THE human cost of war in Iraq has been devastating. But Iraq has suffered economically too. As its economy has crumbled, so too have its once beautiful cities.

In an annual survey of the world’s most liveable major cities conducted last year, Baghdad ranked dead last at number 223 on the list. And that was before the recent chaos with ISIS. But Baghdad was beautiful once. The Iraqi capital was peaceful, elegant and prosperous. Think of Baghdad, or any Iraqi city, and you likely conjure images of bombed-out buildings, rubble and dusty streets lined with beat-up vehicles. But Baghdad was once the flourishing capital of a fledgling democracy. There’s an excellent video doing the rounds this week which shows life in Baghdad in 1956. It’s quite the eye-opener. Girls play volleyball, men play board games in open air cafes while sipping strong Arabic coffee, the police force looks purposeful, the traffic is orderly. (Please excuse the blurry stills but they’re the best we could get). Was Baghdad really once like this or has the internet unearthed some strange old propaganda film? “It’s not propaganda,” Ali Al-Hilli, Melbourne-based secretary of the Australian Iraqi forum, tells news.com.au. “Baghdad was a modern city by 1960s standards and by Middle East standards. It was one of the best cities in the Middle East. The city was very flourishing, very clean, and had all the western standard amenities.” Mr Al-Hilli has lived in Australia for 24 years but was born in Iraq in the 1950s. It was a very different society then to the one the world sees now. “Society was very simple,” he says. “I never saw women wearing scarfs or veils in the 1950s. Even in the late 1980s the Islamic trend was very minimal. It only started in the early ‘90s, and now it’s just a different society. “In 1950s Iraq, you could walk around the streets at night. You had bars, women didn’t wear veils and it was a very open society. Women could go and learn at universities and be part of the workforce. My mother was a lawyer and we even had women who were ministers in the government.” According to Mr Al-Hilli, Iraq began to turn for the worse when Iraq’s constitutional monarchy was overthrown in the 1958 coup. “Under the monarchy the system had structure to it,” Mr Al-Hilli explains. “There was an acceptable level of democracy, there was a parliament. Yes, it was a constitutional monarchy but people did have that freedom of voicing their opinions. “The whole kingdom was going on the right path regarding development and education and commerce. Appointments to administrative positions were based on merits and qualifications. The economy was small and the oil industry in its infancy but things were heading in the right direction. “But during the 1950s, the Arab world was going through a trend of nationalist and anti-colonial movements. The first change occurred in Egypt in a coup in 1952, then in 1958 there was a coup in Iraq conducted by army officers where most of royal family was massacred. It was a big change to have army officers ruling the country.” From that point onwards in its modern history, Iraq has been riddled with internal and external conflicts to numerous to go into at length. Suffice to say that Iraq’s economy stagnated and with it, the standard of living of its people and the look of its once proud cities. The Iran-Iraq war, which raged through the 1980s, was particularly devastating. “It was the most destructive war ever,” Mr Al-Hilli says. “Thousands of Iraqis lost their lives and it affected the whole country economically because spending on infrastructure stopped and everything was diverted to the military. All the oil income was diverted to war.” That statement in many ways sums up the plight of one of the oldest nations on earth. Evil has come in many different faces in Iraq, from Saddam to ISIS. But one truth remains, and we’ll leave that last word to Ali Al-Hilli. “Iraq should be at the forefront today. It could be an economic power if it had stability. “Iraq has educated people and water. It’s just that politics and wars have taken their toll and led us in the wrong direction, and this is where we are today, sadly.