The decline of Iraq’s 22 universities and 42 technical colleges coincides with Saddam’s rise to power in 1979.  While the looting following liberation destroyed many classrooms, libraries, buildings and laboratories, it only compounded an already serious problem.  Texts were few and old, and virtually none of today’s younger professors have ever had a chance to study abroad or become current in their knowledge .  Even so, this year all of Iraq’s universities and technical schools have opened – and first year enrollment is up this year by 35%.  

Even brief conversations with Iraqi professors and students turn quickly to their sense of intellectual isolation.  They routinely lament the suffocating procedures Saddam imposed on international travel.  These procedures all but prohibited academics from traveling internationally to meet their counterparts from around the world.  But today the isolation Saddam imposed on Iraqi academics has ended.  Today the U.S. reestablished the Fulbright program following a 14-year interruption.