9
911review.org
Guest
http://911review.org/Media/iraq-refugees.html
Deborah Amos: It's very, very tough. And I've covered refugees for
most of my career. And this is a different- this is a different
population. Because you can't help thinking that it could be me. You
know, I've met journalists just like me who have the same level of
education just like me. And they have been forced to take their
savings. I don't know what I would do. So, it's not even empathy. You
don't have to imagine. It is so stark and clear to you when you talk
to people who speak English as well as you do that there's no
translation problem. You get it.
BILL MOYERS: We turn now to one of the most neglected consequences of
the war in Iraq, the humanitarian crisis that's been unfolding since
the American invasion 4 1/2 years ago. It's almost beyond
comprehension, two million inter-refugees inside the country, a
million dispossessed in Baghdad alone, their numbers rising
stupendously during the surge. Another two million have fled to other
countries, over 1 1/2 million to Syria, another million or so to
Lebanon and to Jordan which has now closed its borders. Among the
refugees are Iraqis escaping reprisals for cooperating with Americans.
The Bush Administration has allowed fewer than 1,000 of them into the
U.S. This week the Senate passed the Iraqi Refugee Crisis Act, calling
on the President to do more. We're seeing a human tragedy unfold with
consequences that can only compound in the months to come as the power
vacuum in Iraq spreads. Joining me to talk about this is George
Packer. He's a staff writer for The New Yorker who's acclaimed for his
articles, essays and reviews on foreign affairs. In 2005 his book, The
Assassin's Gate, America in Iraq was named by the New York Times as
one of the ten best of the year. This week he's more justly proud of
being the father of a brand new baby, Charlie, obviously also one of
the ten best of the year. And National Public Radio's, Deborah Amos,
who's been a colleague of mine in public broadcasting since 1977, 30
years now. Deb Amos is one of the few American journalists to cover
this story. She's just back from Syria, Lebanon and Jordan, her fifth
trip to the region to report on the refugees. Welcome to you both.
DEBORAH AMOS: Thank you.
GEORGE PACKER: Thank you.
BILL MOYERS: Give me a human face to these people. Who are they?
DEBORAH AMOS:: So many of them, Bill, are the doctors, the professors,
the architects, the intellectuals, the poets. There are the poor who
have left. But this community that's now in Damascus and Amman and
increasingly going to Lebanon is the middle class. These are the
technocrats, the kind of people that you need if you want to rebuild a
country. And this is the demographics that has left Baghdad.
BILL MOYERS: What is life like for them now? What- what is- we think
of refugees in the Middle East as Palestinian refugees living in those
awful camps. What- what do these people face?
GEORGE PACKER: As Deb says, they have these - what you might call
middle class concerns. They're not so much worried about food although
I think as their savings dwindle they will. They worry about their
children's education, health care and the fact that they really can't
work and so they have - they are a desperate population but they're
not the kind of refugees we think of coming out of Darfur or Somalia.
They are very much a middle class population and the great problem for
them is they all left Iraq with some money and they're running out of
money, and a few of them are actually going back to Iraq because they
don't have enough to spare.
BILL MOYERS: I think I heard you report not long ago that in Damascus
there's something like 20 to 30 people, refugees, living in the same
room?
DEBORAH AMOS:: Many people do that. 20 people living in one apartment.
BILL MOYERS: For how long?
DEBORAH AMOS:: They do it for months. And it's not because they're all
broke. It's because they have no idea how long they have to hold out.
And when you run out of money the choices are very stark. The- the
incidents of child prostitution in Damascus is rising dramatically.
There's a- there's a belt of clubs above Damascus. And this is where
some Iraqi families are prostituting their daughters. That's how dire-
BILL MOYERS: For money?
DEBORAH AMOS:: For money. That is how dire it is becoming in Damascus.
Or you go home. There was a young man who was a sculptor. And he was
targeted in Baghdad. He came to Damascus. He ran out of money. He went
home last week and he's dead.
BILL MOYERS: George, why didn't the administration anticipate this?
GEORGE PACKER: I think it's a piece- with everything that's gone wrong
with the war, for political reasons. To acknowledge that there was a
huge refugee crisis in the region, to acknowledge that Iraqis who work
with Americans are a uniquely endangered population in Iraq- I mean,
they are as hounded and helpless as European Jews in the 1940's -
would have been to acknowledge that the war was going badly. That it
was creating more pain than it was alleviating, that the picture of
steady, slow progress was false. And so the administration simply
chose to ignore this crisis. I mean, for the first year or two of the
refugee crisis our policy was, "It's not happening." More recently our
policy has been we're committing some funds, rather small compared to
the need. But- our real objective is to create a safe and stable Iraq
to which these refugees can then return. In other words, it's
temporary. Well, it's not temporary. When you talk to Iraqis now
compared to at the beginning of the war they no longer say in six
months things will get better as they used to or in a year things will
get better. They now say in two decades. In other words, for an Iraqi,
not really in my lifetime. It will be my children that see a better
Iraq. That means they're making decisions now about what they have to
do with their families in order to ride out a 20 year horror. And that
means they're not going back to Iraq.
BILL MOYERS: What's the political consequences of what George just
described of a long migration of refugees who can not go home, who are
running out of money, who are spilling over into the borders of the
other countries. Taking- I assume they're taking their warring,
sectarian passions with them, are they not?
DEBORAH AMOS:: The passions, not necessarily their actions. They know
very well that if kidnapping and assassinations begin in Damascus or
Amman that those governments will kick the entire populations out. So,
a lot of it is by remote control. A family has someone threatened back
in Baghdad. But I think the larger point is this, Bill. We- no refugee
situation is like another. However, you can make some comparisons to
the Palestinian refugee situation 50 years ago to the Afghan one more
recently. And, these populations are easily recruited. It's not that
the leadership of radical movements necessarily comes from the refugee
population. But it's a great recruiting ground for children who have
been out of school for- in some cases now, three years.
BILL MOYERS: Wow.
DEBORAH AMOS:: And so it- people in the region are starting to
understand that this population could potentially be destabilizing. As
time goes on, if there is no policy to address the situation they find
themselves in. And so far there hasn't been one. Only one presidential
contender in this country, Barack Obama, has even mentioned the crisis
of the refugees. The others have not so far.
BILL MOYERS: In the Democratic Presidential debate on Wednesday night
the leading Democrats, none of them would commit to taking American
troops out of Iraq in the first terms of their administration, if they
should win. That would mean American troops in Iraq until at least
2013. What- what are the political implications of that with- with
this huge migration of- of refugees?
GEORGE PACKER: I think that it just says if we're rather helpless now
with 160,000, the highest number we've had in- over the course of the
war, troops in Iraq to prevent this outflow of people, when we're down
to 50,000, we're going to be all the more unable to check this- this-
I think, potentially destabilizing flow of people around the region.
We will be in Iraq to do very specific missions. We will be there for
counterterrorism. We will be there to train the Iraqi army. And we
will be there to protect our own forces. We will not be there to
secure the population which means civil war will continue to burn,
maybe even in- in, you know, a- a bloodier way than now. And Iraqis
will continue to leave the country. And they certainly won't be able
to go back. So, I think we may well have American forces simply
watching helplessly as Iraqis leave. Now, there have been some
proposals to reconfigure our forces along the borders in- to act, in a
sense, as a net to prevent refugees from leaving.
BILL MOYERS: Border patrol like along the Texas-Mexican border.
GEORGE PACKER: Something like that and also to prevent irregular
forces, jihadis and others from crossing into Iraq. I have some
operational questions about that. How could our brigades, scattered in
the desert, really stop people from crossing. And both morally and
strategically is that a position we want to be in sending refugees
back into the cities or creating giant camps policed by American
soldiers which also will be, as all refugee camps are, recruiting
grounds for extremists.
DEBORAH AMOS:: Although, it hardly matters. The Jordanian border is
all but closed. And in September the Syrian government imposed a visa
restriction on all Iraqis coming into the country. Up until that time,
30,000 crossed every month. Because they could- it was the last border
open. Syria has had enough with 1.5 million. So now, the policy is you
have to go to the Syrian embassy in Baghdad. The problem is that
Syrian embassy is one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in Baghdad
so you can't go. So, that border is essentially closed.
BILL MOYERS: What are the governments you've been talking to-
government officials you've been talking to in Jordan- Lebanon and
Syria, what are- what are they saying about this in terms of the long
run?
DEBORAH AMOS:: The Syrians say, "It costs us an extra $2 billion a
year." Because they subsidize bread, gasoline, health care. And this
huge Iraqi population is putting such pressure on their own social
makeup. The Jordanians say it costs them an extra billion dollars a
year. And the international response has been astonishingly weak. The
Saudis gave- a couple of tons of dates, dates- to this population that
needs schools and health care. And we have contributed some money but
not nearly enough. And so both of these countries are at their wits'
end. Why is there no response to what they see- what they know is a
regional crisis outside of Iraq.
GEORGE PACKER: There's also a lot of bad history in that region
between Iraqis and their neighbors. And what Iraqi refugees tell me is
the idea of Arab brotherhood which the Syrian regime is based on is
wearing very thin. And they don't feel that they're being treated at
all as kinsmen or fellow Arabs or as brothers. And
Deborah Amos: It's very, very tough. And I've covered refugees for
most of my career. And this is a different- this is a different
population. Because you can't help thinking that it could be me. You
know, I've met journalists just like me who have the same level of
education just like me. And they have been forced to take their
savings. I don't know what I would do. So, it's not even empathy. You
don't have to imagine. It is so stark and clear to you when you talk
to people who speak English as well as you do that there's no
translation problem. You get it.
BILL MOYERS: We turn now to one of the most neglected consequences of
the war in Iraq, the humanitarian crisis that's been unfolding since
the American invasion 4 1/2 years ago. It's almost beyond
comprehension, two million inter-refugees inside the country, a
million dispossessed in Baghdad alone, their numbers rising
stupendously during the surge. Another two million have fled to other
countries, over 1 1/2 million to Syria, another million or so to
Lebanon and to Jordan which has now closed its borders. Among the
refugees are Iraqis escaping reprisals for cooperating with Americans.
The Bush Administration has allowed fewer than 1,000 of them into the
U.S. This week the Senate passed the Iraqi Refugee Crisis Act, calling
on the President to do more. We're seeing a human tragedy unfold with
consequences that can only compound in the months to come as the power
vacuum in Iraq spreads. Joining me to talk about this is George
Packer. He's a staff writer for The New Yorker who's acclaimed for his
articles, essays and reviews on foreign affairs. In 2005 his book, The
Assassin's Gate, America in Iraq was named by the New York Times as
one of the ten best of the year. This week he's more justly proud of
being the father of a brand new baby, Charlie, obviously also one of
the ten best of the year. And National Public Radio's, Deborah Amos,
who's been a colleague of mine in public broadcasting since 1977, 30
years now. Deb Amos is one of the few American journalists to cover
this story. She's just back from Syria, Lebanon and Jordan, her fifth
trip to the region to report on the refugees. Welcome to you both.
DEBORAH AMOS: Thank you.
GEORGE PACKER: Thank you.
BILL MOYERS: Give me a human face to these people. Who are they?
DEBORAH AMOS:: So many of them, Bill, are the doctors, the professors,
the architects, the intellectuals, the poets. There are the poor who
have left. But this community that's now in Damascus and Amman and
increasingly going to Lebanon is the middle class. These are the
technocrats, the kind of people that you need if you want to rebuild a
country. And this is the demographics that has left Baghdad.
BILL MOYERS: What is life like for them now? What- what is- we think
of refugees in the Middle East as Palestinian refugees living in those
awful camps. What- what do these people face?
GEORGE PACKER: As Deb says, they have these - what you might call
middle class concerns. They're not so much worried about food although
I think as their savings dwindle they will. They worry about their
children's education, health care and the fact that they really can't
work and so they have - they are a desperate population but they're
not the kind of refugees we think of coming out of Darfur or Somalia.
They are very much a middle class population and the great problem for
them is they all left Iraq with some money and they're running out of
money, and a few of them are actually going back to Iraq because they
don't have enough to spare.
BILL MOYERS: I think I heard you report not long ago that in Damascus
there's something like 20 to 30 people, refugees, living in the same
room?
DEBORAH AMOS:: Many people do that. 20 people living in one apartment.
BILL MOYERS: For how long?
DEBORAH AMOS:: They do it for months. And it's not because they're all
broke. It's because they have no idea how long they have to hold out.
And when you run out of money the choices are very stark. The- the
incidents of child prostitution in Damascus is rising dramatically.
There's a- there's a belt of clubs above Damascus. And this is where
some Iraqi families are prostituting their daughters. That's how dire-
BILL MOYERS: For money?
DEBORAH AMOS:: For money. That is how dire it is becoming in Damascus.
Or you go home. There was a young man who was a sculptor. And he was
targeted in Baghdad. He came to Damascus. He ran out of money. He went
home last week and he's dead.
BILL MOYERS: George, why didn't the administration anticipate this?
GEORGE PACKER: I think it's a piece- with everything that's gone wrong
with the war, for political reasons. To acknowledge that there was a
huge refugee crisis in the region, to acknowledge that Iraqis who work
with Americans are a uniquely endangered population in Iraq- I mean,
they are as hounded and helpless as European Jews in the 1940's -
would have been to acknowledge that the war was going badly. That it
was creating more pain than it was alleviating, that the picture of
steady, slow progress was false. And so the administration simply
chose to ignore this crisis. I mean, for the first year or two of the
refugee crisis our policy was, "It's not happening." More recently our
policy has been we're committing some funds, rather small compared to
the need. But- our real objective is to create a safe and stable Iraq
to which these refugees can then return. In other words, it's
temporary. Well, it's not temporary. When you talk to Iraqis now
compared to at the beginning of the war they no longer say in six
months things will get better as they used to or in a year things will
get better. They now say in two decades. In other words, for an Iraqi,
not really in my lifetime. It will be my children that see a better
Iraq. That means they're making decisions now about what they have to
do with their families in order to ride out a 20 year horror. And that
means they're not going back to Iraq.
BILL MOYERS: What's the political consequences of what George just
described of a long migration of refugees who can not go home, who are
running out of money, who are spilling over into the borders of the
other countries. Taking- I assume they're taking their warring,
sectarian passions with them, are they not?
DEBORAH AMOS:: The passions, not necessarily their actions. They know
very well that if kidnapping and assassinations begin in Damascus or
Amman that those governments will kick the entire populations out. So,
a lot of it is by remote control. A family has someone threatened back
in Baghdad. But I think the larger point is this, Bill. We- no refugee
situation is like another. However, you can make some comparisons to
the Palestinian refugee situation 50 years ago to the Afghan one more
recently. And, these populations are easily recruited. It's not that
the leadership of radical movements necessarily comes from the refugee
population. But it's a great recruiting ground for children who have
been out of school for- in some cases now, three years.
BILL MOYERS: Wow.
DEBORAH AMOS:: And so it- people in the region are starting to
understand that this population could potentially be destabilizing. As
time goes on, if there is no policy to address the situation they find
themselves in. And so far there hasn't been one. Only one presidential
contender in this country, Barack Obama, has even mentioned the crisis
of the refugees. The others have not so far.
BILL MOYERS: In the Democratic Presidential debate on Wednesday night
the leading Democrats, none of them would commit to taking American
troops out of Iraq in the first terms of their administration, if they
should win. That would mean American troops in Iraq until at least
2013. What- what are the political implications of that with- with
this huge migration of- of refugees?
GEORGE PACKER: I think that it just says if we're rather helpless now
with 160,000, the highest number we've had in- over the course of the
war, troops in Iraq to prevent this outflow of people, when we're down
to 50,000, we're going to be all the more unable to check this- this-
I think, potentially destabilizing flow of people around the region.
We will be in Iraq to do very specific missions. We will be there for
counterterrorism. We will be there to train the Iraqi army. And we
will be there to protect our own forces. We will not be there to
secure the population which means civil war will continue to burn,
maybe even in- in, you know, a- a bloodier way than now. And Iraqis
will continue to leave the country. And they certainly won't be able
to go back. So, I think we may well have American forces simply
watching helplessly as Iraqis leave. Now, there have been some
proposals to reconfigure our forces along the borders in- to act, in a
sense, as a net to prevent refugees from leaving.
BILL MOYERS: Border patrol like along the Texas-Mexican border.
GEORGE PACKER: Something like that and also to prevent irregular
forces, jihadis and others from crossing into Iraq. I have some
operational questions about that. How could our brigades, scattered in
the desert, really stop people from crossing. And both morally and
strategically is that a position we want to be in sending refugees
back into the cities or creating giant camps policed by American
soldiers which also will be, as all refugee camps are, recruiting
grounds for extremists.
DEBORAH AMOS:: Although, it hardly matters. The Jordanian border is
all but closed. And in September the Syrian government imposed a visa
restriction on all Iraqis coming into the country. Up until that time,
30,000 crossed every month. Because they could- it was the last border
open. Syria has had enough with 1.5 million. So now, the policy is you
have to go to the Syrian embassy in Baghdad. The problem is that
Syrian embassy is one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in Baghdad
so you can't go. So, that border is essentially closed.
BILL MOYERS: What are the governments you've been talking to-
government officials you've been talking to in Jordan- Lebanon and
Syria, what are- what are they saying about this in terms of the long
run?
DEBORAH AMOS:: The Syrians say, "It costs us an extra $2 billion a
year." Because they subsidize bread, gasoline, health care. And this
huge Iraqi population is putting such pressure on their own social
makeup. The Jordanians say it costs them an extra billion dollars a
year. And the international response has been astonishingly weak. The
Saudis gave- a couple of tons of dates, dates- to this population that
needs schools and health care. And we have contributed some money but
not nearly enough. And so both of these countries are at their wits'
end. Why is there no response to what they see- what they know is a
regional crisis outside of Iraq.
GEORGE PACKER: There's also a lot of bad history in that region
between Iraqis and their neighbors. And what Iraqi refugees tell me is
the idea of Arab brotherhood which the Syrian regime is based on is
wearing very thin. And they don't feel that they're being treated at
all as kinsmen or fellow Arabs or as brothers. And