The Campus Antiwar Network said Monday it would like UW-Madison to join a national program to recruit Iraqi students to study at American universities.

Faraz Parekh, a member of CAN’s Agenda Committee, said many students in Iraq are unable to attend universities because the education system has deteriorated since the U.S. invasion in 2003.

“Universities in Iraq stand in shambles,” Parekh said. “Most classes now function at 10 to 20 percent of their usual capacity.”

Parekh said it is estimated as many as 1,000 professors have been killed in Iraq, and more are threatened every day.

Jenny Wustmann, a member of CAN, said the national Iraqi Student Program, was developed in summer of 2007 to convince American universities to sponsor qualified Iraqi scholars so they can continue schooling in the United States.

Wustmann said students would be recommended for colleges based on their academic records, language abilities, economic needs and likelihoods of success.

“Gender, religion, ethnicity and political affiliation will not be considered at all,” Wustmann said.

Samuel Finesurrey, a member of CAN’s Agenda Committee, said CAN would back the movement because the group wants to help the problems the U.S. government created by invading Iraq.

“Our government has denied [Iraqis] the opportunity to go to school in their own country,” Finesurrey said.

“Instead of helping this country, our government has turned its back on these people. … If we admit to the misery of the Iraqis, we admit to the failure of the surge … and the fallacy of the administration’s reasons for going into Iraq at all.”

Finesurrey said to make the program work, CAN and ISP need the support of the UW-Madison campus and community.

“The debt we owe to Iraq is one we can never repay,” Finesurrey said. “But we believe that as students, we have the ability to demand of our university to do the right thing. I call on all of you to figure out how to get this done.”