Holbrooke blasts Bush over Iraq refugees

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.khaleejtimes.ae/DisplayArticleNew.asp?xfile=data/focusoniraq/2007/April/focusoniraq_April94.xml§ion=focusoniraq&col=

13 April 2007

LITTLE ROCK - Former United Nations Ambassador Richard Holbrooke blasted the Bush administration for bringing too few refugees of the Iraq war into the United States.

Many fled to Jordan and Syria to escape the violence in Iraq, and among those are thousands of Iraqis who worked with US troops, diplomats and countries, he said in a speech at the University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service.

This is crazy,’ he said Thursday. Even Iraqis who were given security clearances to work with US troops in combat positions in Iraq where they could have betrayed the Americans to ambushes are now waiting years and years to get approval.’

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees estimates 1.7 million Iraqis have fled their homes to other parts of Iraq and up to 2 million have fled the country.

Holbrooke suggested the United States adopt a process more like the one used at the end of the Vietnam War. Then, officials processed refugees through other countries and screened them before being allowed into the United States.