"Iraq was a First-World country reduced to Third-World status by American foreign policy... Iraq is a country that my tax dollars have helped to destroy."
-Swarthmore College Bulletin, June 2006

Position: Medical Doctor
Eyewitness Experience: Baghdad and Basrah, February 2004-March 2004; Basrah, December 2005-March 2006

Dr. Dahlia Wasfi is an American medical doctor who has extended family in Baghdad and Basrah, Iraq. She has visited her relatives during the present occupation in Iraq, and has witnessed first hand the human cost of this conflict. Based on her experiences, Dr. Wasfi speaks and writes about the damage inflicted by the U.S.-led military campaign on the foundations of Iraqi society —including electric service, sewage systems, water supply, and medical facilities – all of which affect the health and well being of Iraqis and their children.

Dr. Dahlia Wasfi is an American medical doctor who has extended family in Baghdad and Basrah, Iraq. She has visited her relatives during the present occupation in Iraq, and has witnessed first hand the human cost of this conflict. Based on her experiences, Dr. Wasfi speaks and writes about the damage inflicted by the U.S.-led military campaign on the foundations of Iraqi society —including electric service, sewage systems, water supply, and medical facilities – all of which affect the health and well being of Iraqis and their children.

After a childhood divided between the United States and Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, Dr. Wasfi received a B.A. in Biology from Swarthmore College in 1993 and a M.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1997. After putting her medical career on hold, she traveled to Iraq in February 2004 to visit relatives and found herself in a unique position to observe the country’s conditions. She returned to Iraq for three months in the winter of 2005-2006. Since her first visit, Dr. Wasfi has spoken in venues across the United States to advocate for the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of all foreign military troops from Iraq.

On April 27, 2006 Dr. Wasfi testified at the Iraq Forum held by members of Congress. She opened her statement with the following words:

“I speak to you today on behalf of relatives on my mother’s side—Ashkenazi Jews who fled their homeland of Austria during Hitler’s Anschluss.  It is for them that we say ‘Never again.’  I speak to you today on behalf of relatives on my father’s side, who are not living, but dying, under the occupation of this administration’s deadly foray in Iraq.  From the lack of security to the lack of basic supplies, to the lack of electricity to the lack of potable water to the lack of jobs to the lack of reconstruction to the lack of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, they are much worse off now than before we invaded.  ‘Never again’ should apply to them, too.”