CNN: 2 million have fled Iraq

[brooklynite]

AMMAN, Jordan (CNN) -- Dr. Nafie Abtan once operated a thriving medical clinic in Baghdad, but one day last June he received a hand-delivered letter threatening to cut his head off if he remained.

"We tell you to leave your job and to travel and to leave your hospital," the letter said.

Three days later, he did just that. He fled Iraq for neighboring Jordan, bringing with him his wife, Suhair, and young son, Moutaz.

...snip...

The United Nations estimates 700,000 Iraqis have fled to Jordan -- more than one-tenth the entire kingdom's population. As many as 1 million more Iraqis are estimated to have sought refuge in Syria, about 120,000 are in Egypt and 40,000 in Lebanon, according to the United Nations. (Watch Iraqis tell their stories )

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/03/06/iraq.refugees/index.html

Good thing we're "winning"; I'd hate to think of how many refugees there'd be if we were "losing"...

[LiberalFighter]

1. How does this effect their economy and Iraq's reconstruction?

I bet the UN and other countries are questioning the United States involvement in the world.

[Botany]

2. So 10% of the population is either dead or has left the country

Iraq had 26 million

2 million have become external refugees
655,000 have died because of the invasion (Lancet study)

2,655,000 divided by 26,000,000 = .102115 or roughly 10%

[Delphinus]

8. Thanks, Botany.

I was just going to post something similar ...

[LiberalEsto]

3. Last one out, please turn off the lights

if the electricity happens to be working.

[RaleighNCDUer]

4. And the result of this, in another 10 years?

The Palastinian refugee camps spawned the PLO, Hezbollah and Hamas. The Afghan refugee camps spawned the Taliban.

I suspect that in 10 years, the Iraqi terrorist groups will the the ones in the headlines.

We've sowed the wind.

[EmmitFitzhume]

6. I hope not

That is really a scary thought. We can only hope we learn from that stuff and figure out a way to prevent things like that happening all over again.

[aquart]

7. Did it say he was in a refugee camp?

[RaleighNCDUer]

11. Not specifically, but you know they must exist --

there's no way the neighbors can absorb hundreds of thousands of refugees. We've allowed, what?, 2000 into the US? Out of 2 million?

The lucky ones, the ones who left with a significant part of their assets, might avoid the camps. But while doctors and engineers might do all right, the store clerks and cabbies sho escape with one month's income are going to have a hard time of it. They'll be the ones to wind up sitting on the border in a tent for months or years.

[paparush]

16. DING DING DING! We have a winner...Not to mention Timothy McVeigh- The Next Generation

[rodeodance]

5. whow. just whow.

[Amonester]

9. So, that's 2 million less to stand in the way of the MOB-ill's future pipelines

They've put an Exx-on these poor people and they don't care.

What else is new$... :mad:

[onehandle]

10. Pretty soon only Halliburton employees and our soldiers will be left.

Did I just reveal the true plan?

[uppityperson]

12. k&r, more votes please to get on greatest page.

Thanks for this article

[donkeyotay]

13. We're sending money to Syria to help with the 1 million refugees, right?

edited to add: :sarcasm:

[llmart]

14. What happened to their excitment.....

over their purple fingers??? Did that wear off already?

Such ingrates. Here we bring them "democracy" and they flee.

[KansDem]

18. We brought them "flee-mocracy"

But let's see what "happy news" FOX and the rest will have for us, you know, those good-news stories that rarely get reported...

[youngdem]

15. Number is low...I have seen higher numbers elsewhere

And when you consider that Jordan, Syria and Lebanon have absorbed hundreds of thousands into slums, the number is almost certainly higher.

Jordan and Syria have enormous slums of hidden Iraqis living in squalor, their women forced into prostitution. Nearly the entire middle and upper class, the professionals and investor class - have fled Iraq, adding another impossible hurdle to Iraq's recovery - no one qualified to run the country. Everyone with the means to leave has done so. All that are left are the crazies, the fighters, the poor , the infirmed and the elderly. Sweet.

[elias49]

20. Puts me in mind of the Ninth Ward, New Orleans

and the U.S. is Katrina.
Fucking sad.

[noonriser]

17. K&R n/t

[entanglement]

19. U.S. officials also said they "refer all Iraqis who approach us claiming to be refugees" to the U.N.

High Commissioner for Refugees. How helpful! :sarcasm:

[against all enemies]

21. Check out this CNN poll.

http://www.cnn.com/

We destroy an entire country and then 64% of us say too god damn bad. Americans suck, Democrats better get used to being in the minority, they have brains.

[Olney Blue]

22. Don't worry- Bush is restoring the population with more U.S. troops.

:grr:

[salinen]

23. Slow genecide

Neocon music.

[struggle4progress]

24. 40% of middle class believed to have fled crumbling nation (Jan 07 estimates)

CONFLICT IN IRAQ
Iraq refugee crisis exploding
40% of middle class believed to have fled crumbling nation

Carolyn Lochhead, Chronicle Washington Bureau
Tuesday, January 16, 2007

(01-16) 04:00 PST Washington -- ... About 50,000 Iraqis are fleeing inside Iraq each month, the United Nations said, and 500,000 have been displaced since last February's bombing of a Shiite shrine in Samarra. These figures are as of January 2007 ...

Kristele Younes, an advocate at Refugees International, said .... "In Syria alone, there are estimations that there's about 40,000 Iraqis that are coming every month." ...

Pressure on Jordan, a country of just 6 million, is intense, with Iraqi refugees now accounting for 10 percent of its population -- the equivalent of 30 million landing on U.S. shores. Jordan began restricting entry after Iraqis bombed three hotels in Amman in 2005 ...

"Is it going to be one of the unintended consequences of our invasion and occupation of Iraq that we may end up taking hundreds of thousands of Iraqi refugees in this country?" said James Hollifield, an expert in international migration and director of the Tower Center for Political Studies at Southern Methodist University ...

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/01/16/MNG2MNJBIS1.DTL

[HeeBGBz]

25. And that's just the rightwingers...n/t