London (IraqiNews.com) – The long-awaited Baghdad Metro project is plagued by “massive errors” that risk structural failure and may be actively sabotaged by the government’s own construction agenda. This was the sharp critique delivered by Mahdi Al-Haddad, an Iraqi engineer with Transport for London and a former advisor to the Baghdad government, during a major conference at Chatham House today, Thursday (October 2, 2025).
Al-Haddad argued that the current administration’s popular bridge projects will become an obstacle to the proposed over-ground metro system, creating unnecessary hurdles for the decades-old plan. He stated that the new proposal—to build seven metro lines above ground by 2029—is “overly ambitious” and poorly conceived, lacking fundamental planning steps like proper feasibility studies and conceptual design. He even suggested that his first-year university students could devise a better plan.
The engineer highlighted critical technical flaws, noting that Baghdad’s soil structure is similar to London’s, making an underground metro (the original 1970s plan) the far safer solution. Building over ground, Al-Haddad warned, risks track subsidence and structural issues within 20 to 30 years due to the soft soil quality. He stressed that a major reason for the planning failure is the lack of an autonomous governing body, contrasting Iraq’s approach with projects like the UK’s Queen Elizabeth Line, which benefited from political and economic independence.
