Invite Iraqis who are leaving Iraq to come to U.S.

WASHINGTON -- If Vice President Dick Cheney thought his flying visit to Iraq would reassure the public about the course of the war -- entering its third year in "the last throes" -- he probably would have been better off not going.
A Cheney aide said the purpose of the visit was to tell the Iraqis, "It's game time," although you have to wonder what the Iraqi leadership made of that. The vice president's departure from his Mideast itinerary was not disclosed to the press traveling with him until Air Force Two was in the air.
He did not, as a congressional delegation did, stop off in a local market that an Indiana congressman described as safe and relaxed as any farm market outside Muncie, assuming you had close air support and a combat brigade at your elbow. Instead, he choppered straight to the Green Zone.
In an unfortunate bit of timing, P.R.-wise, the U.S. Embassy had just ordered its people to wear helmets and body armor while outside or in an un-reinforced building and to hold outdoor movement to a minimum. Basically, just stay in the bomb shelter. It seems the insurgents didn't get the memo about the surge and regularly subject the Green Zone, one of the most heavily fortified places on the planet, to mortar barrages.
Clearly, some new thinking is needed.
No progrerss
Meanwhile, President Bush and Congress are making no progress on solving the problem of 12 million illegal immigrants or agreeing on how to end the war. Maybe there's a solution here.
We can't keep people out of our country. The Iraqis can't keep people in. Over 2 million have left, mostly to neighboring Jordan and Syria, which are in no shape to help. We are building walls in our country and we're building walls in their country.
Instead of keeping the Iraqis out of our country -- and the way we've treated the people who have tried to help us is a disgrace -- why not let in any Iraqi who wants to come here on a temporary work visa.
The bright and skilled Iraqis will help fill high-tech jobs that would otherwise go to India and the unskilled would take the jobs the illegal immigrants now do. The illegal workers would get discouraged and go home.
If 12 million Iraqis came here -- and surely not that many would -- it would cut the population about in half, making it easier to flush out the insurgents and other bad guys. They couldn't hide among the general population if the general population was largely gone.
That would give us a chance to fix up the country. The Iraqis could then return to a country that has electricity, running water, working sewage, a functioning government and safe streets. They would also have the money they earned, and people who have nest eggs generally don't kill their neighbors.
Learning Arabic
Some of us by then would have learned to speak Arabic from our drywall contractors, landscapers and the crew at the help desk, meaning we're less likely to screw up again in Baghdad because we don't know the language.
So, we've solved both the war and illegal immigration and, as an ancillary benefit, driven the Iranians nuts with jealousy. Sounds crazy, yes, but no crazier than telling desperate people, "It's game time."
Scripps Howard News Service