February 09, 2009
Senator Edward ...
Anniversary Blogger Series, Congress, Iraq
After the bombing of the Samarra mosque northwest of Baghdad in 2006, a massive exodus and displacement of Iraqis began. Refugees International called it, “the world’s fastest growing refugee crisis.” Millions of Iraqi men, women and children fled their homes and country to escape the violence in a nation increasingly at war with itself. They had no refugee camps to go to, where stark television images might have alerted the world to their plight; they were hiding in the slums of urban areas, nearly invisible.
The U.S. couldn’t have solved this problem alone, but we had a responsibility to do more than we did to prevent further destabilization of the region, relieve suffering and save lives.
Many of us tried to do more. We organized a hearing to bring Iraqis before Congress. They told chilling stories about being targeted by sectarian death squads because of their faith or their association with the United States. We passed the Refugee Crisis in Iraq Act to increase the number of Iraqis who could be resettled in this country. We also provided hundreds of millions of dollars to help Iraqi refugees obtain food, education, shelter and health care.
