Member #2 (Rachel Overholser) Life WITH the Leader
What was happening in society?
How is religion impacting the country?
What was the role of religion in the government? The role of religion was very important in Iraq. Saddam Hussein used religion in order to gain more power in Iraq. Saddam Hussein ruled using a secular Sunni Arab elite and while doing so crushed the Shiites and the Kurds.
What was the role of religion in the lives of the people?
Was there a strong fundamentalist presence in the country? Saddam Hussein did not want fundamentalism to spread throughout his country. There was not a strong fundamentalist presence in the country because Saddam Hussein would put an end to it very quickly.
Is there a religious divide/struggle,
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Iraq even won the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization award in 1982. However after going through some financial troubles the quality of the education declined significantly.
Accessibility: Everyone had access to education under Saddam Hussein because he made education free. Even females had access to education. Later on in Saddam Hussein’s rule, after the financial problems many people did not have access to education because it was too expensive.
Describe the healthcare in the country
Role of government: The government really did nothing to help the healthcare in Iraq. Saddam Hussein and the government spent about $16-30 million dollars on healthcare.
Accessibility: There was no easy access to healthcare. All the healthcare that they had was a complete mess making the accessibility hard.
Quality: The quality of the healthcare was terrible. Most of the hospitals and clinics were complete chaos and did not really know what they were doing. Most of the hospitals and clinics were run by other parties. It is said that the doctors have the knowledge of doctors back in 1970 and since then have not advanced any.
Basic Sanitation: There was no real basic sanitation because the healthcare was in complete
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How did the country earn wealth? Iraq earned wealth through oil.
What resources did the country have and what were they utilizing? Iraq has tons and tons of oil. Saddam Hussein used oil as a form of power. He would double the price of barrels of oil, making tons of money. Saddam Hussein used oil to control the west. He knew that if he shut off the oil he could control countries and he used this to his advantage.
How is the population settled (urbanized vs. rural)
What are employment levels and the types of jobs? 28% of the people were unemployed. Out of the people that do work most of them work in the public sector. The working conditions in Iraq are very poor. They have to work in difficult conditions and barely get