Doctors in the Cross Hairs
Abu Mohammed can't go near a hospital now. The Iraqi bone specialist, 37, has lived in fear since August, when his younger brother, also a doctor, was shot dead one night while walking home from his clinic in Baghdad. Abu Mohammed bought a pistol after that, but he still doesn't feel safe. Recently he was offered a managerial job at one of the city's biggest hospitals. He's scared to accept it. His wife owned a pharmacy; she sold it in November. A week or so ago a doctor friend of theirs was kidnapped from his clinic in the city's Mansour district--the latest of their friends to vanish. "My brother was killed when the terrorists started a campaign against doctors," says Abu Mohammed. "He was one of their victims."
Iraq's troubles just keep getting crueler. The same American officials who used to promise imminent victory are now saying openly that the insurgency seems likely to continue indefinitely. The recent elections, rather than creating a sense of common ground, only emphasized the country's deepening rifts. And all the while, the insurgents are attacking the social structure wherever its defenses are weakest, aiming to create chaos so hopeless that America will finally give up and go home. Now they are targeting the health-care system with murders, kidnappings and scare tactics. According to the Iraqi Doctors Association, at least 65 physicians were killed in 2005--more than double the total for either of the previous two years--while others were kidnapped or threatened with death. Hundreds have fled the country.
Doctors at Baghdad's al-Kindi and Yarmouk hospitals have been getting threatening letters with messages like "It is your turn now" and "You should leave the country." One physician, asking not to be named for fear of reprisals, says he was kidnapped last summer, held for 14 days and tortured before his family paid a $45,000 ransom. Shihab Ahmed al-Azawi runs the Central Pediatric Hospital and a private clinic in Baghdad. Last week one of his colleagues was kidnapped. "I examine patients with my eyes facing the door," says al-Azawi. "I even changed the place where I sit, to be facing the door." Doctors can't do their best work under such conditions, he adds.
Washington has committed about $1 billion to refurbishing clinics and Iraqi hospitals, but health care only gets worse. "In the past, it was rare to have a uterine operation followed by removal of the uterus, or death following an appendectomy," says Nadhum Abdul Hameed Qasim, chairman of the Iraqi Doctors Association. "Nowadays it's very common--including death." Students in Baghdad are dropping out of medical school because their professors have disappeared. Specialists are getting scarce. And hospitals are increasingly sending patients out of the country for major surgery. "At this rate," says Qasim, "within a year we will find ourselves in an intolerable situation."
Hospitals are not sanctuaries. Doctors and staff have been hit when U.S. airstrikes and ground assaults came too close. Insurgents in the town of Al Hadithah, in western Iraq, have used hospital grounds and patient wards to stage attacks on U.S. forces. Insurgent leaders in Baghdad issued a "death warrant" against the staff of Al Nour hospital last May when fighters seeking treatment there were spotted and captured by Iraqi National Guard soldiers. Administrators at Baghdad's sprawling City of Medicine complex recently banned all military weapons from the hospital following a gun battle there between insurgents and Iraqi National Guard troops.
Many doctors remain at their posts, but they're terrified. After a doctor at Baghdad's Yarmouk hospital was wounded on the job in November, the staff staged a one-day strike for better protection. What did it get them? Practically nothing. The government has put out a pamphlet on "self-protection" that's being given to doctors. Gun laws have been loosened so they can arm themselves more easily. Iraq's Kurdish president, Jalal Talabani, suggested relocating to relatively peaceful Kurdistan. There was talk of setting up self-defense courses for doctors, but the idea was scrapped. "We can't guarantee who is going to train them and whether these trainers are infiltrated by the insurgency," says Amir al-Khuzaee, Iraq's deputy minister of Health. Never mind the guarantees. Many doctors would settle for better odds.
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Scott Johnson was named Africa Bureau Chief in April 2007, after serving two years as Baghdad Bureau Chief since the spring of 2004. In the summer of 2007, Johnson co-authored, with Sharon Begley, Newsweek's July cover story "Slaughter in the Jungle," about a spate of rare mountain gorilla killings in the Democratic Republic of Congo. He has also been covering, for the magazine and Newsweek's Web site, the economic collapse of Zimbabwe, health initiatives across the continent and the rise of China in Africa.
Prior to coming to Africa, Johnson worked on assignment in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East. He was on assignment in Iraq during the invasion and returned several times during 2002 and 2003 to report on the post-invasion occupation. During his two years as Baghdad bureau chief, Johnson covered the rise of Iraq's sectarian war, the trial and execution of Saddam Hussein and the American military's attempt to quell the insurgency in places like Ramadi and Baghdad. He contributed exclusive reporting on the growth of death squads in Baghdad, Iran's growing influence in Iraq and American military and political developments in Baghdad.
Before coming to Iraq, Johnson covered the war in Afghanistan from October 2001 to April 2002, reporting on the fall of the Taliban from the front lines of Kunduz and Taloqan. Later on, Johnson traveled across Afghanistan reporting on the hunt for Al Qaeda and the resurgence of the Taliban as American forces drew down its presence. In both Iraq and Afghanistan, Johnson has done exclusive war reporting, often under fire and in the most dangerous situations. In Iraq, he covered the hunt for Saddam Hussein with exclusive access to the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment and the 4th Infantry Division. He also contributed extensive exclusive reporting early in 2003 on the nascent Iraqi insurgency from Fallujah.
In between posts to Baghdad, Johnson was provisionally based in Mexico City from 2002 to 2006. When not covering the war, Johnson reported on political and economic developments across Latin America. In 2002 he authored a Newsweek International cover story on the rise of China in Mexico. In 2004 he received an Overseas Press Club Honorable Mention for "Best Reporting in any Medium on Latin America" for "Latin America Lags Behind," about economic trends across the hemisphere. In Latin America, Johnson also covered violence along the U.S-Mexico border, the creation of Mexico's freedom of information act and an experimental drug treatment center in Peru.
Previously, Johnson reported for Newsweek out of Paris, France, since October 1998. During that time, he has reported on many of the biggest stories to come out of the continent, including Europe's mad cow scare, the backlash against globalization, and Newsweek's military coverage of the Kosovo war out of southern Italy. He has also developed in-depth investigative pieces from Europe, and he contributed heavily to Newsweek's worldwide report on pedophilia and the Internet. He has also covered North Africa, covering terrorism pre-and-post 9/11.
Johnson is a frequent contributor to radio, most recently from Iraq where he has interviewed on NPR, The World and other national stations, and he has been seen on MSNBC, Fox and CNN. In addition to Newsweek, his writing has appeared in Le Courrier International and Letras Libres. Johnson was also part of the Iraq team that contributed to Newsweek's 2003 National Magazine Award.
Johnson is a 1996 graduate of the University of Washington, where he received double degrees in Comparative Literature and Comparative History of Ideas. Postgraduate work included Arabic language and Middle Eastern Studies in Fes, Morocco. He is a member of the Anglo-American Press Association in Paris.
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