Iraq's invisible refugee crisis

[ck4829]

With thousands of Iraqis desperately fleeing this country every day, advocates for refugees say there is an urgent need to allow more Iraqi refugees into the United States.

Until recently the Bush administration had planned to resettle just 500 Iraqis this year, a mere fraction of the estimated 60,000-90,000 Iraqis now fleeing their country each month. State Department officials say they are open to admitting larger numbers but are limited by a cumbersome and poorly funded U.N. referral system.

“We’re not even meeting our basic obligation to the Iraqis who’ve been imperiled because they worked for the U.S. government,” said Kirk W. Johnson, who worked for the U.S. Agency for International Development in Fallujah in 2005. “We could not have functioned without their hard work, and it’s shameful that we’ve nothing to offer them in their bleakest hour.”

Sen. Edward Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat, who is taking over the immigration, border security and refugee subcommittee, plans hearings this month on the Iraqi refugee situation. An estimated 1.8 million Iraqis are now living outside Iraq. The pace of the exodus has quickened significantly in the past nine months.

Some critics say the Bush administration has been reluctant to create a significant refugee program because to do so would be tantamount to conceding failure in Iraq. They say a major change in policy could happen only as part of a broader White House shift on Iraq.

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/16370230.htm

[no_hypocrisy]

1. Iraqi refugees fleeing for their safety and for their future have the potential

to become "Palestinians" in that they will be exiled from their homeland and reluctant to adopt where they are living.

[magellan]

2. 60,000-90,000 Iraqis fleeing their country per MONTH

...and BushCo only plans to resettle 500 in the US this year, for whatever callous reason.

Imagine burning your neighbor's house to the ground. If it was accidental you'd give them shelter, wouldn't you?

[annabanana]

3. If we don't take many, many in. . .

They will settle elsewhere and make our destruction their life's work.

("No one could have imagined")

[tanyev]

4. Let's see....we're fighting them there so they can come and live here.

Yet another problem the RWers didn't think through.