Ungovernable Life: Mandatory Medicine and Statecraft in Iraq PDF
Preview Ungovernable Life: Mandatory Medicine and Statecraft in Iraq
Ungovernable Life This page intentionally left blank Ungovernable Life Mandatory Medicine and Statecraft in Iraq Omar Dewachi Stanford University Press Stanford, California Stanford University Press Stanford, California ©2017 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system without the prior written permission of Stanford University Press. Printed in the United States of America on acid-free, archival-quality paper Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Al-Dewachi, Omar, author. Title: Ungovernable life : mandatory medicine and statecraft in Iraq / Omar Dewachi. Description: Stanford, California : Stanford University Press, 2017. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2016055520 (print) | LCCN 2016056945 (ebook) | ISBN 9780804784443 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780804784450 (pbk. : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781503602694 (electronic) Subjects: LCSH: Medical policy—Iraq—History. | National health services—Iraq—History. | Medical care—Iraq—History. | Iraq—Politics and government. Classification: LCC RA395.I72 A53 2017 (print) | LCC RA395.I72 (ebook) | DDC 362.109567--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016055520 ISBN 9-780-8047-8444-3 (cloth) Typeset by Dovetail Publishing Services in 11/13.5 Adobe Garamond To my parents, Ekhlas and Abdulilah This page intentionally left blank Contents Preface ix Acknowledgments xv Ungovernable Life: An Introduction 1 1 Intervention Pathologies 29 2 Vitality of the State 45 3 Doctors without Empires 65 4 The Royal College 83 5 Development and Its Discontents 105 6 Infants and Infantry 127 7 Empire of Patronage 151 Conclusion 171 Notes 185 Bibliography 211 Index 227 This page intentionally left blank Preface The questions that drive this book are inspired by my personal experiences of growing up in Iraq and training as a medical doctor in the aftermath of the 1991 Gulf War. On August 2, 1990, Iraqis woke up to the news of their government’s swift invasion and the annexation of Kuwait. Over the following weeks, a coalition of thirty-three countries, led by the United States, had mobilized to “liberate” Kuwait. For ninety days, the coalition pounded Iraq’s infrastructure, destroying the founda- tions of a modern state. Operation Desert Storm targeted government facilities and destroyed electricity grids, telephone lines, the water supply, and sanitation systems. For more than a decade afterward, Iraqis were subjected to one of the harshest experiments of war under UN economic sanctions (1990–2003). The sanctions prohibited oil sales—Iraq’s main export—and banned imports of goods, except for limited and selective supplies of medicine and basic food items. Furthermore, Iraq was pre- vented from importing material to fix its broken infrastructure. Under the sanctions, Iraqis witnessed an acute deterioration in everyday life as the infrastructure of the state crumbled. Health and development indicators plummeted, and the country’s environment was severely scarred. In effect, the sanctions induced an ecology of “state failure,” where the besieged state became unable to restore its damaged infrastructure to prewar conditions. This was further complicated by the inability of the country’s advanced health-care system to respond to the swelling burdens of the general population’s afflictions. The far- reaching and detrimental effects of that war and sanctions—what Iraqis refer to as al-hisar (the siege)—were determinative in shaping Iraq’s pre- carious future for decades to come.
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