Iraq Quo Vadis: What America Should Do

By Heskel M Haddad M.D.

Is the war in Iraq over, or is it just beginning? What does the future hold for Iraq? How do average Iraqis feel about the U.S. occupation?
Iraq Quo Vadis, What America Should Do will answer these questions and others, as it delivers an urgent warning about Iraqs future to an increasingly anxious world.
Iraq Quo Vadis will weave Iraqs history together with Dr. Haddads own amazing story of survival and quest for freedom and outline in compelling detail why the current American attempt at imposing Western-style democracy in Iraq is doomed to failure. It will then tell Americas leaders what they should be doing instead and why.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Mar 5, 2008
• ISBN: 9781462842919

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Copyright © 2008 by Heskel M. Haddad, M.D.

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Contents

OVERVIEW

PART I

PART II

PART III

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

This book is dedicated to all those who were killed, maimed and injured in the unjust and totally unwarranted war in Iraq, and to my family, children and granddaughters, my sisters and brothers, my staff and my patients who worried about me during my visit to Iraq, and to Malak, my Iraqi angel.

OVERVIEW

Is the war in Iraq over, or is it just beginning? What does the future hold for Iraq? How do average Iraqis feel about the U.S. occupation?

Iraq Quo Vadis, What America Should Do by Dr. Heskel M. Haddad, will answer these questions and others, as it delivers an urgent warning about Iraq’s future to an increasingly anxious world. Both a native of Baghdad and an American citizen (as well as a renowned ophthalmologist and scholar of Jewish history), Dr. Haddad is in a unique position to provide the clear insight and understanding of context that is missing from both daily media reports on the war and hastily written books filled with misinformation. The world wants to know the truth about what is happening in Iraq now and what Iraqis really want their future to be. Iraq Quo Vadis, What America Should Do by Dr. Heskel M. Haddad, will answer these questions and others, as it delivers an urgent warning about Iraq’s future to an increasingly anxious world.

Although he fled his beloved home in 1950, Dr. Haddad has remained in constant touch with both Iraqis who stayed behind and those who escaped to settle in nations around the world. Dr. Haddad just completed his first visit to Baghdad in 53 years, where he spoke to dozens of average Iraqis in places the media wouldn’t know to go to get the real story. He communicated with Iraqis freely in their own language, far from the interference of interpreters or armed American soldiers. Now he is ready to tell the world the truth about what’s really going on in Iraq.

Iraq Quo Vadis will weave Iraq’s history together with Dr. Haddad’s own amazing story of survival and quest for freedom and outline in compelling detail why the current American attempt at imposing Western-style democracy in Iraq is doomed to failure. It will then tell America’s leaders what they should be doing instead and why.

Part 1:

Part 1: A Brief History of Iraq

The question of what will happen next in Iraq and what will establish peace and prosperity there can only be understood in the context of its complex history. Illustrated with maps and historical photographs, Iraq Quo Vadis will provide a concise overview of key turning points in the past 100 years of Iraqi history; the numerous conflicts and historical twists from the early 1900s to present day that brought a once great civilization to almost three decades of brutal rule by Saddam Hussein.

Part 2:

Part 2: One Man’s History in Iraq

Heskel Haddad was born in Baghdad in 1930. From that year through present day, Iraq Quo Vadis will feature his firsthand accounts of Iraqi history accompanied by personal photographs, as both an Iraqi citizen and as an exile.

Dr. Haddad’s struggle for religious freedom began at the early age of nine when he first heard a fellow Iraqi call him lousy Jew. For centuries Iraq was home to the world’s oldest Jewish community, largely concentrated in Baghdad. But by the late 1930s, spurred by the rise of Nazism, the Arab community had become increasingly anti-Semitic. On the eve of the holy day of Shuvuot in 1941, small roving bands killed 900 Jews in Baghdad, among them Heskel Haddad’s cousin and closest friend, who had been stabbed in the back and left to die in agony.

Heskel Haddad vowed to avenge his cousin and began to organize an underground movement to protect his fellow Jews from further slaughter. As conditions worsened in Iraq, more and more Jews dreamed of escape.