Iraq’s Desperate Exodus

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Four years of war have exacted a terrible toll on Iraqis, with no end in sight. Car bombings and other violence now kill an average of 100 people a day. Two out of three Iraqis have no regular access to clean water. Children are malnourished and too many are dying from preventable diseases and the near collapse of the health care system.

And an incredible total of four million people — one out of every seven Iraqis — have been forced to flee their homes. If Iraq continues this descent, the refugee tide could turn into a regional tsunami, with potentially convulsive political consequences.

Yet, as with so much about this war, the Bush administration is refusing to acknowledge the human cost of its horrendous errors and pretending that the problem will be contained within Iraq’s borders. It will not.

Half of Iraq’s displaced people have already fled. Jordan, a country of six million people, is now sheltering 750,000 Iraqis. Syria, with a population of 19 million, has about 1.2 million Iraqi refugees. Their governments say they are unable to keep coping with such large inflows. Jordan has already moved to limit new arrivals — barring Iraqi men between the ages of 17 and 35. Others have been less welcoming. Kuwait has completely shut its doors. Saudi Arabia is building a $7 billion border fence to keep Iraqis out.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/22/opinion/22sun2.html?_r=1&oref=slogin