A moral obligation

Orlando Sentinel: A debate is now raging in Congress over the course of U.S. policy in Iraq, but there's at least one element worthy of agreement from all sides: The United States has a moral obligation to do much more to help Iraqi refugees.
About 2 million Iraqis have fled their strife-torn country, and an exodus of tens of thousands a month continues. Yet the United States has taken in only 466 Iraqis as refugees since 2003.
Thousands of Iraqis who have worked directly for U.S. and other coalition forces as interpreters, guides, laborers and in other jobs have been marked for death by insurgents or militias. Often their families also are in mortal peril. The United States owes its highest obligation to this group.
Congress took some action
So far, little has been done to help them. Congress approved a program last year giving special immigrant status to Iraqi and Afghan interpreters for the U.S. military, but that program was limited to just 50 refugees a year. More than 250 interpreters in Iraq already have been murdered.
Other Iraqis viewed as sympathetic to the U.S.-led invasion and occupation, including those who have worked for media organizations and international aid agencies, also are in grave danger. And some religious and ethnic minorities are under threat.
Most Iraqi refugees have fled to other countries in the region that lack the resources to handle them. The United States can get help to them quickly with more aid to international agencies that care for refugees. Otherwise, countries overwhelmed by refugees might close their borders to them.
State Department official Ellen Sauerbrey insisted before a Senate panel last week that resettling Iraqi refugees is a top priority in her agency. But its relatively paltry budget for Iraqi refugee assistance -- 20 million this year -- belies that statement. Consider that the United States is spending 8 billion a month on Iraq and Afghanistan.
Sauerbrey put part of the blame for the low number of Iraqi refugees admitted so far to the United States on a slow-moving U.N. effort to identify the most vulnerable refugees. But Washington doesn't have to depend on the world body.
Look to the past
The United States set up its own system for processing refugees following the Vietnam War and ultimately resettled hundreds of thousands. It did likewise following a failed uprising against Saddam Hussein in 1991 and took in thousands of Iraqi refugees.
Sauerbrey also blamed post-9-11 security procedures that call for all applicants for U.S. asylum to be individually screened. But that process could be accelerated with more resources. It could be streamlined for those Iraqis who passed background checks to work for U.S. forces.
With the civilian death toll rising in Iraq, there is no time to spare for the United States to honor its obligation to the country's refugees.