News: The US Will Likely Default on Refugee Promise

George Packer of The New Yorker, is skeptical that the US will admit the 12,000 Iraqi refugees in the fiscal year that it has promised:

Two months ago, I mentioned the State Department’s latest promise to resettle twelve thousand Iraqis in the United States in the coming fiscal year. Since then, the monthly totals have dropped from 450 in October to 362 in November and 245 last month. At this rate, the government will have to admit almost eleven thousand Iraqi refugees in the next nine months—more than twelve hundred a month—in order to achieve its own goal: doubtful.

In the same blog post, Packer comments on the departure of the lead State Department official on refugees, Ellen Sauerbrey, as well as his latest proposal to shame President Bush into resettling more Iraqi allies in the US.

Opinion: The Disgrace at State

This powerful blog piece by George Packer of The New Yorker is an absolute must-read. In it, he describes a State Department that attempts to obstruct Iraqi refugee legislation, makes promises it has no way of keeping to our Iraqi allies and falls short on promises already made. Perhaps most remarkably, he finds that military and State Department personnel who wish to act responsibly on this issue must turn to the press for help:

"...a desperate department official wrote to me, describing the sluggishness with which refugee applications in Syria and Jordan are being reviewed:

There is no excuse for this kind of mindless bureaucratic approach. I can’t find anyone here who seems to care that some of them seem to be on the verge of abandoning their cases. Know anyone who could do a one-page article somewhere to get the ball moving again?

So conscientious people on the inside have nowhere to turn but the press."

Read the full article on Huffington Post, or Mr. Packer's New Yorker Blog.