1.31.2007

While Iraqis Are NOT Welcome Here, U.S. Has Created Nearly 4 Million Iraq Refugees

I would not be at all surprised if this number was actually quite a bit larger since we're deliberately NOT tracking many of the dead/displaced in Iraq; also from the wonderful Jon Ponder at Pensito Review:

The Iraq war has spawned a refugee crisis that will likely become increasingly dire over the next year. According to the United Nations, 3.7 million Iraqi citizens are currently displaced as a result of the civil war the U.S. invasion has unleashed. They include 1.7 million who are homeless inside Iraq and 2 million who are living in other countries.

The United States will accept fewer than 500 refugees out of the 3.7 million Bush’s war has created.

“The current exodus is the largest long-term population movement in the Middle East since the displacement of Palestinians following the creation of Israel in 1948,” said a U.N. report in early January. The U.N.’s refugee commission is seeking $6o million to apply to the crisis.

Astoundingly, the United States — whose president started the war — will accept fewer than 500 Iraqi refugees this year. (Not a typo: 500.)

By comparison, between 500,000 and 1 million Iraqi refugees are living in Syria, 700,000 are in Jordan, 20,000 to 80,000 are in Egypt and up to 40,000 are living in Lebanon.