Iraqi Refugees To Plead for U.S. Sanctuary

[rodeodance]

http://noquarter.typepad.com/my_weblog/2006/12/iraqi_refugees_.html

Iraqi Refugees To Plead for U.S. Sanctuary

Almost two million Iraqis have fled Iraq for neighboring countries, causing enormous problems for those governments and their citizens. Now this, via the Boston Globe:

Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who have fled their homeland are likely to seek refugee status in the United States, humanitarian groups said, putting intense pressure on the Bush administration to reexamine a policy that authorizes only 500 Iraqis to be resettled here next year.

The official US policy has been that the refugee situation is temporary and that most of the estimated 1.5 million who have fled to Jordan, Syria, and elsewhere will eventually return to Iraq. But US and international officials now acknowledge that the instability in Iraq has made it too dangerous for many refugees, especially Iraqi Christians, to return any time soon. <...>

ew Iraqi refugees have yet to be allowed to resettle here, due partly to finger-pointing between the State Department and the United Nations over who is responsible for determining which Iraqis need to be resettled. ...

[Jacobin]

1. We are going to end up with LOTS of Iraqis here

Like the Vietnamese who sided with the US in that war who had to leave after Saigon fell.

[Erika]

2. As Powell said about Iraq "You broke it, you own it"

W has created a living hell for the Iraqi people. We can't expect them to live in the hell W created for them.

[JDPriestly]

3. Weren't we fighting "them" over there so we wouldn't have to

fight "them" over here? If Bush thinks Al Qaeda is present in such large numbers in Iraq, how is he going to explain allowing Iraqis into the US in the millions? How could he or anyone else guarantee no terrorists would hide among the legitimate refugees? And even if the Al Qaeda theory is just propaganda, how will he prevent Iraqis that are angry at the US from tagging along?

[Crunchy Frog]

4. This country has a moral obligation

to take in as many Iraqis as have need. It's the very least we can do.