NPR reported this morning that Iraqi professionals are being coerced into leaving the country by what's thought to be bands of Saddam loyalists.

Apparently it usually begins with the kidnapping of someone from the "target's" family and ends with demands that they leave Iraq (after they've been taken for every penny they have, of course). Then the ransom funds are possibly funneled into the insurgence.

While doctors are the currently favored target, these criminals are moving onto university professors and successful businesspeople.

What a bizarre and sad development. The insurgents are essentially feeding not only on their own countrymen, but also on their nation's very future by depleting Iraq of the trained and motivated people it's going to need if it ever hopes to be a prosperous society.