Angelina Jolie: 2 million Iraqi refugees need help

Oscar-winning actress Angelina Jolie visits Iraq to boost what she sees as lagging efforts to deal with the problems of 2 million "very very vulnerable" internally displaced people in the wartorn country.

Jolie is visiting Iraq to boost what she sees as lagging efforts to deal with the problems of 2 million "very very vulnerable" internally displaced people. The displacement crisis is considered the most significant in the Middle East since the 1948 creation of Israel.

"There doesn't seem to be a real coherent plan to help them," said Jolie, speaking in an exclusive interview with CNN's Arwa Damon Thursday.

In total, more than 4.2 million Iraqis have fled their homes, around 2 million to neighboring states, mostly Syria and Jordan, and another 2.2 million displaced inside Iraq.

Jolie has been working to help draw attention to the problem and has called for governments to bolster their support of the U.N.H.C.R. In August, Jolie first visited Iraq and Syria to get a sense of the problem. She heard stories from refugees about their plight.

This visit to Iraq is focusing on the problems of the internally displaced, 58 percent of whom are under age 12.

Jolie also is talking to people about moving forward the U.S. effort to resettle Iraqi refugees in the United States, which has set a goal of taking in 12,000 of those people by September. Only 375 have been admitted so far.

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[CNN]

5 Million Iraqi Refugees and our National Conscience

Little is being done to attend to the needs of what now amounts to nearly 5 million Iraqi refugees. Based on US actions, it appears the US government has not suffered moral compunctions.

Bill Frelick of Human Rights Watch wrote in the Wall Street Journal in May: “How many Iraqi refugees did the U.S. resettle in 2006? It settled 202. The State Department said it would resettle 7,000 this fiscal year. Halfway through, it has admitted 68. (...)”

Whether the U.S. resettles 70 or 7,000, it amounts to a drop in the ocean of Iraqi refugees -- 700,000 in Jordan; more than a 1,000,000 in Syria. Iraq's neighbors are inundated and they need meaningful international support to keep their borders open.

The U.S. has funded $18 million [toward refugee assistance], and "intends" to provide $100 million more.

Meanwhile, the U.S. is spending $2 billion per week to wage the war that directly or indirectly has caused well over four million Iraqis to be forced from their homes.

Supporters of the war and now the surge ought to be forced to defend their position by addressing these critical moral and strategic questions -- Is it not our moral obligation to attend to the plight of the millions of refugees we created through this war? And is it not our strategic interest to help resettle refugees to prevent our allied Arab states from buckling and collapsing under the weight of the flood of refugees?

We did this to Iraq. And it is time the U.S and the international community "step up" to the resulting humanitarian nightmare.

[Excerpt of an article by Sameer Lalwani, The Washington Note]

The $3,850 per second Iraqi war

During an eight-hour working day, U.S. tax dollars spent in the battle zones of Iraq total $112 million.

That translates into $333 million a day, $14 million an hour, $231,000 a minute and $3,850 a second.

It dwarfs what the United States is spending on efforts to alleviate the huge humanitarian crisis that unfolded after the 2003 invasion.

Opponents of the war have begun to focus on its high cost and stress what could be done with the dollars spent in Iraq -- improving American education and healthcare and fixing aging U.S. infrastructure.

The comparisons almost invariably center on things that could be done or bought in the United States for the benefit of Americans. Iraqis do not figure prominently in these analyses and the humanitarian disaster now unfolding is not much of a topic of discussion among Washington policy makers.

That, at times, dismays international aid officials who deal with the terrified multitudes who have fled waves of ethnic cleansing in the aftermath of the U.S. invasion. Around 2 million went to neighboring countries, mostly to Jordan, Syria and Egypt, by the count of international relief organizations. Another 2.2 million fled from their homes and sought refuge elsewhere in Iraq.

Improving conditions for these refugees would be cheap, measured against the cost of the war, but appeals for increased funds have fallen on deaf ears.

Of the $85 million appeal by the IOM, made in June -- by September, the organization had received $6 million. The shortfall, $79 million, would be covered by less than six hours of war spending.

[Excerpt of a Reuters article by Bernd Debusmann]