At Basra University, education truly was a murder machine. Jack Fairweather visited the campus yesterday
It was a university report that any aspiring young Baathist would have been proud of. "Comrade Nadir Hussein," it read, "attendance: excellent; intellectual ability: good; relationship with other comrades: good; military experience: fair; potential for promotion in the party: excellent."
Secured yesterday by the recce group of the 1st Regiment, Royal Fulsiliers, newly-liberated Basra University resembled more a paramilitary training camp for the Baath party than a centre of academic excellence.
Shifting through the debris after 24 hours of looting at the campus in the wake of the British advance, Nadir's report was one of thousands of such files recording students' Baathist credentials locked up in a cupboard of the administration block.
On the walls of the building, between oil paintings of Saddam Hussein, were charts listing lecturers, number of scholars and the armoury of each faculty, promising the day 'manhood' would come soon.
"Agricultural department," read one, "Senior Lecturer, Major Hamid Jalabi, 196 students, 200 AK47s, 20 Rocket-Propelled Grenades and 10 hand guns."
In the staff room a map showed the network of Baath party headquarters radiating from the university from which militia groups had launched attacks against the British lines surrounding the city, although by the time the Royal Fusiliers reached the campus it had been deserted.
"We knew that the university was a militia stronghold," said Capt Ed Pugh, in front of a placard which read in Koranic script: "To be loved by the people is to be a member of the Baath party."
"But I never realised until now how deeply Saddam Hussein and the Baath party had got into peoples lives," said Capt Pugh. Baath party ideology had clearly reduced the academic curriculum to a form of state flattery.
Though the looting had left most rooms bare, the library itself had been left untouched, whether as an indication of the fear with which Saddam Hussein is still held by the population or through a degree of discernment on the part of the looters.
The library walls were filled with scholarly tomes written by the dictator: Revolution and national education, read one book with a picture of Saddam on the front cover. Others were: Socialism: Our own private way, and a collection of speeches entitled: "The mother of all speeches and speeches of revolution and victory." Stapled to a thesis on the was a handwritten letter to the Iraqi leader: "To our beloved president Saddam Hussein, on the occasion of his birthday I would like to give as a present my thesis on the reproductive patterns of Iraqi beetles."
Ali Hakimi was a former student who had gathered at the university gates to find out when lessons would be starting again. He readily confessed to be being a Baath party member.
"The only way to study in this country is to join the Baath party. We joined because we had to, although I know more about guns now than agriculture, which I was studying."
Another student, Jaber, said: "We didn't do anything bad other than guard duty at the campus. Do you know the worst thing about studying here? The compulsory lectures about the socialism, Baath Party and Saddam Hussein. A member of the secret services would check attendance and then begin talk about how great Saddam was."
Both Ali and Jaber began to reel off a list of epithets as if in a trance. "Saddam the great, Saddam our Saviour, Saddam, at the right hand of the prophet Mohammed. We were taught that he had created the Iraqi nation. It was very boring," said Jaber.
Presented with a textbook entitled Saddam's Glorious Reflections on Economics, Jaber became angry.
"It's a complete lie," he said. "In that book Saddam says we must give away our money to the party or the country is lost. We have given away everything we had and Iraq is still ruined."