Remember last February when the White House promised it would improve its dismal record of resettling Iraqi refugees in the United States? While 2.35 million Iraqis had fled to countries around Iraq, mostly Jordan and Syria, and thousands more had been accepted by countries such as Sweden, at the time, nearly four years after the invasion, the U.S. had accepted fewer than 500 Iraqi refugees. Apparently, even Cheney-Bush found this embarrassing and decided finally to take ... uh ... bold action:
The United States will accelerate the resettlement of about 7,000 Iraqis referred by the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees and will contribute $18 million to the agency's appeal for Iraq, about one-third of the total, Undersecretary of State Paula J. Dobriansky said Wednesday.
Plans call for the paperwork allowing the Iraqis to enter the United States to be completed by the end of September, said Dobriansky, appearing at a news conference in Washington with U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres, and Assistant Secretary of State Ellen Sauerbrey.
The 7,000 have left Iraq and are waiting in third countries, such as Jordan and Syria.
It was a pathetic response – Sweden, population 9 million, took in 9000 Iraqis in 2006 – but some hailed it anyway as, finally, movement in the right direction.
As of a week ago, with three weeks to fulfill the promise, the total of Iraqi refugees admitted into the United States for the previous 11 months was 719.
But, wait, that’s not as bad as it sounds. Because several months ago, the administration moved the goal posts and lopped 5000 off its originally promised target. Just 2000 refugees would be accepted into the country by the end of September.
But, obviously, they won't reach that target either.
Kirk Johnson, a former USAID official who worked with Rifaat in Baghdad, is now pressing for the U.S to move faster to help those who helped the United States in Iraq.
Johnson has prepared a list of more than 500 Iraqis who were employed by the U.S. military or government in Iraq and now seek resettlement in America. He has provided the list, along with documentation, to the State Department, with updates every month as he finds more.
So far, he said, only five have been accepted in principle, and only two of those have made it to the U.S. yet.
"I look at this as an absolute lack of progress in the past eight months," he said. "The system is not functioning. It's because of a lack of political will."
Meanwhile, Syria has joined Jordan in requiring Iraqis to obtain a visa at the embassies in Baghdad before crossing the border, which means few refugees can any longer take that route out of Iraq. The luckiest ones – those with money who were first to flee the chaos and violence – live a decent live in exile. The rest molder under crowded conditions, their children often unschooled, many of them with inadequate shelter, food and medical care while the U.S. dribbles a few millions into the hands of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
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