"The best presents I receive from my foreign friends are books. As soon as any professor gets a book from abroad, we pass it on to each other to photocopy it so we can still read."
Iraq once prided itself on the highest literacy rates in the Arab world. These have not survived the poverty that has forced many school and university students to drop out.
Even primary schools are affected. According to the UN Children's Fund, one in four of Iraqi children aged from six to 11 is now staying away from school. The figure for girls alone is 30 percent, an ominous indicator for the future.
Although the Iraqi government provides free education, many students cannot pay for books, notebooks and pens.
"You could notice the economic effects on students from the old torn clothes they wear," Wandawi said. "They stopped eating at the cafeteria. They even stopped buying soft drinks which cost 250 dinars (US$0.11)."
"We also noticed that men were dropping out to find jobs to help their parents. This is why the university started evening shifts to allow working young men to continue their studies.
"The number of students in the evening shift is now far higher than in the morning shifts," he said.
Wandawi, in his 40s, comes from a generation of academics mostly educated in Britain and the United States in the 1980s when Iraq could still afford to fund foreign scholarships.
"Iraqis do not have a historical enmity with the United States," he said. "I have no problem with the American citizen. My problem is with American policy."
Younger academics voiced the same suspicion.
"America has taken a decision to wage war and the pretexts can be simple. It can create a crisis at any moment and start attacking Iraq," said Hassan Hussein, a philosophy lecturer.
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