I’ve been telling you about the briefing book prepared by the Refugee Council USA (RCUSA) for Obama and the 111th Congress. (See Part I and Part II)
Today I’m writing about the section (page 6) entitled: Iraqi Humanitarian and Displacement Crisis.
Right off the bat, I’m ticked off. They define the problem with this first sentence: “Millions of Iraqis have been violently displaced and made vulnerable since the 2003 war.” But, they never tell you that many of these same groups that make up RCUSA were coping with possibly hundreds of thousands of refugees from Iraq BEFORE the war because of Saddam Hussein’s policies. But, telling us that some of these refugees have been refugees earlier than 2003 does not suit their political agenda!
They go on to recommend that we resettle 45,000 Iraqis in the next 12 months.
Then here is something we have been warning about for some time. There are Palestinian refugees in camps along the border between Iraq and Syria that no Muslim country will resettle. The pressure is on for us to take the Palestinians. Here is the recommendation from this group:
Create a priority two processing category to resettle Palestinians forced out of their homes in Iraq and particularly those languishing in camps near the Syrian border.
These Palestinians are refugees because they are persecuted by their fellow Muslims. There is however no special treatment recommended for Christian Iraqis being persecuted by Muslims.
Obviously refugee lobbying groups are not on the same page. Here is a roundup of Iraqi refugee resettlement wishlists:
Refugees International wants 105,500.
Obama’s friends at the Center for American Progress will only be happy with an airlift of 100,000.
And, Human Rights First wants a paltry 60,000 over two years.
Meanwhile there are no jobs for Iraqi refugees, or most other refugees either.