Lawmakers Urge Iraq to Fund Refugee Assistance

WASHINGTON — Warning that the flood of refugees who have fled Iraq could become an enormous security and humanitarian crisis, a bipartisan group of lawmakers called on the Iraqi government Thursday to earmark $1 billion for refugee relief.

"If there is anyone who doesn't understand that this is a security problem, they need to revisit how people become terrorists," Rep. Alcee Hastings, D-Fla., said at a Capitol news conference.

Rep. Bill Delahunt, D-Mass., chairman of the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on international organizations, human rights and oversight, said conditions facing Iraqi refugees are "a breeding group for terrorism unlike any we have seen."

Hastings, Delahunt and nine other House members, including four Republicans, sent a letter Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki urging him to set aside 4 percent of the Iraqi government's projected $25 billion budget surplus this year for refugee assistance.

Delahunt said the money could be used to help international organizations including the United Nations provide assistance to the estimated 4.5 million Iraqis who have fled the country since the war and sectarian violence ripped it apart over the past five years.

Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., said the money also could be used to help refugees still living in Iraq — known as internally displaced persons — find shelter and employment.

Hastings, who chairs the U.S. Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, commonly known as the Helsinki Commission, introduced a bill last fall that would require the United States to increase financial aid to countries and organizations dealing with the Iraqi refugee situation.

In January, Hastings and Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., urged President Bush to earmark $1.5 billion for Iraqi refugee assistance in the fiscal 2009 budget. The president did not include the request in his budget.