US urged to fix Iraqi refugee 'mess' it created

As the Iraq war entered its seventh year, Ahlam, Dalal and Saad could be considered among the luckier Iraqis: they're alive and have made it to the United States as refugees. But calling them lucky would be a stretch, because they, like the estimated 4.4 million Iraqis who have fled Iraq or are internally displaced in the country, have not only lived through hell but continue to suffer as the United States fumbles its handling of a crisis that it played a key role in creating. "The Iraqi refugee crisis is a mess involving very large numbers and great human tragedy," Michele Pistone, a professor at American University's law school told a seminar this week in Washington. A high proportion of Iraqi refugees say they have been raped or tortured, seen family members or friends kidnapped or killed, she said. The United Nations has estimated that some two million Iraqis have fled the war and sought refuge in neighboring countries, primarily Syria and Jordan. The two small countries are being severely strained by the refugee influx, their ambassadors to Washington told the conference. Jordan, which has an unemployment rate of nearly 13 percent and is "one of the most water-deprived countries in the world" has spent 1.4 billion dollars on Iraqi refugees, who have swollen the kingdom's population by 10 percent, Prince Zeid Ra'ad Zeid al-Hussein, Jordan's ambassador to Washington, said. The United States has to take more of a lead in trying to resolve the Iraqi refugee crisis which, after all, it "played a significant role in creating," said Pistone. But when a lifeline of resettlement in the United States is thrown to the refugees, it has often turned out to be frayed or completely broken. Saad, who asked not to be fully named, came to the United States in May last year on a special visa for Iraqis who risked their lives, and the lives of their families, to help the Americans. Saad had worked as an interpreter for the US army for four years. A year after arriving in the United States, the former Iraqi air force officer with a bachelor's degree in translation was working in a supermarket. His two children are still in Iraq -- the United States said they could not be resettled here because they are both over 21. The meager benefits he was given by the US government -- foodstamps and state health insurance -- have dried up. Two Iraqi refugees Saad knows in the United States became homeless when their benefits were stopped a few months after they arrived. Dalal came to the United States three weeks ago with her father, her brother and his very pregnant wife, and her two school-age sons, whom she is raising alone after her husband disappeared. The family fled to Jordan three years ago when the fallout of Dalal's brother's work with the US army made life in Iraq too dangerous for them. On arrival in the United States, the entire family was put in a two bedroom apartment. "She has been crying every day since she got here," her brother told AFP. "She is thinking to sell her stuff like jewelry and rent a studio ... The kids have to go to school soon. They need suitable living conditions. Dalal can't take it any more," he said. Last year, some 13,800 Iraqis were resettled in the United States, and this year the bar has been raised to 17,000, Barbara Strack of the Department of Homeland Security's US Citizen and Immigration Services told the conference. "I can't believe we can't do better," said Kirk Johnson, a former USAID worker in Iraq who founded a non-profit company to help resettle Iraqis whose lives are endangered because they worked with the United States. But US diplomat James Foley, who was appointed senior coordinator for Iraqi refugee issues by former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice, insisted Washington has "led to a remarkable degree" in trying to solve the Iraqi refugee crisis. Foley did not stay at the seminar to listen to former Baghdad council member Ahlam Mahmood, who was kidnapped in Iraq in 2005 and freed on condition that she leave the country. She fled to Syria, where she watched her oldest son die because of poor healthcare. Last year, she was thrown into a Syrian jail for eight months without charge. She was released and put on a plane to the United States in November. "Iraqis come here with a lot of promises but in four months, maximum eight months, everything stops," said Mahmood. "How can we expect people who lived all this drama to be normal persons in no time?" she said. "Nobody knows what it's like to be unsafe for six years," she said. "Here, we are safe, but give us some way to survive."