Iraq War LIE NO. 1
There Were a Lot of People, Both Republicans & Democrats, Who Felt There
Were WMDs. Many of the Leaders in the Congress Spoke Strongly About the Fact
that Saddam Hussein had Weapons Prior to My Arrival in Washington, DC. And
We're All Looking at the SAME Intelligence. So I Strongly Reject that this
Administration hasn't Been Straight With the American people. GWB
Iraqis on the Run
Contributed by Tom
Sunday, 04 February 2007
"One of the World's Great Man-Made Disasters is Taking Place"
By Patrick Cockburn
http://www.ichblog.eu/content/view/343/2/
Iraq is experiencing the biggest exodus in the Middle East since Palestinians
were forced to flee in 1948 upon the creation of Israel. "We were forced to
leave our house six months ago and since then we have moved more than eight
times," said Abu Mustafa, a 56-year-old man from Baghdad. "Sectarian violence
has now even reached the displacement camps but we are tired of running away.
Sometimes I have asked myself if it is not better to die than to live like a
Bedouin all my life."
02/04/07 "CounterPunch" -- -- Iraqis are on the run inside and outside the
country. The United Nations High Commission for Refugees said 50,000 Iraqis a
month are abandoning their homes. Stephanie Jaquemet, regional representative
of the UNHCR, said that two million Iraqis have fled abroad and another 1.5-2
million are displaced within the country - many of them from before the fall of
Saddam Hussein.
They flee because they fear for their lives. Some 3,000 Iraqis are being
killed every month according to the UN. Most come from Baghdad and the centre
of the country, but all of Iraq outside the three Kurdish provinces in the
north is extremely violent. A detailed survey by the International Organisation
for Migration on displacement within Iraq said that most people move after
direct threats to their lives: "These threats take the form of abductions;
assassinations of individuals or their families."
There are fewer mixed areas left in Iraq. In Baghdad, militias now feel free
to use mortars to bombard each other knowing that they will not hit members of
their own community. Shia and Sunni both regard themselves as victims
responding to provocation. The most common destinations are Jordan and Syria
which have taken 1.6 million people. At first it was the better-off who fled,
including half of Iraq's 34,000 doctors. Now it is the poor who are arriving in
Amman and Damascus with little means of surviving.
Only Syria has formally recognised a need for temporary protection for
Iraqis. Others, including the US and UK, are loath to admit that one of the
world's great man-made disasters is taking place. The UNHCR thinks every Iraqi
should qualify as a refugee because of the extraordinary level of violence in
the country. "This is the fastest-growing refugee crisis in the world," Kenneth
Bacon, president of Refugees International told the US Senate Judiciary
Committee.
Some do not run fast enough. Ali, a Shia businessman who also had a job with
the government, was slow to abandon his fine house in a Sunni part of west
Baghdad. One day he was picked up by a gang, whipped and only released when he
had handed over all his money. "The kidnappers told me to leave the country,"
he said."
But not all succeed in getting out of the country. The land routes to Jordan
and Syria run through Sunni territory. Shia trying to reach safety have been
taken from their vehicles to be shot by the side of the road. But Shia can move
to safety in south Iraq and therefore make up the bulk of the internally
displaced.
For Sunni there is no real place of safety in Iraq. In Baghdad they are being
squeezed into smaller and smaller areas. Cities like Ramadi and Fallujah are
partly ruined and very dangerous. Mohammed Sahib Ali, 48, a government
employee, was forced out of the al-Hurriyah area by Shia militiamen. A Sunni,
he took refuge in a school in Salah ad-Din province. "We are dying here," said
Ali. "Not enough food, not enough medicines. I can't go to work and my three
sons can't attend their classes. We don't know what to do."
Patrick Cockburn is the author of 'The Occupation: War, resistance and daily
life in Iraq', a finalist for the National Book Critics' Circle Award for best
non-fiction book of 2006.
AB
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
"For to us
will be their return; then it will be for us to call them to account." (Holy
Quran 88:25-26)
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