Mr. Speaker. that General Petraeus testimony was part of an overall administration spin campaign to convince this Congress and the American people to keep their support for "stay the course" In Iraq. Iraqi civilians are also suffering. because the violence has forced over 4 million of them to become refugees. The U.N. referred 11.000 refugee applicants to the United States for processing by the end of this fiscal year. In February. the United States promised to admit 7.000. Then that number was downgraded to 2.000. But. so far. only 1.035 refugees have been admitted. and the fiscal year expires in 5 days. This situation is like so many others we have seen during the occupation of Iraq. The administration makes big promises about what it can achieve. then retreats from its promises. and then fails to deliver altogether. To make our refugee record even worse. the Government Accountability Office has reported that the number of condolence payments the United States Government pays to families of dead or injured Iraqi civilians plunged by 66 percent from the year 2005 to 2006. The condolence payments are. at most. $2.500. $2.500 per incident. Would any one of us consider $2.500 to be a condolence payment for the death of a beloved child or spouse?
Keywords matched
refugee refugees