Rebuilding a country after years of war - what sort of Iraq will emerge fro​m the rubble? Billions of dollars have been pledged - mostly from Gulf countries. What do they want with Iraq?

Another testimony from Iraq’s blemished past is brought to you by FRB — this time from Fallujah, during its own ‘Arab-Spring’ moment between late 2012 and 2013.

The government’s heavy handed response to Fallujah’s own Arab Spring rising — one year ahead of the Islamic State’s debut in 2013 —  left behind a permanent blood stain on the country’s historical record.

West of Baghdad, the men of Fallujah rallied in revulsion of political malpractices and sectarian provocation that former premier, Nouri al Maliki used to keep (at any cost) his seat in power.

Fallujah was not the only province to rise up. Joining them were delegations from surrounding cities — armed with slogans and demands favouring the dissolution of Iraq’s US-imported, sectarian structures of power.

FRB was given an exclusive interview with a young Iraqi male about the life-cycle of corruption in Iraq’s ‘liberated’ Anbar province.

He unveils two cases of corruption, one that he experienced personally and another that implicates the highest ranking politicians who occupy seats in Anbar’s local provincial council. The man whose identity has been protected out of fear for his family inside of Iraq, currently resides in Finland, where he is applying for asylum. 

In an exclusive interview with FRB, an Iraqi pharmacist comes clean about the discovery of expired medical goods and products in 2014, at a hospital anchored in the south of Iraq. Death threats and violent attacks have stifled the voices of those seeking to expose the dispensing of expired medical goods, a phenomenon officials have kept hidden from international audiences.

FRB met the young physician in Finland, where he currently resides. After he and his colleagues discovered millions of dollars worth in expired goods used for cardiac catheterizations, militias gave him no option other than to flee. The sale of expired and counterfeit medications in modern day Iraq, is a pressing matter few in government have addressed. Few cases are picked up by local press, and are rarely investigated to yield satisfactory results.
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The struggle to purchase affordable prescriptions, feeds the problem. It empowers men whose pursuit of profit and love of money are masked as business ventures, while harming those most in need of medical assistance. The same problem has spawned unlicensed pharmacies, dispensing goods harmful to the health of the nation. Without fixed rules and regulation around the use of expired products, and formal channels where complaints can be raised safely, little can be done to tame this scourge.

​Over the last two years, Iraqis — in their thousands — risked their lives to escape the volatile situation back home. The cases of some of the first to arrive, were accepted but soon after, a change in the host government’s attitude became apparent. The government last year amended existing immigration laws, to rebrand Iraqi asylum seekers as ‘economic migrants’ and their country as ‘safe’.

In light of moves to deport Iraqi refugees, those at risk assembled on the streets of Helsinki. An estimated 300 people came out onto Kolmen Sepan Aukio square, armed with a series of demands from their host government. FRB joined the protest (organised by the finnish  ‘Association of Iraqi Demonstrators’ branch) and caught up with the refugee community to hear their concerns and demands.

​Former Iraqi Oil Minister Dr Issam Chalabi opposes newly proposed 2015 Iraqi budget on account of what Chalaby perceived to be distorted figures regarding the country's production capacity.

​Dr. Chalabi suggested that the proposed targets were unfeasible and unrealistic in light of the diminished quality of Iraq's oil and low air pollution [API] index.

​“No country more corrupt”, head of the Arab Lawyers Association, Mr. Sabah Al Mukhtar, admonishes corrupt state practices, failure to recover stolen assets, and ties between the state of Iraq and Britain.

Former Iraqi Oil minister, Dr. Issam al-Chalabi, speaks to Sharq News about the impact oil prices have on Iraq’s fiscal budget. The drastic fall in the price of oil was not entirely unprecedented, but was largely unpredicted, Dr. Chalabi remarks.

​Prices started to tumble in June 2015, but dropped lower than what was imaginable. Chalabi provides an analysis for the falling costs and aggressive price-fixing among oil producing countries in the region.