He received his B.A. in modern history from the University of North London and his PhD in international relations and history from the London School of Economics. His thesis was titled Britain's policy towards the Kurdish question, 1915-1923. He returned to Iraq in 2003 after the invasion and since then has served as the director of the Iraq National Library and Archive. During the height of civil war in Iraq, he wrote a blog diary about the harrowing experience of living in Baghdad, which was subsequently published on the British Library's website. The diary was written between November 2006 and July 2007.