christians were largely pacifistic in nature, but with the increasing political influence of the Christian Church, fourth and fifth century theologians began to develop justifications for the use of military force. The first Christian theologian to address the circumstances under which war was legitimate was St. Augustine of Hippo. He stated, ‘for a war to be just, it must be fought for the right reasons, and must be waged under rightful authority’. He held that the only reason, which justified war, was the desire for peace" . America may have indeed had this desire as there was genuine concerns over Iraq's financial support for the families of Palestine suicide bombers, Iraqi government human rights abuses and the use of Iraq's oil reserves. This ideology seems more like just cause as many were suspicious that the looming confrontation was primarily about oil. In the past two years, America had established bases near the major sources of Asian fossil fuels. The decision of Unocal oil company to build a pipeline across Afghanistan from Turkmenistan to Pakistan is cited as a case in question. At present Iraq exports around 1.5m barrels a day but this could be increased to 6m barrels within a short time. The US needs to compete with China for access to new energy reserves as Dick Chaney, (the former head of Halliburton Oil) the US Vice-President predicted that imported oil would rise from 10.4 million barrels a day at present to 16.7 million barrels a day by 2020. Traditionally, America has looked to Saudi Arabia and Venezuela for its crude supplies. However, since Saudi nationals carried out the September 11 terrorist attacks in the main, the former important Middle East ally is seen in a different light and political turmoil in Venezuela has virtually halted exports to the US. Despite these moral shortcomings, we must never forget the terrible oppressive conditions under which the population of Iraq had been forced to live since the dictatorial Ba’ath Government of Saddem Hussein came to power. I myself was hled as a prisoner of this regime for visiting the scence of the chemical gas bombing of al Halabja in 1990. Right intention also required that the action of war must be carried out without inflicting gratuitous suffering out of a desire to punish the aggressor nation-state. This did not happen in the context of abuses of political prisoners at Abu Ghraib, the Haditha killings, the Blackwater killings and the total lack of control leading to more than 16% of the population becoming refugees. (2 million fled Iraq while approximately 1.9 million being presently displaced). Criticisms of the Iraq War include: legality of the invasion, insufficient post-invasion plans, high rate of human casualties, adverse effect on global war on terror, damage to America's traditional alliances and influence and disruption of Iraqi oil production and related energy security concerns (the price of oil has quadrupled since 2002).The invasion consisted of eight military objectives. Each one follows from key points laid out in President Bush’s National Security Strategy. The ojectives were to end Saddam Hussein’s regime, identify, isolate and eliminate Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, search, capture and drive out terrorists, obtain intelligence related to terrorist networks, accumulate intelligence that is related to the illicit network of weapons of mass destruction, end sanctions and distribute humanitarian aid to those in need, secure Iraq’s oil fields and other resources, and to assist the Iraqi people in transitioning to a representative government. Operation Iraqi Freedom was the largest special operations force since Vietnam. Initially it was a quick and decisive operation encountering little resistance. The Iraqi Army was quickly overwhelmed with only the elite Fedayeen Saddam putting up strong resistance before melting away into the civilian population. The rest, as predicted has been a financial disaster for the US and a human tragedy the people of Iraq.

THE AFRICAN SECTION

It is estimated that 42 million people are now infected with HIV worldwide, of which over 30 million live in Africa where the plague has already killed 15 million. Think about this for a moment, this is a population three times the size of the total population of this island or twice the size of London. In parts of southern Africa, two in five adults are now infected and in Zimbabwe, where the brutal rule of a dictator has led to economic collapse, as many as three quarters of a million children are presently orphaned by the disease. More than 25 million people globally have died of AIDS since 1981. Africa has 12 million AIDS orphans. At the end of 2007, women accounted for 50% of all adults living with HIV worldwide, and for 61% in sub-Saharan Africa.Young people (under 25 years old) account for half of all new HIV infections worldwide.In developing and transitional countries, 7.1 million people are in immediate need of life-saving AIDS drugs; of these, only 2.015 million (28%) are receiving the drugs. How could this terrible situation be allowed to happen? The African articles are reprints from my award winning column in The Irish Medical Times 2000-2003 which brought me the coveted honour of "Professional Journalist of the Year" in 2003

SPECIAL OLYMPIC WORLD GAMES 2003

The pictue below shows the Iraqi team attending the Special Olympic World Games in Ireland in 2003. TheSpecial Olympics is an international organization created to help people with intellectual disabilities develop self-confidence, social skills and a sense of personal accomplishment. The Special Olympics was founded by Eunince Kennedy Shriver in 1968.The 2003 World Games were the first to be held outside of the United States. Approximately 7000 athletes from 150 countries competed in the games in 18 official disciplines, and three exhibition sports. A 12-member team from Iraq received special permission to attend the games, despite ongoing war in their home nation.The opening ceremony was held in Croke Park featured an array of stars and was hosted by Patrick Kielty. The band U2 were a major feature, and Nelson Mandela officially opened the games. Other performances included The Corrs and the largest Riverdance troupe ever assembled on one stage. 75,000 athletes and spectators were in attendance at the opening ceremonies. Irish and international celebrities such as Arnold Schwartzenegger and Jon BOn Jovi walked with the athletes, with Muha,,ad Ali as a special guest and Manchester United football player Roy Keane taking the athletes oath with one of the Special Olympians. The ceremony was officially opened by President of Ireland Mary McAleese and attended by the Taoiseach (Prime Minister) of Ireland Bertie Ahern. I was asked to present the medals.

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Patrick Treacy visits Iraqi Kurdistan

Iraqi Kurdistan by Patrick Treacy

Forbidden Journey into Iraqi Kurdistan