It is easy to win when you shoot your target in the back. Instead of the ounce of prevention which President Bush could have offered the Kurds in their fight against Saddam Hussein he seems to have settled for a pound of cure. He has suggested a little more than $10 million in refugee assistance for these estimated halfamillion Kurdish and other refugees. But this is just a downpayment on the hundreds of millions of relief dollars which will be needed. Just 2 years ago Senator BYRD and I were successful in having $5 million appropriated for the Kurdish refugees who fled into southern Turkey from Saddam Husseins last chemical attack. While Congress and the State Department heeded the Turkish Governments call for aid to the refugees. the Turkish Government unfortunately refused to allow this and other international assistance to be distributed to the refugees. The money President Bush now offers is a BandAid approach to a problem which requires major surgery. In what could have been a defining moment in U.S. history. the Bush administration has returned to its old practice of developing foreign policy as it goes along. A couple of days ago Secretary Baker flew to the TurkeyIraq border to witness the refugee problem firsthand. and I am glad he did so. I congratulate him on going there and seeing these people as I have seen in the refugee camps in eastern Turkey of Kurdish refugees who have been gassed and run out of their own country. I congratulate him for doing it. I was there.
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refugee refugees