Iraq must now take the path of healing and recovery

What is done is done. Iraq, over the past fifteen years, took huge leaps backwards. It is very important for politicians, historians, experts and judicial bodies to analyse what happened, why it happened, who is responsible and how to hold them accountable. But what is more important now is to ensure that Iraqi society recovers from the calamities of the past fifteen years and the preceding 30 years and that the country’s resources are used to serve Iraqis and provide them with good living conditions and never again be wasted and dissipated. This article focuses on the pathway of healing Iraqi society from the aftermath of decades of war, poverty and immense suffering. Restoring good education and health care is the first step on the pathway of healing and recovery and some aspects related to this will be discussed in this article. Also, neutralizing and reversing several dangerous post conflict societal problems that have arisen over the years such as traumatized war children, warinjured young men, drug abuse among youth and an alarming increase in neoplastic diseases just to name a few are a priority. Given the weakness of the government, corruption and contradictions between legislation and jurisdiction, one must consider new non-traditional approaches to solving these problems; a few focusing on health and well-being are presented in the article. The success of any future government should be measured by how much it can ameliorate the essential life-sustaining and life-enhancing services for ordinary citizens.