[A-List] I Remember The Helicopters... Revisited

[Leigh Meyers <the.buffalo.in.the.midst@xxxxxxxxx>]

..From The Embassy Rooftop.

<http://leighm.net/blog/2006/11/25/seen_the_copters_cenk/>

The exodus begins, and it seems to be an organized movement this time.
However... Economic refugees need not apply.

We are currently accepting thugs and apparatchik only, sorry.

The MGT.

         SF Gate
  U.S. hopes to allow 20,000 Iraqi refugees this year, senators told
  - Carolyn Lochhead, Chronicle Washington Bureau
  Wednesday, January 17, 2007

  (01-17) 04:00 PST Washington -- The State Department wants to 
allocate as many as 20,000 U.S. refugee slots to Iraqis fleeing the 
war-ravaged country, Ellen Sauerbrey, assistant secretary for the 
government's refugee operations, said at a Senate hearing Tuesday.

  The federal government has authority to accept 70,000 refugees from 
across the world this year, she said, but has an unallocated reserve of 
20,000 for emergencies. Sauerbrey said she expects the vast majority of 
these to go to Iraqis if the plan can be accomplished.

  Sauerbrey said serious hurdles remain, however, including the 
difficulty of even setting up places in Iraq where Iraqis can apply for 
asylum. "I have to tell you it is a very difficult issue to try to do 
this in Iraq in the Green Zone," Sauerbrey told the Judiciary 
subcommittee on immigration, chaired by Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass.

  Kennedy held the hearing to call attention to the growing plight of 
Iraqi refugees, especially those threatened because they have worked for 
the U.S. government or other Western organizations. The Green Zone is 
the protected area in Baghdad where the United States and the Iraqi 
government operate. Iraqi workers going in and out of the Green Zone 
have been targeted for attack.

  The rapidly growing number of refugees and internally displaced 
people fleeing persecution within Iraq is swamping neighboring countries 
and soon threatens to spill out of the region, said Ken Bacon, head of 
Refugees International, which has surveyed the refugees.

  Although no one has firm numbers, the United Nations estimates that 
nearly 2 million Iraqis have fled the country and another 1.7 million 
have fled violence inside Iraq. The United Nations appealed last week 
for $60 million in emergency funding for humanitarian relief.

  Bacon said that by the best estimates now, 1,300 Iraqis are fleeing 
their homes inside the country each day, and 100,000 are leaving the 
country each month, mainly over the border to Syria and Jordan. Women 
are resorting to prostitution to support themselves, and children are 
being forced into labor, he said.

  For now, the refugee flood is a regional problem, but that won't last 
long, he said, noting signs that refugees are poised to spill over to 
Europe and the United States, where the vast majority say they want to 
go. Unlike most refugees, few Iraqis express a desire ever to return to 
Iraq.

  Conditions for Iraqis in Jordan and Syria are deteriorating under the 
weight of the numbers of people being absorbed, Bacon said. Jordan now 
excludes men ages 17 to 35, Bacon said. Sauerbrey said the State 
Department is pressuring Jordan, Egypt and Lebanon to keep their borders 
open to Iraqis.

  Since the U.S. invasion in 2003, just 466 Iraqis have been admitted 
to the United States, and many of those were claims left over from the 
Saddam Hussein era. New anti-terrorism laws passed by Congress after 
Sept. 11, 2001, including the Patriot Act, have made the screening 
extremely cumbersome, Sauerbrey said.

  Experts familiar with the situation said there is resistance to 
refugee admissions from officials in the departments of Homeland 
Security and Justice who are responsible for keeping terrorists out of 
the United States.

  An Iraqi translator for the U.S. military who escaped to the United 
States and still fears for his life and an Iraqi driver who delivered 
water to a U.S. base testified anonymously at Tuesday's hearing behind a 
wooden panel.

  The translator recounted a harrowing existence after serving as a 
vital public link between U.S. soldiers and Iraqis in Mosul, making him 
a visible target for extremists who tried to kill him and did kill many 
of his friends. He was the first Iraqi translator to gain U.S. residence 
through a special program Congress passed last year allotting 50 spaces 
for translators from Iraq and Afghanistan.

  Iraqis who worked with U.S. forces -- from provincial governors to 
truck drivers -- have been relentlessly singled out for execution, he said.

  "Many Iraqis were purposely killed in public market squares in front 
of hundreds of people in broad daylight as cruel examples of what could 
happen to local Iraqis" who helped U.S. soldiers, the former translator 
said.

  E-mail Carolyn Lochhead at clochhead@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

  Page A - 11
  URL: 
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/01/17/MNGFLNJV0O1.DTL

Cc: [pen-l]