My wife is Iraqi. I am not. She lives in freedom and peace in America now while her parents and siblings are scattering anywhere but Iraq. Her parents were forced to leave behind all they know, all they own, and all they worked a lifetime to accomplish and accumulate. Her sisters are in three different countries in the area, her brother follows the parents whereever they go. Her mother will never see her government pension that she worked 30 years to earn. Her sister is trying to emigrate and has been told she must return to Iraq for a new passport stamp (by the US Embassy) even though she has informed the embassy that the stamp they require does not exist and there is nobody in Iraq that can do it.

My wife has no country to return to. She can never take me to her birthplace or to visit her family in their home because it is gone to them forever. I was in Iraq for all of 2004 (US Army Officer). This is not what I was fighting for.

Thank you GWB and your evil advisors. You have destroyed an entire culture, country and countless families in order to do what?

By the way, my wife grew up in a peaceful family, without bloodshed or murder. Her father is Sunni and her mother is Shia.....

Doesn't it make you proud to be an American....

Any chance of facilitating immigration to the United States for Iraqis and their families facing danger for working with the Coalition forces? After World War II, we had a huge resettlement effort for refugees, why not now? We owe our brave Iraqi friends something for their courage and commitment to the ideals of a better Iraq, to the detriment of their personal safety and that of their families.

With all due respect, you nor any of the half brained idiots in the MSM have the qualification to speak of problems, mistakes or strategy in Iraq. Your staff is nothing but a bunch of liberal drama queens that probably haven't served a day in their lives in the military. Show me any war that didn't contain mistakes or corrections in tactics and I will prove you a bold face liar. You use stringers in Iraq that have connections to the terrorist or "insurgents" themselves so why would anyone believe them knowing they have their own self agenda just like you but your agenda is to be crowned the World's Greatest Drama Queens. Andrea Mitchell was on O'Reilly and proved herself to be a bold face liar for claiming that MSNBC is not partisan, do you wish to join her in those ranks? It's kind of funny how MSNBC readily admits that you exaggerate the events in Iraq on this "blog" and here's the quote,"Blogging Baghdad aims to provide a dynamic (keyword) look at the story behind the story of covering the news in Iraq.

I can't imagine what it must be like...it must be incredibly depressing to lose so much and be so out-of-sorts for so long.

I think that re-settling Iraqis in the US is a great idea!

You should also mention the prejudice that exists between the Iraqi Kurds and the rest of Iraq. The Kurdish north is peaceful and prosperous. They have shopping malls that aren't even feasible elsewhere in Iraq. You would think Iraqis would flock there instead of other countries first, but the Kurds have made it at least as difficult for Iraqi Sunnis and Shiites to enter their part of Iraq as a foreign country and there is mutual prejudice between the Kurds and the rest of Iraq. I have yet talked to an Iraqi who has moved to the Kurdish north rather than Jordan, Egypt, Syria or Iran.

Aleksandra, Senator Kennedy has addressed this problem in an editorial written in the Washinton Post. Here is an exerpt.
"...Thousands of these refugees are fleeing because they have been affiliated in some way with the United States. Cooks, drivers and translators have been called traitors for cooperating with the United States. They know all too well that the fate of those who work with U.S. civilians or military forces can be sudden death. Yet, beyond a congressionally mandated program that accepts 50 Iraqi translators from Iraq and Afghanistan each year, the administration has done nothing to resettle brave Iraqis who provided assistance in some way to our military. This lack of conscience is fundamentally unfair. We need to do much more to help Iraqi refugees, especially those who have helped our troops..."

Strangely enough he has come under attack for that by the very conservatives who supported this idiot adventure. Interesting huh?

PROBLEMS PERSIST, EVEN OUT OF IRAQ

damn! Now where is my Nano Violin... "Honey have you see my N................"

Jack,from Spokane.It is disgusting is it not? I am really sorry for your wonderful Iraqian wife and her family. I do not know if your wife has told you.In the 60s and 70s, the U of Basra and U of Baghdad were considered to be temples of wisdom.They have lots of good engineers in that country.I hope Iraq qould return to normalcy and you will be able to visit that country,along with your wife.Take care both of you.

We wonder why the Iraqis are killing each other.

Just imagine if, for example, the Chinese invaded the US, overthrew the government, hanged the President, created 70% unemployment, destroyed the electric and water services, and failed to provide sufficient security.

How long would it be before the ethnic groups here would start shooting each other? If you think it wouldnt happen here, just look at the crime statistics for New Orleans.

So dont blame the Iraqis - its our fault.

To Jack, Spokane, WA:
Reading posts like yours makes me want to cry.
I know that this is not what you have been fighting for- no one in his right mind ever would. But this is what you have helped to create- yet it's not your fault.
When i went to school in Germany, the powers that be very elegantly managed to leave anything out of thew curriculum relating to the third Reich and the Nazis.
At some point, i decided that this may be a good reason to learn about those things. The more i learned, the angrier i got: How could people back then allow something like that to develope- in a supposedly civilised country, which has produced people like Bach and Beethoven, Goethe and Schiller; the land of the great composers, and of the great writers and philosophers?
Until one day i realised that if i had been born in 1923 instead of 1959, i would have been 10 years old when the Nazis came to power in 1933: I would have gone through the school-system back then, and i would have been surrounded by people who would have shared the views of the Nazis. There would have been no guarantees- i may weel have ended up in a camp, wearing a striped suit. But i might equally well have ended up wearing a black uniform.
Eventually i found the answer to my question:
It could happen because people back then were exactly that- *people* !
People- with all the faults and flaws which people can have; and i've got those faults and flaws myself.
Fascism is made of a single stuff: *Selfrighteousness*. It was that selfrighteousness which led people in the middle ages to burn heretics and witches; it caused religious wars and oppression, and it caused the horrors of WWI and WWII. Most of all, it caused abominations like Auschwitz. And now? Now it has caused the situation you experienced yourself. You are free of that: hang on to that feeling for dear life. You and your wife have the opportunity to do better than that. Use it to the fullest extend- I wish you and your family all the best. As for George W. Bush and his cronies (and his backers!)- the truth is a very sharp sword. Even if it comes the size of a letter-opener, it's still sharp enough to cut through a web of lies...

Aleksandra,
Here is a bit of an article in the NYT recently which answers your question. Full article available on their website:

THE STRUGGLE FOR IRAQ; AS IRAQIS FLEE, FEW ARE GAINING SANCTUARY IN U.S.

January 2, 2007, Tuesday
By SABRINA TAVERNISE AND ROBERT F. WORTH; SABRINA TAVERNISE REPORTED FROM BAGHDAD AND ROBERT F. WORTH FROM NEW YORK. (NYT); Foreign Desk
Late Edition - Final, Section A, Page 1, Column 1, 1879 words
DISPLAYING ABSTRACT - Bush administration is criticized for its plan to resettle just 500 Iraqis this year, mere fraction of tens of thousands of Iraqis now believed to be fleeing their country each month; Sen Edward M Kennedy, who is taking over immigration, border security and refugee subcommittee, will hold hearings on America's responsibility to help vulnerable Iraqis, those who are inperiled because they worked for US government; estimated 1.8 million Iraqis are living outside Iraq; pace of exodus has quickened significantly in past nine months; some critics say Bush administration is reluctant to create significant refugee program because it would be seen as conceding failure in Iraq; for Iraqis, tie to US is life-threatening liability, particularly in harder-line Sunni neighborhoods; many Iraqis who worked for Americans have already fled Baghdad or Iraq, and many plead for help or asylum on daily basis; United Nations notes Iraqis ranked first of 40 nationalities seeking asylum in European countries in first half of 2006; few apply for refugee status in US, mainly because they assume that getting American status is all but impossible; Iraqis cannot apply directly for refugee status in American Embassy in Baghdad.

I feel NO Iraqis should even BE in the US...no if ands or buts about it. Instead of feeling sorry for the IRAQI'S..hOW ABOUT tHINKING ABOUT ALL THE YOUNG AMERICANS THAT HAVE BEEN KILLED OR TORTURED Because OF OR fOR THE DAMN aRABS...

It is unfortunate that innocent people have to suffer in a transition period, but at the same time in order to unite a government and a country together all this suffering must take place. This people will get tired of the fighting eventually and choose a government worthy of ruling. Lets remember the guerilla warfare we had in our continent a few decades ago. I’m talking about El Salvador, Guatemala, and Nicaragua. They fought for years before reaching a peaceful solution for their problem. I think it is time to step back and let them deal with their situation but still monitor from the background.