Iraqs Refugees - 4,000,000 Displaced (U.N.)

This is no longer news. Nevertheless, I woke up this morning to yet another NPR report about the massive humanitarian crisis that the US invasion of Iraq has precipitated in the Middle East. With two million refugees already out of the country, mostly camped in Syria and Jordan, and that many and more internally displaced...the seeds are being planted for a challenge to peace in the Middle East that will make the Palestinian problems seem like a day in the park. According to the NPR report, the number of "internally displaced" people continues to increase by some sixty thousand monthly. Even within the country there are places they are not allowed to go. This is a ticking bomb as surely as any military ordinance.

This video is from March.

Here is a link to the transcript.

"It's really the height of hypocrisy, countries that were instrumental in fighting this war, initiated this war, fought this war and that through their botch-ups have created this chaos in Iraq today these countries are refusing to receive refugees coming from Iraq.

They prefer them to be bottle up in Jordan; they are talking about providing aid to these people so that they can be taken care of and do not feel any great pressure to leave Jordan, but of course it's not in the Jordanian interest that they stay here either.

And so there's a contradiction between the European countries and Jordan over the fate of these refugees."
- Joost Hiltermann, International Crisis Group [5:05]