Iraq's Future? These Kids Want No Part of It

At 21, Louis Yako has an impressive resume. He speaks five languages, cites passages from Arthur Miller and Ernest Hemingway, has a fine singing voice and will graduate from Baghdad University this month with high marks in English literature. In brief, he is the kind of go-getter Iraq could sorely use in the months to come, as the U.S. occupation winds down and the newly named government tries to prove that Iraq is ready to run itself.

Like almost all his classmates, however, Yako has something else in mind: leaving Iraq. The U.S. hailed the naming of an interim government two weeks ago as a step toward an eventual withdrawal of American forces from Iraq. But the graduating seniors at Baghdad University are already plotting exit strategies of their own. Outside the school's College of Languages, two friends discussed which British graduate programs might accept them. Another student thought he might have found a job in the United Arab Emirates. Even students without concrete plans have decided to get out. "I haven't a clue where I'm going, but it will be outside Iraq," says Omar Abdul Wahab al-Samarrai, 24, an English major who grew up in Europe and Africa. For years he had his heart set on a job in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but that idea slipped away as the country descended into violent chaos. "I want a chance in life," he says. "I don't see it here."

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That is not the way it was supposed to be. Advocates of regime change in Iraq predicted before the war that the well-educated elite would flourish under new freedoms. Despite all the turmoil of the occupation, the graduates of Iraq's class of '04 may be standing on the cusp of a booming job market, as foreign companies arrive and the interim government taking office this month begins looking to hire thousands of skilled employees. And yet to the students planning their first career moves, those prospects seem remote. "Even if the government does everything that it has promised, it will take years for Iraq's economy to recover," says Tariq Mohammed, 22, a computer-science student. "I can always come back when that happens."

The full extent of the stampede out of Iraq can be measured in yards, in the line that stretches down the block outside Baghdad's passport office. In Saddam Hussein's time, many professional Iraqis were restricted from traveling abroad. Now the crowd begins to gather at about 6 a.m., three hours before the office opens. By 3 p.m. one recent Tuesday, immigration officials had run out of the 1,800 travel documents they issue each day. The number of applicants is likely to soar during the next few weeks when new graduates rush to leave. "I guess that 50% of them will never return to Iraq," says Emad, a passport official who asks to be identified by only his first name. "Even I would leave if I could."