After the fall of Hussein, the Iraqi American Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Baghdad would get 200 to 300 applications when it placed a newspaper ad seeking a staff attorney, public relations executive, engineer or administrative worker. Now, [it] is lucky to get 20, usually from people sorely lacking in experience and with checkered resumes resulting from wartime upheavals.

More than 7,000 physicians have left, including virtually all who had 20 years' or more experience, said Mustafa Hiti, a member of parliament who sits on its health committee. About 600 have returned, he said, but none are the sort of top-flight specialists needed here.

Most specialists were Sunni Arabs who, to achieve their professional status, were members of Hussein's Baath Party. Even if they did not adhere to its ideology, they were ostracized and forced from their jobs after Hussein was ousted. Now, they do not feel comfortable in a country run by Shiite Muslims, said Hiti, who expressed doubts about the government's commitment to moving away from the so-called de-Baathification policies.

At the Ministry of Higher Education, spokeswoman Siham Shujairi said 6,700 professors had left Iraq and only about 150 had returned. About 300 have been killed.