Iraqis abandon their homes in Middle East's new refugee exodus

[IndianaGreen]

Another depressing report from The Independent's Patrick Coburn.

Iraqis abandon their homes in Middle East's new refugee exodus

By Patrick Cockburn in Baghdad

Published: 01 February 2007

Iraq is experiencing the biggest exodus in the Middle East since Palestinians were forced to flee in 1948 upon the creation of Israel.

"We were forced to leave our house six months ago and since then we have moved more than eight times," said Abu Mustafa, a 56-year-old man from Baghdad. "Sectarian violence has now even reached the displacement camps but we are tired of running away. Sometimes I have asked myself if it is not better to die than to live like a Bedouin all my life."

Iraqis are on the run inside and outside the country. The United Nations High Commission for Refugees said 50,000 Iraqis a month are abandoning their homes. Stephanie Jaquemet, regional representative of the UNHCR, said that two million Iraqis have fled abroad and another 1.5-2 million are displaced within the country - many of them from before the fall of Saddam Hussein.

They flee because they fear for their lives. Some 3,000 Iraqis are being killed every month according to the UN. Most come from Baghdad and the centre of the country, but all of Iraq outside the three Kurdish provinces in the north is extremely violent. A detailed survey by the International Organisation for Migration on displacement within Iraq said that most people move after direct threats to their lives: "These threats take the form of abductions; assassinations of individuals or their families."

There are fewer mixed areas left in Iraq. In Baghdad, militias now feel free to use mortars to bombard each other knowing that they will not hit members of their own community. Shia and Sunni both regard themselves as victims responding to provocation.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article2204094.ece

[ninkasi]

1. After plunging Iraq into hell

the idiotic twit has the nerve to say, in an interview with"60 Minutes"

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/01/13/60minutes/main2358754.shtml

Asked if he thinks he owes the Iraqi people an apology for not doing a better job, Bush says, "Well I don’t, that we didn’t do a better job or they didn’t do a better job?"

"Well, that the United States did not do a better job in providing security after the invasion?" Pelley clarifies.

"Not at all. I think I am proud of the efforts we did. We liberated that country from a tyrant. I think the Iraqi people owe the American people a huge debt of gratitude. That’s the problem here in America. They wonder whether or not there is a gratitude level that’s significant enough in Iraq," Bush replies.

The man's arrogance is surpassed only by his ignorance and stupidity.

[magellan]

2. And he only planned to resettle 500 Iraqi refugees this year

January 2, 2007
Guest: Steve Benen

IRAQI REFUGEES.... According to a dejecting piece in today's New York Times, the Bush administration had planned to resettle just 500 Iraqi refugees this year, while reality shows tens of thousands of Iraqis who are now believed to be fleeing their country each month. "Until recently," the Times reported, "the administration did not appear to understand the gravity of the problem."

If only I had a nickel for every time I've seen that sentence.

"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 Johnson, who worked for the United States Agency for International Development in Falluja 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."

Alas, there's a political implication. To acknowledge a refugee crisis would be to acknowledge yet another degree of failure. As Lavinia Limon, president of the United States Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, a nongovernmental refugee resettlement agency, put it, "I don't know of anyone inside the administration who sees this as a priority area. If you think you're winning, you think they're going to go back soon."

As it happens, the crisis is for the desk of Ellen Sauerbrey, the Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees and Migration. Sauerbrey, of course, was given the job despite literally no background in responding to refugee crises, setting up camps, delivering emergency supplies, and/or mobilizing international responses to humanitarian crises. Her only "qualification" for the job seemed to be that she was a Republican activist looking for a job in the administration. (Sauerbrey is a former member of the Republican National Committee and was Bush's Maryland state campaign chairwoman in 2000.)"

more... http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2007_01/010506.php

"Compassionate conservative" translates to "heartless SOB".

[UpInArms]

3. When will Ellen get her "medal of freedom" and her "attagurl ellie!"?

(Sauerbrey is a former member of the Republican National Committee and was Bush's Maryland state campaign chairwoman in 2000.)

[IndianaGreen]

5. The damage we have done to Iraq will last for generations to come!

I have never been so ashamed to be an American as I am now!

[ninkasi]

6. I feel the same, IG

To think that the rest of the world sees that we are causing enormous numbers of deaths and creating such misery is unbearable. My question now, after we won the elections in November, and poll after poll shows that the American public is fed up with Bush and his war, after expressing our opinion, why don't our politicians have the backbone to put a stop the the fascist twit?

I could understand, but not agree with their reasons when Bush had high approval ratings, but why don't they act now? Except for a few, they are nothing but a pathetic bunch of spineless people out to feather their own nests. Not all, no, but the majority are doing a lot of strutting, and very little else. I don't want to live in an empire, I want to live in a democracy.

[fed-up]

4. kick and rec n/t