U.S. occupation made 3.7 million Iraqis refugees

A recent report by the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres has identified that two million Iraqi refugees are living in neighboring countries and another 1.7 million people are internally displaced inside Iraq.

Iraqis are being displaced from their homes at a rate of 1,300 per day as a result of the U.S.- led occupation.

This amounts to approximately one out of every seven Iraqis driven from their homes as a result of the U.S.-led occupation. Iraqis are currently displaced by the violence at a rate of 1,300 per day.

Mr. Guterres has pointed out that the number of refugees is “the biggest movement of displaced people in the Middle East since the Palestinian crisis in 1948,” when almost 800,000 Palestinians were forced from their homes following the establishment of the Israeli settler state.

When asked by reporters if Washington has a special responsibility to Iraqis who flee their homes because of the U.S. sponsored violence, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack coyly retorted that, “It’s a shared global responsibility.”

Recent figures indicate that the main governments not fulfilling their share of global responsibility are the same governments that are primarily responsible for the refugees’ predicament—the U.S. and Britain.

Displaced children. Many have lost their families.

Despite the severity of the current crisis only 466 Iraqi refugees have been allowed into the U.S. since the March 2003 invasion. The U.K. response has done little more to provide relief to these refugees.

Meanwhile Syria, Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, Iran and Turkey have taken in two million refugees between them. Syria alone is struggling to care for up to one million displaced Iraqis. This overload makes it difficult for Syria to continue to accept additional refugees.

Mr. Guterres singled out Syria and Jordan for particular praise saying, “The sacrifices made by these countries are remarkable and the international community needs to assume full responsibility in supporting them”.

Syria’s economy has been severely strained from the influx of refugees and it has joined Jordan and Egypt in reluctantly refusing to admit any more. These countries’ inability to host more refugees further exacerbates the crisis as the number of internally displaced Iraqis is expected to increase by another million before the end of the year.

The onus for providing refuge to these displaced Iraqis lies squarely with the U.S. Were it not for the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq following on the heels of 12 years of brutal sanctions against the Iraqi people, there would be no refugee crisis today.

The Bush administration has given no indication that it plans to seriously address the needs of refugees. Bush’s proposed 2008 budget calls for just $35 million—or $9.45 per currently displaced person—in assistance for Iraq’s refugees.

The U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants had encouraged the Bush administration to seek $250 million as part of a supplemental war funding request—more than seven times the amount proposed in the 2008 budget.

Bush has made plenty of supplemental requests since the invasion, including $145 billion in supplemental war funding for the 2008 budget. This money will be used to further escalate the conflict that has driven so many Iraqis from their homes. The U.S. has not seen fit to use supplemental funding to help these refugees find new homes.

Only a small number of Iraqis have been admitted into the U.S. It appears that until now Washington’s refugee policy toward Iraq made no exceptions, not even for the minority of Iraqis who collaborated with the occupation.

The State Department recently said that it will extend the number of refugees it allows into the U.S. The number will still be small, however, and the Iraqis who officially collaborated with the occupation by working for the U.S. government will be given preference.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced on Feb. 5 the creation of an Iraq Refugee and Internally Displaced Taskforce charged with coordinating displaced assistance and refugee resettlement. Even if this taskforce was meant to provide assistance to all Iraqi refugees, and not just the collaborators, it would be too little and far too late.

The U.S.’s refusal to accept responsibility for the effects of its illegal occupation has shocked many people. Kristele Younes of Refugees International has warned, “We’re not seeing the U.S. do much, frankly,” and if action isn’t taken “in six months, it will be too late.”

Even the Financial Times recently pointed out that “what we should all be scandalized by is how little the two countries most responsible for the Iraq misadventure—the U.S. and the U.K.—are doing to alleviate this crisis.”