Democracy for Vancouver

BAGHDAD (AP) — The U.S. Embassy on Thursday launched an expanded immigration program that provides 5,000 more visas each year for Iraqis who have put themselves at risk by working for the U.S. government.

The new guidelines represent a 10-fold increase in the number of visas and extend the applicable categories beyond an existing program for interpreters to include all Iraqis who have worked for the U.S. government, the military or related contractors and sub-contractors.

But not Iraqis who work for U.S. media outlets (who are among the most at risk) or NGOs.

Our illegal war in Iraq has created more than 4 million external refugees, with millions more displaced internally. Syria and Jordan have each taken in at least one million refugees - and these are fundamentally very poor countries without the resources or excess employment capacity to absorb and provide for refugees fleeing imminent danger with little more than the clothes on their backs.

For many refugee women and their daughters, whose husbands may have been killed in the sectarian violence or as the collateral damage of U.S. and Iraqi military operations, prostitution is the only means of survival in their host countries.

Few make it out of the region to the relative comfort of Europe, but the E.U. has absorbed far more than the U.S. has let in to date, or plans to under this new policy.

Once again the U.S. has done more of its share in terms of mayhem and destruction, but refuses to pull its weight to clean up the mess.