Iraqi Refugee Blueprint for the Obama Administration

The new year has finally arrived, and it is a year of many changes. Today, the new U.S. embassy in Baghdad officially opened. On January 1, control of the Green Zone passed to the Iraqis in accordance with the new status of forces agreement. And, of course, in just two weeks we’ll see a changing of the guard in the leadership of the U.S. government when Barack Obama is sworn in as President of the United States.

President-elect Obama made repeated commitments to address the Iraqi humanitarian crisis during the campaign. His plan for Iraq notably includes a $2 billion pledge to assist displaced Iraqis. We have learned that the $2 billion pledge remains a target, despite the inevitable constraints created by the global financial crisis. At the end of December, Human Rights First released a comprehensive blueprint of recommendations for the Obama administration – How to Confront the Iraqi Refugee Crisis. You can read it here.

The blueprint was informed by a recent month-long mission in Syria and Jordan conducted by me and my colleague, Amelia Templeton, as well as by the advocacy we’ve undertaken over the past year and a half on the crisis. In it, we call on the incoming administration to strengthen oversight and effectiveness of refugee assistance, to ensure that the Iraqi government refrains from pressuring refugees to return home before they can do so in safety, and to place a coordinator for Iraqi refuges in the White House. The blueprint contains detailed recommendations to these ends.

We’d love to hear your comments, and please do join us in calling on President-elect Obama, Vice President-elect Biden, future Secretary of State Clinton, future Secretary of DHS Napolitano, and the rest of the administration to fulfill the United States’ moral obligations – and to respond to our strategic imperatives – in the Middle East by undertaking a thoughtful and comprehensive strategy to deal with the refugee crisis.