State Department Cuts WiRED Iraq Medical Program
    By Thomas D. Williams
    t r u t h o u t | Report

    Thursday 19 April 2007

    The US State Department has so far failed to respond to requests to reawaken a highly praised medical program aimed at saving military and civilian lives in war-torn Iraq. The program used voluntary US doctors and other personnel to provide computer technology and training to medical students in Baghdad and other Iraqi cities.

    American doctors donated free time to advise the Iraqi medical system and eventually videoconference critical medical procedures directly to Iraqi medical personnel at several burdened hospitals countrywide. Medical communications facilities eventually hooked into 39 Iraqi electronic medical libraries and communication facilities. Last year it "outfitted four high-end, videoconferencing facilities at medical schools in Baghdad, Basra, Erbil and Mosul," according to program officials.

    Medical instructors at the University of California, San Francisco Medical School; Children's National Medical Center in Washington, DC and San Francisco State University donated time to provide lectures, seminars and clinical assessments to the Iraqi doctors, nurses and medical students, organizers said.

    In answering queries about why department officials cut off funding for the critical medical advisory operations last year, Mary Thomas, a State Department media spokesperson, quoted an unidentified department official with commendations for those three-year efforts by WiRED International of Montara, California. She did not explain why the official wanted to remain anonymous.

    At its opening, the program, additionally supported by three US medical institutions, was reported popular with Iraqi medical personnel at the Medical City Center of the University of Baghdad. An initial press release in June 2003 said: "Despite periodic power outages during the ceremony, more than seventy doctors, nurses and students packed the new medical information center and flocked to the workstations following the formal opening."

    WiRED's Internet site, http://www.wiredinternational.org/, says the organization was founded in 1997 to provide "medical and healthcare information, education and communications resources to communities in developing and post-conflict regions. Its "technology information centers now serve nearly one million people annually, at 76 information centers, located in 11 countries on four continents,''says WiRED. The organization was partnering with US Global Technology Corps, which "sends US citizen volunteers overseas to further the Department of State's strategic goals by introducing, implementing and fostering information and communications technology in technologically challenged environments."

    The unidentified State Department official insisted the department has "great respect for the work of WiRED and their efforts as an (organization) linking lifesaving and enhancing medical knowledge with public diplomacy. The department, said the official, has "worked closely with WiRED, supporting a variety of program activities throughout [Iraq] to develop medical information centers at key universities and medical/nursing schools." One-time federal seed funding helped WiRED equip digital videoconferencing studios at four of these medical information centers, the official explained.

    "These studios were fully equipped and used for an ambitious telemedicine program beginning in 2006," said the State Department representative. But less than a year later, in September 2006, the department stopped its funding of the enterprising, potentially lifesaving program. "Sadly," said the federal official, "donated funds to cover the relatively high cost of satellite connectivity have proven to be elusive. We share WiRED's disappointment that they have been unable to raise funds privately for this activity."

    "Even now," said Gary Selnow, a San Francisco State University professor and WiRED's executive director, "we get emails from the doctors, pleading with us to resume the program. Further, we have support from the Iraqi Ministry of Health, and most recently a formal request to resume the program from the director general of Medical City Center, the largest teaching facility in Iraq.'' Selnow said he believes the State Department used incredibly poor judgment in failing put up the relatively modest funds to keep the program alive or to reawaken it. He had said when the program started that the operations will "offer Iraqi physicians the information they need to catch up with medical developments after more than a decade of isolation."

    "No one can wrap his mind around $10,000,000,000, the amount the United States spends each month in Iraq," said Selnow. In a letter to the State Department, WiRED officials said the cost of setting up its facilities was about $500,000. "Everyone at WiRED, the doctors, and the technicians, are volunteers. No one is paid. There were no cost overruns or missed deadlines," wrote WiRED board members Sheldon S. Cohen and William E. Brock. "Everyone at WiRED, the doctors, and the technicians are volunteers. No one is paid. There were no cost overruns or missed deadlines."

    "The larger story here is how the administration has failed to use the broad array of tools with which to project our foreign interests," said Selnow. By relying almost entirely on the military in Iraq, we have missed the opportunity to win hearts and minds. That, in turn, helped create the environment in which the insurgency thrives"

    "The importance of WiRED's story," he said, "is that it is emblematic of what could have been. Here was a functioning program. It was good science and good diplomacy. The administration did not see the fit in its military-only approach. The failure of that approach has to be one of the lessons of Iraq.... By going in with the sword alone, we have lost that country and created a serious mess for ourselves."

    After WiRED's program lost the necessary State Department support last year, Brock, Cohen and other organization officials, decided recently to plead to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, herself with a doctorate degree, to start up its medical services to the Iraqi people once again.

    "Apart from the excellent science, WiRED's program offers a model of medical diplomacy, gaining considerable goodwill for America," Brock and Cohen wrote. "Moreover, given the unrivaled efficiency of this non-profit organization, the program gives American taxpayers a remarkable return on their money. We appeal to you, Secretary Rice, to fund the revival of this program immediately. It is vital to the medical community in Iraq, and it will boost America's reputation in that beleaguered country."

    The March 23rd letter has still not been answered, said Selnow.