Lynn C. Woolsey: “last week this House voted to end the occupation of Iraq. Some of those who opposed that action argued that bringing our…”

“last week this House voted to end the occupation of Iraq. Some of those who opposed that action argued that bringing our troops home out of Iraq will increase the violence there and perhaps even lead to a humanitarian catastrophe. But what they forget, or choose to ignore, is that a humanitarian catastrophe has already occurred in Iraq. It is getting worse every day. That catastrophe includes the refugee crisis in that devastated nation. Last week the United States Committee for Refugees reported that the number of refugees in the world rose last year to its highest level since 2001. One of the main reasons was the great exodus from Iraq. All told, more than 2 million Iraqis have been forced to flee their country. Close to 2 million more have been displaced internally. That is a total, Mr. Speaker, of 4 million refugees, 50 percent of whom are children, and tens of thousands more are leaving every single month. Many of the refugees are in dire straits. Recently United Nations inspectors visited one refugee camp and found more than 2,000 people living in tents. They had no clothes except for the clothes on their backs. They had no medical care. They had no drinkable water. They had no toilets. Many of the children had typhoid and other illnesses and were living among snakes and scorpions. Sweden, to its great credit, is accepting more than 1,000 refugees every month. The population of Sweden is only 9 million people.…”