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Since the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, more than 4 million Iraqis have fled from their homes. Most of them are in neighboring countries, but some are still within Iraq.
They flee from sectarian violence. And for a small group of Iraqis who helped the American war effort, they run for their lives because they have been targeted for assassination.
Unfortunately, the U.S.
government is not doing nearly enough to protect and save those whose service to the
war effort have left them marked for murder. Things are so bad that a private effort, called The List, was begun by a man who served in Iraq with the U.S. Agency for International Development in 2005.
Kirk Johnson, who worked as a public affairs officer for USAID in Iraq, has begun the effort because our own government is not doing enough to help those whose service to the American cause has put them at risk. The CBS News program “60 Minutes” had a report about Johnson’s efforts on its show Sunday.
Last August, The New York Times published a story that said the U.S. government was offering a special program for Iraqis who had been full-time employees of the U.S. Embassy. But that number amounted to only about 125 people in Baghdad and 500 others who worked as interpreters.
Meanwhile, thousands more Iraqis worked for U.S. contractors. An estimated 69,000 worked on contracts for the Defense Department through Iraqi firms and other foreign companies.
When the United States left Vietnam, it allowed entry into the U.S. for thousands of Vietnamese whose work for Americans put them at risk of retaliation by the new communist government.
The situation in Iraq today is similar. Regardless of what else is going on in the war — or whatever your views are about the war — we should not let Iraqis who supported the U.S. effort be killed as a result of it.
