The Iraq Refugee Crisis

The good news is that several million Iraqis have escaped the killing field that is now Iraq.

The bad news:

From the Independent:

UN warns of five million Iraqi refugees
Half of displaced people have no access to food aid
By Patrick Cockburn
June 10, 2007

Across Iraq, millions of people are looking for safer places to live, and not finding them. The United Nations High Commission for Refuge (UNHCR) reported last week that 4.2 million Iraqis have been forced out of their homes.

There are also ominous signs that the four-month-old US security plan for Baghdad is failing to reduce the level of violence despite an extra 17,000 US troops in the capital.

"The situation in Iraq continues to worsen," the UNHCR announced, "with more than two million Iraqis now believed to be displaced inside the country and another 2.2 million sheltering in neighbouring states."

The Iraqi refugee crisis is now surpassing in numbers anything ever seen in the Middle East, including the expulsion or flight of the Palestinians in 1948...

This crisis created by our invasion and continued occupation of Iraq has resulted in a refugee population which now outnumbers those of Darfur. Since half of the refugees have no food aid, it is certain that we will see a humanitarian crisis of mammoth proportions.

George W. Bush, this will be your legacy.