middle east and south asia subcommittees held a held a hearing on the iraqi refugee crisis and we learned several disturbing things we learned that the administration was doing next to nothing to assist those iraqis who put their lives in jeopardy in order to assist the united states in our efforts in iraq not only wasn't the administration helping them they didn't even know how many iraqis actually worked for us so they naturally had no idea how many people needed our help we learned that the administration was woefully unprepared to process refugees referred to us by the united nations high commissioner for refugees we learned that it took up to five months to process a refugee referral we learned that the united states had the capacity to process merely a few hundred refugees a month but wasn't working anywhere near even that limited capacity we learned that we were telling iraqis seeking our assistance and protection to flee to a safe place like syria imagine that because we weren't processing at risk populations inside of iraq we learned that the need for refugee assistance was so great that congress ultimately had to take the lead in providing an additional one hundred fifty million dollars to address it so subcommittees have reconvened today in the hope that the administration will be able to tell us all sorts of good news such as that has provided the protection necessary to those iraqis who risked their lives for us translators guides intel providers we hope to learn the administration has worked out the bureaucratic kinks between the departments of state homeland security and the united states is now efficiently processing refugees referred to us we hope to hear that it takes far less than five months to process a refugee case and a result as a result the administration is on target to meet the president's goal and the administration's assurance of resettling twelve thousand refugees this  year and that the administration has established a mechanism to process at risk populations of iraqis inside of iraq so they don't have to flee to a neighboring country to receive our system  we hope but alas i don't believe that our hopes will be fulfilled i don't want to leave the impression that nothing has happened over the past year many things have congress increased to five hundred and then to five thousand the number of special immigrant visas available to iraqis who worked for the united states congress also expanded the types of employment that would be eligible congress provided new authorities to the administration for processing refugees and require that the secretary of state establish a mechanism for processing iraqi refugees in iraq as i mentioned congress provide an additional one hundred  fifty million dollars so congress has been very aggressive in dealing with this crisis i wish i could say the same for the administration to its credit the administration has appointed senior officials from state homeland security to oversee the coordination of u s efforts and the administration has issued the full component of five hundred special immigrant visas available under the earlier law but according to the washington post the administration has stopped processing those visas even though congress raise the ceiling the five thousand now i understand that we expanded the types of employment eligible for such visas and that guidelines need to issued for these newly eligible employees but it seems to me if there are still iraqis who need visas and they qualified under the old law they would qualify under the new law so i don't understand why the administration is not processing unless that was never their intention and all along they were willing to talk a good game but leave these people high and dry in terms of refugee resettlement administration resettle six hundred eight during all of fiscal year two thousand and seven about one hundred thirty four a month or four or five a day not a particularly robust number five months into fiscal year two thousand and eight the administration has resettled eight hundred seventy six refugees about three hundred seventy five a month much better but still well below what would be needed to reach the president's stated goal of twelve thousand refugees settle during this year in order to reach that goal the administration would have to triple the number of refugees process each month if you ask me that's a tall order for the ministration that always seems to be coming up short part of the problem is the department of state is still puzzling over how to process asked at risk populations inside of iraq the internal debate has been going on for eight years now the state department testified last year that they were examining this possibility the iraqi refugee crisis act gave the secretary ninety days to come up with a and for processing inside of iraq the clock is running and i hope our witnesses today can tell us what they will that they will meet the reporting deadline and that such processing will begin promptly thereafter paralysis by analysis is just another name for failure well of us understand that nine eleven changed a lot of things and one of those things with that the united states needed to be much more careful about who gets into our country the departments of state and homeland security approach the questions of refugee processing and resettlement with different perspectives and imperatives but the idea as i understand it of appointing a basket of foley and miss  respective positions was to remove the bureaucratic impediments that previously hinder our nation's ability to respond to the crisis judging from the results over the last year i don't think the problem has been solved the only person in the executive branch who can make all the agencies march in the same direction as the president yet i can't remember president bush speaking about the refugee crisis or the need of the united states to respond aggressively to it except in passing the last refugee crisis he spoke of directly was in new orleans rehab perhaps he thinks this one is going just as well it is precisely the lack of presidential leadership on this issue that has led me to propose during the conference on the iraqi refugee crisis act that congress creates a white house level coordinator with the resign with the authority to resolve the disputes between agencies that have decidedly different interests i think the results show how unfortunate is that my proposal was not included in the final agreement i'm sure that a are doing their best but as long as they report to different cabinet secretaries instead of one official managing the issue for the president i fear that our efforts to help iraqi refugees will continue to stagnate and the in the administration's bureaucratic swamp i still think actually i very strongly assert that the president needs one official to ride herd on this issue and i will continue to push for that as congress considers additional legislation to address the crisis at the hearing last year one of our witnesses noted that the u s response to the refugee crisis could be the first step towards rehabilitating the image of the united states in the middle east and indeed globally here we are a year later at a minimum i would say we have yet to see that moment the ranking member  significant issue according to united nations high commission of refugees there are approximately four and a half million people who have been displaced either externally or internally you have a significant number living in iraq who they themselves have been displaced by the saddam hussein dictatorship those people who are refugees outside of iraq many of them were displaced of course during the time that saddam hussein was being thrown out those people are living in syria jordan lebanon and elsewhere and those countries are not rich countries the chairman of the subcommittee on international organizations human rights and oversight chairman bill delahunt of messages thank you mister stack him and i i'm going to pause for just a moment before i read my statement because i think my good friend and colleague from california his remarks although well intentioned don't really describe what the reality is in iraq and i'm just going to note the excerpt take an excerpt from the testimony the written testimony of ambassador f who i knew from haiti it's good to see you embassador from haiti to iraq well done and this is ambassador foley's remarks about what's happening in iraq what the reality in iraq truly is despite what we hope i think we all agree that we would hope that the iraqis could go home however this is his words about these words there was a brief upsurge in return to baghdad in november and december two thousand and seven which the government of iraq tried to encourage and extend by providing cash assistance and bus transportation from damascus what about when it became clear that as many as seventy percent of the approximately forty six thousand returning refugees during that period unable to return to their homes and that shelter education health was still lacking the stream of returns soon dwindled i'm sure that the ambassador is accurate in his description and i think we've got to deal with what the reality is and the reality is for many displaced iraqis internally displaced and living outside of iraq they cannot return they would presumably hope to return but that is  not the conditions do not exist for their return you know from a secretary of state powell was right when he told president bush prior to the invasion that you're going to be the proud owner of twenty five million people you will own all of their hopes aspirations and problems you will own it all you call it pottery barn rule you break it you it we own it and it's a desperate humanitarian crisis with profound consequences if not urgently and sufficiently in terms of resources addressed there are more than four and a half million iraqis who today either refugees outside of iraq a so called i d p s internally displaced persons primarily as a result of the sectarian cleansing that has occurred in iraq over the past five years and that's why they can't go home because they would be killed i would submit that this sad reality imposes a moral responsibility on both the administration and the congress we cannot deny that the invasion of iraq iraq was the proximate because of this human tragedy so our response should be timely decisive and fully resourced not simply because it is right and we flex our values but it will prevent in my opinion further erosion of how we view in the middle east and that's important to put aside our values and what we are as a people it's in our self interest to prioritize this issue and act accordingly because as the state department's own advisory group on public diplomacy for the arab and muslim world has found and this is their language hostility towards the united states makes achieving our policy goals far more difficult so if you're really concerned about terrorists and you want to limit and prevent continuing acts of terrorism it's in our national interest to step up and there should be a realization that what we do what we don't want rather repeat what occurred in afghanistan when after the soviets were defeated we ignored that country and as we later learned much to our peril when we just simply cannot allow a breeding the terrorists of the future unless they are treated in a way that is respectful and dignified and humanitarian must we got to figure out that that's what i'm concerned about and it is going to cost money estimates vary between one point five and two billion but we should remind ourselves that there is less than one week's worth of law in iraq and represents a significant investment as i indicated earlier in our national security by my estimates about one hundred six million has been given to various u n appeals for iraqi refugees unfortunately that amount is woefully deficient the u n briefing last week that is a immediate shortfall of around three hundred ninety two million and as i indicated that's just about a week's worth of military expenditures now which is the iraqi government  on this issue have agreed to contribute twenty five million dollars to this crisis that's embarrassing that's a barrison to that government ambassador foley indicated that again in his written testimony that diplomatic pressure had to be brought to bear at least he suggested that to get the iraqi government to come up with twenty five million dollars for their own citizens and we're talking about reconciliation and movement and a nation at the same time the washington times on january thirtieth indicated that increase their rocky oil revenues stemming from high prices and improved security piling up in the federal reserve bank of new york out of ten billion budgeted for capital projects in two thousand and seven only four point four percent had been spent by august according to official iraqi a figure is reported in january by our government accountability office a quarterly report released by the u s special inspector general for iraqi reconstruction says rising production and high prices could produce an even greater revenue windfall for iraq this year according to the associated press well ten million dollars this is simply unacceptable and it's up to the iraqi government to do what they ought to do and take the necessary steps to ensure that their status brought home provided for out of the ten barry thank you mr chairman for holding this hearing today and in the context of our concern for iraqi refugees and internally displaced persons i would like to focus my remarks on the situation of religious minorities in iraq including the bahai's christians jews and you may be interested to know that there are several thousand iraqi refugees in nebraska my home state and lincoln is the home to an estimated hundred representing one of the largest city populations in the united states yesterday community has a unique significant as an ancient iraqi indigenous community whose origins reportedly date back to the community is particularly vulnerable to attack and persecution because of its religious beliefs as you may recall suicide bombers killed hundreds of u s cities in northern iraq in august of two thousand and seven i was compelled by the plight of these persons and other religious minorities in iraq to request a congressional hearing examining their status and i appreciate you mr chairman including this is a part of this hearing today and whether or not the new iraqi government is equipped to protect them while i have the have been following the issue of iraqis religious minorities for several years the need to assess the vulnerability of these populations was brought into stark relief by the atrocious and unresolved kidnapping of archbishop palos just several weeks ago which led to the of several other ordained members of this faith community while this is a particular heinous example of premeditated violence against innocent civilians it is my understanding that most of iraqis iraq's christian community is fleeing the country as well and other minority faith communities are also struggling to survive and retain their treasure traditions that have long and rich the historical tapestry in iraq while many of our discussions on iraq appropriately to address issues relevant to the nation's shia sunni and kurdish populations little has been said about significant minority populations which may be proportionately vulnerable to sectarian violence and by targeting by militants according to the department of state there has been discrimination against christians and non muslim i minorities iraq's a jewish community is now virtually nonexistent and the persecution of religious minorities by terrorist and criminal elements here is to be pervasive mr marlowe forward to exploring with our witnesses today the status of the minority communities mentioned and to what extent are refugee support mechanisms are poised to monitor such vulnerable popular vulnerable populations and address their needs i would also appreciate the assessment  you are witnesses of u s efforts to work with the iraqi government to protect such populations and as the iraqi government pursues issues on of national reconciliation i believe we must make it a priority to reduce  go i know you're all powerful mr chairman so i want to make sure my mike is appropriately activated appreciate the comments that were made from my colleagues this afternoon and i believe as was articulated by a number that this refugee is a big big problem and if left unattended it will fester and i would associate myself with the comments of mr delahunt that i think it will breed future terrorists in the region if in fact you give people no hope and we certainly have raised an expectation level i just came back from iraq last weekend and afghanistan and while certainly to be sure certain progress has been made with regards to the reduction of violence i am concerned that we don't have a similar political surge that is accompanying the military surge where you see in the case of anbar province in the kurdish area where there is some level of stability that can support reconstruction and investment the government told is that their budget they passed last month was thirty eight billion dollars as was alluded their current revenues seem to forecast with oil revenues that they could have as much as sixty billion dollars a share clearly the government in the parliament has related to is that they will go back in the next month or two to determine how they spend the extra money my question to and i don't know if you will start with ambassador foley where do you think that money can best be spent when you break down the need to get money out to the provinces realizing that there is a level of corruption that we're dealing with here not only get reconstruction activity done but if they have an additional twelve billion or more dollars to spend how much of that should be leveled for that if the political surge doesn't accompany the military surge all this will be for want and frankly i look forward to the comments by the witnesses to see where in fact they believe we need to focus in this current time period decision to go to war was the right one of the wrong one i think there's common agreement that we have a moral responsibility to deal with some of the consequences that have occurred and when i look ahead no matter what policy it is we want to pursue  there's a lot more suffering in store for the people of iraq and the question when we get to it that i'd be very concerned about is whether we've made some progress but the goal is very short of where i think it needs to be twelve thousand iraqi refugees when we know that whatever happens and under the best of scenarios there is going to be a lot more displacement in iraq because there are going to be in that society folks who are on the losing side they're going to need places to go and the united states in my view should be as generous and open with its borders as we were after vietnam and what i will be very interested in hearing  comments about whether our goal of twelve thousand is far short of what the need is so mr chairman thank you i yield the balance of my time i think i just drop bombs on the country there being no further members who wish to be recognized we now move to our panel embassador james foley is senior coordinator iraqi refugee issues in the department of the united nations and other international organizations in geneva from two thousand until two thousand and three a career member of the foreign service embassador folia served as deputy spokesman for the state department and as political advisor and speech writer and former challis is senior advisor to the secretary of homeland security for iraqi refugee affairs prior to her current position mr chalabi was associate director for refugee asylum and international operations at u s citizenship and immigration services previously served in very leadership roles at the department of justice including as chairwoman of the board of immigration appeals and the executive office of immigration review deputy general counsel for former immigration and naturalization service and as a trial attorney for the office of the gratian litigation in the civil division of labor received her undergraduate degrees from the university of maryland and her juris doctorate from memphis state university and we welcome and has been posted not tokyo bangkok mumbai mr edson received a b a from the university of kansas a man a master's in management from chulalongkorn university in bangkok and a master of science from the national war college and welcome to you mister embassador lawrence butler assumed the position of deputy assistant secretary of state in the bureau of near eastern affairs in january of two thousand and seven bath for butler has previously served as the principal deputy high representative for bosnia and herzegovina from march two thousand and five until january of zero seven before that he was ambassador to macedonia embassador butler joined the foreign service and one nine hundred seventy six and is a member of the senior foreign service embassador butler served as deputy chief of mission in copenhagen and dublin as acting chief of mission in belgrade and various other positions in europe and south america as well as positions and apartment and on the staff of the national security council the ambassador and to be a from vote college we welcome embassador mr gregory gottlieb is the senior deputy assistant administrator of usa ideas bureau for democracy conflict and humanitarian assistance he recently served for three years as a deputy director of the office of u s foreign disaster assistance and prior to that served three years as deputy director of u s ideas office of transition initiatives mr gottlieb has also served ambassador foley can provide the committee with an overview of the situation michel of a can discuss homeland security's role in the processing of iraqi refugees and mr edson can speak specifically to special immigrant visas  from embassador butler regarding the minority communities in iraq and mr gottlieb concerning i d p s and our assistance to them without objection the written statements of each of our witnesses will be entered into the record and hello is that working now all right again mr chairman thank you allowing me to testify before you today secretary rice appointed me five months ago to the position of senior coordinator because she was not satisfied with the pace of the u s government's resettlement efforts on behalf of the most vulnerable iraqi refugees the charge she gave me was to identify and overcome obstacles to reaching our goal of resettling twelve thousand iraqis in the u s this fiscal year do you believe that my appointment and that of my counterpart lower echelon would facilitate the kind of inner agency cooperation necessary to meet this goal i welcome this assignment i've long felt the u s had a moral obligation as others have said to resettle vulnerable iraqis especially those who work for us or otherwise threaten because of their association with the us this is only part of our wider obligation to create the conditions inside iraq that will permit some two million iraqi refugees to return home as most surely wish to do in iraq as with other refugees situations around the world third country resettlement is an option for the most vulnerable and the persecuted thus what we're aiming to do is to resettle iraqis who will not be able to go home even when security conditions allow the overwhelming majority to do so shortly after taking this assignment it became apparent to me that there were two main obstacles we had to overcome first the fact that we were unable to access potential iraqi refugees at all where they were in greatest danger namely inside iraq second the fact that we could not access iraqi refugees where they were in the greatest numbers namely inside syria and so i set myself immediately to addressing these two challenges let me briefly describe what we've done first thanks to the improving security situation in iraq we were able to reach early agreement with the department of homeland security to begin in country processing of iraq employees of the u s embassy as requested by ambassador crocker close to one hundred iraqis including employees and their families are now being processed in baghdad for resettlement in the u s this was a modest but important breakthrough because it positions us now to move rapidly toward implementation of a full scale effort as mandated under the refugee crisis in iraq t act second in late october i traveled to syria to negotiate a return of homeland security interviewers who'd been denied visas for a good portion of two thousand and seven our bilateral relationship with syria is a difficult one but i believe th was recognition on both sides that it was important for us to cooperate in addressing the manage area needs of iraqi refugees i saluted syria for its generosity in hosting over one million iraqis and i'm grateful for the agreement that we reached that allowed t program in damascus to be sure it's a restrictive agreement under which it's still very difficult for us to process refugees expeditiously as we can elsewhere in the region but at least there is now hope for iraqi refugees in syria who've been referred to our c r third i work closely with un and c r to ensure we would have sufficient referrals in multiple locations by the end of this april to ensure we could process and d h s s could interview enough iraqi refugees to enable us to reach our twelve thousand arrivals goal by september thirtieth throughout last year and into early this year our resettlement efforts were outpaced by u n h c r referrals but that gap is closing rapidly and will virtually disappear disappear in the next months to get particularly in jordan we are indeed grateful to you in h c r for its a per indispensable cooperation and for the really herculean efforts of their personnel to produce so many referrals for us in such a compressed time frame forth state and homeland security of work productively productively together to establish an increasingly robust program of homeland security circuit rides to key locations throughout the middle east that will keep pace with u n h c r referrals and that can produce twelve thousand arrivals of iraqi refugees this fiscal year the foundation for the program is the capacity of our pre scan screening entities but we call them o p s throughout the region the key o b e s were nonexistent in these countries at the beginning of zero seven they were only fledgling through the second half of last year but now that the o p s can process efficiently in most places and that homeland security can interview iraqi refugees and all places our program can operate at a much higher volume the result of these efforts is that we move from roughly twenty eight hundred interviews of iraqi refugees in the first quarter of this fiscal year to fifty six fifty six hundred a doubling this quarter in other words by the end of this month the volume will grow to eight thousand interviews eight thousand interviews in the third quarter alone in other words we've built up the pipeline to produce the number of arrivals we need to reach our goal monthly arrival arrival numbers today are the result of the capacity that we had to conduct interviews in two thousand and seven the most the numbers are now moving in the right direction two hundred forty five arrivals and december three hundred seventy five in january four hundred forty four in february but they are far short of where we expect them to be in the months a few months from now in some twelve thousand remains our goal and i'm here to tell you it can be achieved i'm not in a position to guarantee we'll reach it in the past five months we strengthen every link in the chain but some links remain weak our processing ability in syria is the most fragile link but not the only one but what i can guarantee is that we're doing everything we can to put ourselves in a position to succeed finally i can report that the apartment of state is fully committed to processing many of the most vulnerable iraqi refugees where they are located namely inside iraq that of course is mandated under the recently enacted refugee crisis in iraq act it's something a bester crocker earnestly has promoted and it's something that's rendered possible by the improvement of the secure the situation in iraq to be sure in country processing on a large scale poses daunting challenges both from a logistical and a security perspective we have to stand up and overseas processing entity of the kind it took much of two thousand and seven to establish in jordan under fastly different conditions security will continue to be an issue above all for the iraqi applicants themselves but i can want to assure the committees that is our intention to move as fast as possible our goal is to establish an overseas processing entity in will resume beginning with the testimony of good afternoon chairman dodd and chairman ackerman and members of the subcommittees and thank you for the opportunity to appear before you to testify part of the refugee program she managerial mission is to offer resettlement in the united states to especially vulnerable iraqi refugees who are unable to return to iraq due to persecution my office is responsible for interviewing refugee applicants determining if they are eligible for resettlement in the united states i'd like to assure the subcommittee that u s c i s is committed to working with the department of state and other program partners to meet the administration's goal of admitting twelve thousand iraqi refugees this is a school year meeting its goals a top priority for the agency and our officers are working tirelessly to interview and adjudicate the cases necessary to reach this target however that being said there are certain variables critical of the program's success that do lie outside the us government's control in a relatively short period of time all refugee program partners have substantially increased their capacity to process cases in the middle east building the infrastructure to support a large scale operation where previously did not exist overseas processing entities collect the basic biographical information from all applicants including educational work and military service history and interview the principal applicant regarding the refugee claim pardo p prescreening the majority of applicants are interviewed by the united nations high commissioner for refugees u s c i s his role in the refugee processing is to interview in adjudicate the applications for refugee resettlement perform certain security checks apply the material support exemption authority when necessary and warranted and approve eligible cases once all necessary steps of been completed the opi then completes the resettlement out processing as you can see from the brief description i've given multiple organizations are involved in the refugee admissions process today i'd like to share with you the steps that we are taking to marshal our resources make part of our process as efficient as possible and i'd also like to share with you some of the obstacles that the program today and we're scheduled to still teams on almost a continuous basis in the coming months we expect to complete more than eight thousand four hundred iraqi interviews during the first half of the fiscal year we're currently working with state department to put together a schedule of up to eight thousand interviews for iraqi refugee applicants during the third quarter of this year given current approval rates we estimate that achieving this volume of interviews would keep the united states on track to admit twelve thousand iraqi refugees by september thirtieth u s d a s an apartment state share responsibility for conducting background checks on all iraqi refugee applicants security checks are rigorous and no cases finally approved until results have been received and analyzed under regular refugee processing procedures u s c i s would not interview an applicant until interagency security checks coordinated by the department state of cleared but given our desire to expedite the iraqi case load us has agreed to conduct interviews while in range interagency name checks are still pending this is enabled numerous cases to be interviewed and moved more quickly than if we'd waited for the inner agency security checks to clear generally u s d a s receives responses to our initiated fingerprint checks within two to four weeks after our interview the process runs concurrently with d o s out the out processing steps such as obtaining medical clearances and sponsorship assurances because we've been able to answer to this process of completing several steps concurrently the total processing time for iraqi cases is significantly less than it is other refugee groups worldwide we've also exercise the secretary's discretionary exemption authority to admit hundreds of iraqi refugees who otherwise would have been barred from admission under the material support related ground of inadmissibility to allow as many qualified individuals as possible to travel this fiscal year we've devoted additional resources to reviewing material support cases that may be eligible for the duress exemption refugee resettlement complex multi step process involving a large number of players all integral to the success of the program we cannot control all the variables in this complex process that can affect refugee admissions factors such as the number of iraqi refugees coming forward u n h c r for registration the desire of iraqi refugees to resettle in the u s the overall pa registration and prescreening applicants failing to appear for prescreening interviews or u s c i s interviews or flight departures as well as the continued cooperation of host governments to allow such a process in the region and other factors such as background clearances medical issues and resettlement out process all affect the refugee process and also like to take this time to quickly update on the progress being made to implement the refugee crisis in iraq act which was signed into law six weeks ago in country processing as ambassador foley mentions it has begun in the state department agreed to process up to one hundred locally employed staff and their immediate family members in baghdad who are at risk of persecution based on their association with the us government we must proceed with the utmost attention to ensuring the safety and security of both resettlement personnel and in country refugee applicants with this in mind partner states embassy baghdad as well as i o m are seeking ways to increase our capacity and efficiency in baghdad interviewing in adjudicating iraqi cases has been and will continue to be a top priority for us we look forward to continuing our positive and close working relationship with our state department and our other partners in carrying out the humanitarian mission of admitting iraqi refugees the united states once again i'd like to thank you for giving me the opportunity testify and i'll be happy to answer your question thank you chairman ackerman and delahunt and distinguished members of the committees for providing me this opportunity to be here before you to discuss the special immigrant visa programs at the bureau of consular affairs overseas on behalf of the department of state these are visa programs are therefore separate from the refugee programs administered by the you're a population as refugees and migration that apartment appreciates the consideration that congress has shown for the men and women who have assisted the u s government in our efforts in iraq and afghanistan the two special immigrant visa programs created to act an expedited process for these workers to immigrate to the united states were acutely aware of the death of the u s to these men and women whose work is done at considerable personal risk and we're doing our utmost to see that this de is paid the special immigrant visa or s i d programs for iraqis and afghans provide immigrant status and in an unprecedented development for visa programs resettlement assistance to the recipients the bureau of consular affairs has moved quickly to work out procedures with our colleagues in the bureau of refugees population refugees and migration which administers resettlement benefit programs for refugees to allow these the recipients access to those benefits the initial s i v program for iraqis and afghans already in operation for a year is based on section tin fifty nine of the national defense authorization act of fiscal year two thousand and six which was an accident january two thousand and six and originally authorized up to fifty iraqi and afghan interpreters and translators working for the u s military to receive special immigrant visas each fiscal year last year congress amended the program allowing five hundred principal applicants in f y o seven and f y o eight and expanding it to cover translators and interpreters beyond those working for the military to those working for the u s government under chief of mission authority the state department efforts to issue special immigrant visas to translators and interpreters accelerated immediately with changes in the law that shifted the scale of that effort from fifty to five hundred pieces in june of two thousand and seven we quickly built a robust system to meet the additional workload to the coordinated efforts of our domestic and overseas operations and the cooperation of our colleagues in the department of homeland security the department of state working closely with the h s issued all of the visas that congress authorized for fiscal year zero seven and will meet that same goal this fiscal year we expect to reach the five hundred case limit under the law with currently scheduled cases in the next few weeks i can report with confidence that we now have in place an operation that has experience with applicants sponsors and stakeholders and which is ready to take on the new challenges posed by the newly adopted us id legislation unfortunately as you mentioned  mr chairman we have received approval titian's under this translator an interpreter s a v program that cannot yet be scheduled for these interviews this fiscal year under the congressional established cap of five hundred the second us i v program was enacted as part of the defense authorization act year two thousand and eight signed into law just six weeks ago on january twenty eighth section twelve forty four of this legislation authorizes five thousand special immigrant visas for iraqi employees and contractors each year for the next five years this provision creates a new category of special immigrants separate from the interpreter and translator program for iraqi nationals who provided faithful invaluable service to the u s government while i'm played employed by or on behalf of the u s government in iraq for not less than one year after march of two thousand and three and who have experienced ongoing serious threat as a consequence of that employment working closely with the h s to implement section two hundred forty four provisions as quickly as possible while meeting the security screening requirements it imposes and we determined likewise to make this program a success thank you again for holding this hearing and allowing me to speak to you today these are important programs and issues and of course i'm happy to answer your questions delahunt ranking member distinguished members of the committees and subcommittees let's get right down to it very quickly the land that is present day iraq is home to the world's first known civilization and has been home to numerous people since then some of them like the assyrians the is it iis sabean mandaeans continue to live in iraq today iraq's tapestry of history cultures and peoples is cherished by its peoples once an asset that we the american government  iraqi government are working to preserve this has not been easy the violence the countries witnessed in the past couple of years has affected all iraqis leading to displacements threats and iraq's religious and ethnic minority communities are not immune from the violence department of state places a high priority on minority issues and is committed to working with minority leaders the government of iraq and iraq's provincial governments to safeguard the future of iraq's minority communities in january of this year the state department named dr richard j shamir a special coordinator for racks of minority communities he has created a working group which includes officials from state agency for international development and the community leaders and of course representatives of the call the syrian groups present here in the united states as well as with individuals i have personally traveled to meet with quality and representatives in detroit and los angeles areas in just the past five months interact from our embassy as well as our it's reconstruction team representatives and you know i meet regularly with the representatives of the religious and ethnic minority groups to discuss issues confronting their communities and to see how we can best help them address their concerns in a province is home to the largest numbers of these communities and our peers has frequent interaction with their communities and their leaders these meetings provide unique opportunities of dialogue between the s government and the minority communities and we make it a priority to maine this maintain this unfiltered dialogue in the meetings the leaders and representatives of the minority groups often expressed urgent concerns about their safety security humanitarian and development assistance for their communities and their role and voice in iraqi politics permit me to to address each of these and concern this four of them security is paramount a safe and secure iraq is one of the primary goals of the u s government and the government of iraq and in the past six seven months we've seen dramatic improvements in security not just in baghdad but in the surrounding provinces as well as we know the security situation in iraq countrywide is significantly different was significantly different two years ago while it is true that in some cases religious minorities including many christian communities were targeted due to their religion in general even those in the majority nationally found themselves targeting communities where they were in the minority and short residing in sunni majority areas were threatened and vice versa fortunately the security situation has improved in iraq as some of the accelerants for the sectarian violence has been eliminated primarily by taking the fight to al qaeda and taking them out of anbar province  sadly acts of violence still occur some minority groups have called for the creation of additional local citizen watch groups known as the sons of iraq which have had success in other places in improving local security we have advised these minority groups interested in this idea to work directly with it apart defense and the iraqi ministry of interior any effort towards the creation of local security forces for minority communities must proceed with the awareness that the us government and the government of iraq are working  plans to transition existing members of the sons of iraq groups to civilian employment or recruitment and assimilation into the iraqi security forces long term security is best assured when there is one unified national security structure with forces loyal to the state on the humanitarian development side we submitted in november two thousand and seven to the congress report describing assistance we're providing to an area in northern new a province known as and in of a plain region the  region is composed primarily of two districts and which are predominantly christian i want to emphasize that us government assistance is not tracked nor distributed based on ethnic identity or religious affiliation rather assistance is targeted areas and regions in the bases or need a report last year found that al hamdan the until received approximately thirty one point three million dollars and u s g funds for the period two thousand and four to two thousand and seven we continue to monitor very closely the needs in a want to ensure that all areas receive appropriate levels of assistance on the political side these are minorities in a country with a relatively new government which is focused on struggling to establish security under these circumstances and i'm speaking as somebody who's who served in bosnia and ten years ago worked on the northern ireland peace accords minority groups must engage practically and energetically in the political area to nor to have their voices heard we play a facilitating role role by channeling their concerns to appropriate government officials but at the biggest success we've seen is at the local level world's biggest success combined with frustrations it is that some minority communities are frustrated with the local councils not being adequately representative or responsive to their needs the agency for nash of all this community action program which has enjoyed tremendous support from the congress works to address these concerns by connecting communities to their local councils to carry out a great project provincial councils which are scheduled to take place by the end of the year will provide a more lasting solution as local populations will have the opportunity to vote for members their representatives within the provincial council we are working with government leaders in iraq to assure the elections happen as soon as possible in a fair and transparent manner we want iraq to maintain its legacy and not lose the diversity of its peoples and culture and we are working with the iraqi government and the iraqi people to preserve this great diverse and very rich tapestry thank you happy to take your questions of partners in iraq the working environment for humanitarians extremely difficult international aid workers local staff and their families face threats kidnappings and killings although many aid agencies left iraq in two thousand and three out of safety concerns those who remain in country and continue to provide aid have done so through creative community networking and perseverance and they are to be commended for their efforts nearly two and a half million iraqis are displaced within iraq's borders including one point two million displaced following the february two thousand and six bombing of the al askari mosque in samarra an additional two point two million iraqis have refuge in neighboring countries according to a two thousand and and are straining household budgets as for the remainder of iraq twenty percent rely on host families and another twenty percent of found shelter in public buildings within individual governments additional priority needs vary but needs most consistently identified or access to clean water food legal services and health care as well as the need for education and employment opportunities since fiscal year two thousand and three us through delivery of temporary shelter winterization supplies and cash for work infrastructure rehabilitation programs to the creation of child friendly spaces in the deployment of mobile health teams usaid funded programs strive to assist the most vulnerable through  implementing partners we continue to facilitate the economic development of i d p s and host communities through the construction of marketplaces enterprise spaces and support to small businesses our programs are tailored to the needs identified at the community level for example we are supporting vocational training programs for electricians and information technology specialists the need to support the host communities because infrastructure is often overtaxe met with improvement the health water and sanitation facilities it should be noted that consistent with the u s policy we continue to address the long term development needs of i d p s with an eye toward mitigating new cycles of national instability and population displacement finally usaid remains committed to building the capacity of the government of iraq particularly the ministry of migration in an effort to find durable solutions to the ongoing displacement crisis at local the refugee communities of origin are woefully unprepared to absorb and meet the needs of the refugees and i d p s who will eventually return while the numbers return each today is small estimated by iraq's ministry of migration to be around thirty thousand families preparation for their eventual return is essential with the limited number of international aid agencies on the ground in iraq it is imperative that we have a heightened u n profile to not only implement humanitarian aid programs but also to take the lead in coordinating countrywide activities that meet identified humanitarian needs as i said earlier there are nearly two and a half million iraqis displaced in their own country and usaid remains committed to providing a who have helped how many such people are there chairman those are statistics that we're in the process of gathering i'd be happy to take the question and get you the answer for the record but the fact is that government agencies right now are are putting those number you remember saying that at our last meeting where somebody did we were told exactly what you just said well i can tell you how many people have worked for the department of state and ok let's rough numbers it's in the in the three hundred so i have the exact number here right now it's a little more than one hundred so we know that we know that the numbers of employees of the department of state  of both direct hiring contractors are in the thousands another was under ten thousand there in the thousands the numbers of employees of the of the defense department these would be mostly contractors are certainly in the tens of thousands but the department of defense will be providing that information as you know under the refugee crisis in iraq act the different government agencies are are under remit to to produce databases and to tally those numbers up so i can give you certainly the ballpark estimates of currently employed as i just did and how many of them processed we have processed all together we have interviewed has interviewed eleven thousand eight hundred iraqi refugees we've had that have worked for us no no these are the overall figure how many of you interviewed that have worked for us that have indicated that whatever reason they have to leave what i have to get to that figure specific figure for the record to the extent that we can establish it because mr chairman most of the referrals most of the iraqis that we process for admission to the us refugee program are referred by the united nations under eleven separate criteria one criterion for referral from u n h c r is indeed association with international efforts with employment with the coalition forces and and the  of iraqis who have worked for us according to the list project that i think you might be familiar with i had stand this list has been presented  to you before and of the thousand names that are on this specific list only forty have been processed could you explain that well i'm the list that we have we have a service called ref questions where we entertain inquiries from iraqis in the region inside iraq those indeed who have been associated with us so that we can compile information we can begin to enter them into our caseload we can begin to process them if they can access our program any difficulty excuse me mr chairman that we weren't able to operate refugee processing inside iraq that that's the chief limitation until this point when when as as as i indicated in my opening statement we're moving to do just that well the reason that we couldn't process them inside of iraq is a problem of our creation because we didn't want to process them inside of iraq prepared to process inside of iraq and did not process inside of iraq and just the lead and now have i i fail to understand why forty people if that number is accurate or have they all been processed and found an eligible for what ever reason you could tell us what those nine hundred sixty reasons might be yes sir first i would say though that indeed it's not the fault of the rockies and we want to help that we've not been able to process them inside iraq to my knowledge we've never processed refugees anywhere in the world in a war zone and the fact that the security situation has improved is a significant reason process fifty thousand refugees within cost of all and and thereabouts and admitted them into the united states under president clinton special water during during the time of war yes we did but we processed them in macedonia we process them outside of the coast of off site of the war zone the difficulty until now has been to access these iraqis inside of iraq and we're planning to with the improved security situation we're planning to to stand that up as i indicated we've started doing that on a modest scale but we intend to scale it up substantially now i can answer your question about the list though if if you listen to new as i was saying we have been in contact with  the the those who've been compiling the list and we've found that many of the names on the list we've already had in our system we found names that were in our system that we have entered into our system and this is an ongoing dialogue there probably new names that we're not familiar with but at the same time we are receiving such information from multiple sources including through our own communications facility that i i mentioned and so it's it's an ongoing iterative process but the fact is that until now we've had to process them in neighboring countries and we're hoping now to be able to process them if we can scale up our processing and this year inside iraq i keep hearing about adding lists and putting mission here is to help refugees we don't seem to be helping many at all do we to the extent that we have the capacity to do so we have been doing so as i indicated many of the people on the list have been in our system some of them are being processed have been processed the main difficulty for many of them is how to access our program as you may know mr chairman last year they have difficulty accessing the pro yes because people these people found us on the internet i'm sorry to access our processing program they can access it by communication but in terms of our ability to process them as refugees they had to abandon either and one of the neighboring countries and  that's that and that's an impossible for many indeed that was a tremendous discouragement was them and i you know my my view was that was the whole reason was to discourage them but now that we've that we've taken a look at that i don't understand why these lists are not moving well i must say that mr chairman that i agree with you fully that it is to these iraqis that we have our highest obligation and up when they when they when they came to you and told you that their law came to us and told us that their lives were in danger because they served as interpreters or turn people in or gave us information as to the bad guys were hiding and now they have targets on their back why did we assist them to go to other countries why do we tell him run feel alive maybe the syrians will help a  we didn't help them get to syria no we certainly did not they went there on their own but unfortunately last year we were unable to interview them in syria for for about four or five months that we are able and that's why our our numbers of those were interviewing those who will arrive in the u s what happened is going up substantial i don't want to prolong my time but i don't understand you interview somebody how long does an interview take i interview people to i seem to interview more people for a job in my office than you do of all iraqi refugees i don't well i would i don't i don't have that many positions i would turn to my colleague from homeland security to tell you about the interview process itself but the interview is one part of  a multi step process that involves as you know security vetting and and processing as well it's a process it's a process that takes as much as eight to ten months around the world that we have compressed significantly in the case of iraqis or what's happening i don't understand what's happening it seems to me that if i didn't want people here i would find deliberate ways to throw sand in the gears and come up with reasons putting them on and processing them and questioning them and vetting and that's all important but it shouldn't take forever to get a couple of people i agree with mr chairman that this is exactly the direction we need to be moving in and i about thank you mr chairman and obviously i have some very fundamental disagreements with some of the promises on which the discussion we're having today i do not believe  helping the people who have been positive and helpful to the cause of democracy in iraq helping them leave the country and coming here would either be good for us or good for them and especially not good for quibble with the distinguished gentleman from california but i think we both find it flattering that most of the world would like to come to this country because of the values we have and the opportunities that we provide but it seems to me on the side of the ledger that says that refugees should stay in place where they would like they would like to the part because they have contributions to make to democracy and rebuilding their  understand i'll try to do that with you please continue ok you know i share his disappointment in the oil rich arab nations not making a significant contribution to the resolution of this describe but i would also note that it wasn't th rich arab oil rich nations that invaded iraq and i suspect that that would be their response if somehow they were being represented here today and those two arab nations that i think we must acknowledge making a substantial contribution clearly are among the poorest in the middle east it's my understanding that somewhere between four hundred fifty and five hundred thousand refugees from iraq are in jordan it is not a wealthy country and from what i understand those iraqis that are currently in jordan are middle class iraqis who have some of their own resources and then we have syria members of the axis of evil club hosting one point two to one point five million iraqi refugees and again it's my understanding that those  mostly shia represent the the poorest elements of iraqi society and i guess that what we have to say about  these arab societies is that they are really serving humanity well there are several many in between jordan and iraq who it would appear at least given some hospitality under the most difficult situations and clearly it must be a substantial burden on their economies let's recognize that and neither one of those countries at least i'm aware did not invade iraq as i said earlier when i quoted general powell former secretary of state and the truth is and i'd like to pose this is a form of a question because the ranking member indicates that we want them to stay there and i'm not talking about the discrete group that assisted the united states because i think we have a special obligation to them but from what i understand from your testimony laurel is that many of them would like to go back home but they can't be cause of the sectarian cleansing that transpired over the last three or four years and they know if they return home putting themselves at personal risk and that of their families there's no home to go back to there is going to be another vote shortly so i felt the need to come in the answer to my question i will try to do it in rotation and i apologize for the inconvenience and grateful for your indulgence you remember the question i know you must ambassador foley because it was directed at you thank you thank you mr chairman with the question was do we think that the iraqi refugees outside of iraq in the region wish to go back to iraq or are they able to go back to iraq i think it was perhaps both we  believe that that that is the wish the overwhelming majority as if you could imagine that they they would want to go home and and as i said in my prepared remarks i believe it is  equally our moral obligation to make conditions in iraq such that they can go home and yet those conditions are not right we believe for a large scale return now this has to be an individual decision by the refugee himself or herself it has to be a voluntary decision and we believe that the refugees will have a good sense of when conditions will permit return i think you indicated there was a spate of returns or let me interrupt you get here because i think we're in agreement but as you're aware there has been unfortunately a spike in violence in february and as we read reports coming from iraq there has been even this week a number of suicide bombings and other indicia of a trend upwards in violence presuming that that trend continues and if you disagree with that premise you know noted but presuming that there is a trend towards more violence difficult i will answer briefly but i'm going to turn to ambassador butler to really address the assessment of the state department administration of the current security situation in iraq just to finish though the point about the refugees and their potential return  we believe that it's it's vital that the refugees who are in the region receive enough assistance that they remain secure and protected where they are and you alluded to this the burden  on the united states and on the international community as it is an important one to ensure that refugees many of whom you alluded to the fact that many were of the middle class at least in jordan had come with some resources are depleting those resources so their needs are going to increase we see this burden going up and the administration is prepared to to meet that burden but i want to tell you though that i am myself going to be  hitting the road in the next weeks and going to some of the capitals that you mentioned to to seek a burden sharing if you well it has been five years since the start of the war and everyone has a stake in the stability in the region and those with means we believe ought to play a role but certainly the role of the united states will remain considered i think i'd like to turn to a best about without to address your last question thank you best if i could just for a moment recalling the state you're from to for the record correctly prince ation of massachusetts first governor as in boden my alma mater an outstanding school not quite a middle barri but an outstanding school we achieve this through improvement in the security situation throughout the country particularly in ambar the question you posed a hypothetical if there was a return to the kinds of violence we saw immediately post two thousand and six when al qaeda succeeded to blow up the golden dome mosque certainly would be a an unexpected reversal of the trends we've seen in the in the tick up the uptick in violence from february we believe is is is not indicative that we have that there's a change in the flexion curve that it's going to get worse but we are seen as al qaida has continued efforts to provoke interest sectarian violence through smaller suicide attacks we have not seen an indication of new ideas or new refugees as a result of the violence we've seen in february we have not seen continued blowback from the neighboring countries but clearly and you've been out there as have many of your colleagues in the region on your travels this is a very different refugee extremely displaced population and we associate in other areas not living in tents they're not after vietnam you had tens of thousands of people who  how do we go about is it possible to reverse sectarian cleansing have we permanently reconfigured iraq has iraq not we have done it but has iraq permanently been reconfigured in the dislocation of the various communities is a mammoth absolute mammoth undertaking if you look at the demographics clearly  the ethnic makeup or the sectarian of the neighborhoods in baghdad is change from or it was two years ago will this be permanent and not i can't answer that question but i can draw on our experience in places like bosnia where we had bosniaks and crowds who did not go back to where they left during the war and had to find and did find homes elsewhere this is going to be a mammoth challenge the government of iraq you're absolutely right about this one and we will and i also agree with that  petraeus and his team are doing out there together his here's my concern and i'm looking at it from a public diplomacy perspective in the islamic world the and and literally the red carpet is rolled out and he's welcomed in a and in a public venue but putting that aside if the conditions as we know them to exist in terms of refugees is not address will be united states suffer for the erosion of how we viewed in that part of the world and let's really be frank with each other you know seven percent of my seven percent of muslims approve of al qaida they do not embrace al qaida overwhelm they find atta on civilians offensive seven percent and yet better than a majority believe it's ok to attack an american american foreign service officer and what concerns me is unless we go forward with great vigor we are going to almost institutional not have a chance to  questions regarding specific communities bring that to the attention of the aca man and i will yield my time i have another i have a number of other questions but i will defer them to when you're here my earlier comments before i do that however i think what you are witnessing here is a very great policy debate as to how we move forward responsibly in iraq to rapidly stabilize the country that will achieve multiple objectives including a potential drawdown of our troops hope an opportunity for the future of iraqis as well as the opportunity for people to either return there and rebuild their lives or make some new contribution in a new community from afar for those this i think it's important to understand first of all the what the current numbers are historical numbers as well as current numbers of minority populations and when i say historical numbers saddam and then also the dislocations that have occurred to those communities during this this protracted period of war the second part of that our frame for a moment let you answer this but it's going to talk about the framework for  protection reintegration and the future of opportunity given that we want to encourage a pluralistic society that respects these minority entities the framework that you laid out as to whether or not that's adequate to address the future of these populations thank you congressman i'm going have to take the question in terms of numbers back and have my folks look at it i'm reasonably confident that we'll be able to provide the number it seems to be a hard number to pin down and that's why i asked it we've done some research ourselves just roughly it appears there's a million questions still in the country six hundred thousand yesterday several other large minority religious populations but to understand that in the historical context as well as those who may have fled and are in refugee camps because of saddam's persecution as well as those who have left because of the current climate and then the opportunities for them to reintegrate in the society i think it's important for us to get a real handle on this because this could represent up to ten percent of the population of the country clearly in the in the pre two thousand and three  period millions of iraqis left the country many of them were refugees in the region and i believe in the post two thousand and three period you had something like nine talking globally everybody four hundred thousand  refugees from the region return to iraq and then of course we have very very large iraqi communities of all the religious groups minority groups you just mentioned here in the united states and canada you find them throughout europe as well i think historically we would be able to get back to you and give you the best numbers available to us in terms of what it was as a baseline i don't think any of us would be able to give you anything that could be closer than rough approximation based on contacts with the communities and what they think or what our folks on the ground think might still be in iraq and where they might be the country hasn't had a census in a long time probably won't i have one sometime next year i recognize  very fluid situation but at the same time if we can quantify this i think it will be helpful to answering the next set of questions as to the current framework for allowance of these communities to return to their ancestral traditions have protections under the law be integrated into society in the sense that they will have the privileges as the rest of society will be the civil institution the framework of the civil institutions  that their rights are protected as minorities in that regard you mentioned that you have formed a special coordinator for minority communities and organic security movement apparently has sprung up called sons of iraq i don't know if that's in reference to primarily christian communities you talk about them assimilating into the larger security forces of the iraqi military how realistic is that again given some of the persecutions that these communities have felt and i understand it's very difficult to quantify it at this point how realistic as well as what is a trajectory or a pathway that we can help assure that this can occur so that again the continuity of those communities that can continue the opportunity for people to return there and be available and again having them take their rightful place in a new iraq that hopefully celebrates again pluralism and pluralism and allows persons all persons their rights and privileges and dignities that we tend to take for granted on in our in our society but nonetheless want to see in the interest of with certainty about what will happen what iraq will look like ten years from now but with representative democracy with market oriented economy economics and with the kind of security situation that's improving in the direction that general petraeus and his troops would take in the past year we did the last piece of that that we can do right now requires your help and this is the provincial reconstruction team network that we have out through iraq we have a team is responsible for nuance based in mosul they're one of the bases up there whose responsibility is to engage with the provincial government but also get out to the districts and talk about the two districts especially the cul de in a syrian district where w find large and larger numbers of these persons work with their community leaders to plug into the programs the community assistance project we've talked about give them access to small medium sized enterprises help them themselves without without exaggerated fears of religious persecution al qaeda right now and this is going to be a challenge for them in a plane syria al qaeda has been largely flushed from ambar thanks to the sons of iraq which started as the not agreeing with with al qaeda and they took on al qaida and did not take on al qaida is now up in the mosul area the last urban area that they operate in the iraqi security forces and this is under prime minister  when you were referring to sons or iraq i thought you were referring to it in the context of some of the again religious minorities forming special security arrangements for themselves rather than the larger awakening movement that has occurred so  might want to go back and address that and then again you also talked about you don't track support based upon religious faith or ethnicity but given the peculiar circumstances that exist there and you ask for our help and i want to i'm trying to flush this out in a constructive manner fleshes out in a way that's constructive as we move forward regarding prevention reconstruction teams would it be appropriate to perhaps sensitize in the region you're referring to or others were again special populations have existed have hung on are trying to rebuild to have a focused either security initiative around again that ethnic population or that religious faith again given the peculiar circumstances that they find themselves in addition to the economic providing economic opportunity so that we're we're we're not making a western assumption we're not imposing a western paradigm on a country that has it has in some ways tended to segregate along these ethnic lines and before it can fully christian community and other communities about wanting special security arrangements for their villages in the areas and one of the suggestions we've made to them is encourage them to go to multinational force iraq major general hertling would that would be his division  have the equipment around it's a question of getting them organized and providing funding understanding that we do have a longer term vision of assimilating them and transitioning them into a larger iraqi security structures or that brilliantly and take the fight for the villages for the religious minorities that you're referring to but they need to improve security and that they can rely upon after the tragic horrific bombings that hit them in august of last year got security from the iraqi government and we have not seen or heard of a repeat of the violence directed at them that we saw at that point as serious as eager a larger community spread out a little more area  require a little more creative thinking about how to help them feel more secure not just psychologically but in a physical sense this is where the together with the brigades that are up there can assist in this but only if they've got the resources and ability to go around because i know they've got the willingness because i was in mosul three weeks ago talking specifically about these issues we share the same concern and we're finding creative ways to get there ok well that's helpful along as long as we know at least there's a sensitivity to that but i think this hearing is important to continue to raise the fact that there might again be peculiar circumstances regarding communities that don't allow that aren't fitting the larger movements of national reconciliation that we tend to focus primarily on and understandably so they might have again particular needs to allow for that trans to transition into assimilation and by that way we don't mean necessarily a diminishment of their historical cultural religious context but nonetheless an assimilation into the broader society that exercises movement speech rights like we're we're hopeful to see and in a new iraq tha there was there was a major difference in perspective between some of us which i count myself as a good colleague of mr or back of california on how we see refugees and what our responsibilities might be with mr or back in making a claim which is a legitimate point of view that iraq would be better off as would other countries if they're refugees in place because so many of them carry the burden of the intelligentsia the well educated the more mobile who have so much to their culture and society and myself who believe that well that being probably very true that people have a right to make determinations for themselves and where they can move about especially populations that are under severe threat and do have a right and we have a responsibility in particular to those refugees specially in this case with the with the iraqis the administration expresses themselves in terms that would indicate that they would agree time scaling up a capacity in the region to process a large numbers and now we're starting to harvest that effort and as i testified the numbers of our rivals will be going up substantially in terms of the ability however to process iraqis inside iraq we haven't been able to and now thanks to the improved security we think we can do it we're planning to do it we're eager to do it so i think you will see in the course of the months to come that we stand up processing entity in baghdad and start to interview out iraqis who are frankly stuck inside of iraq who need resettlement but ultimately we we firmly believe that  that humans human beings iraqis anywhere around the world have a right to safety and that those who have to have to flee violence have every right to do so and those who need to be  resettled in third countries ought to be resettled in third countries however the percentage of those of refugees around the world who are resettled in their countries is historically and traditionally a very small percentage and as i said in my prepared remarks we believe our obligation is to resettle those who cannot go back even when everyone else can go back thank you invested about them mr chairman i was brought me back to a moment in the vendors day weekend of nine hundred two when i was traveling through the mountains of romania ran into a twenty year old or many and who thought i was an american diplomat living in bulgaria and asked if he couldn't get in the trunk of my car and couldn't get him out of were full he just says we are fully committed to helping the most vulnerable populations those people who have risked their lives and her life or lives are generally in danger because of their association with us deserve our help other vulnerable populations that can't go back to where they came from deserve our help we are committed as a as an agency as interagency to doing everything we humanly can to get them out of harm's way and help them resettle with dignity majority of iraqis iraqi consider themselves extremely displaced persons opposed to refugees and this isn't like vietnam and one nine hundred seventy four seventy five where people were fleeing a regime they didn't one live under many because of their affiliation with us others because they poured communism iraq is as well as to work with the iraqi government to make it possible everybody who can and want to return home will continue working with you and we count on your support whether it's religious minorities or whether it's the larger populations who find themselves in jordan syria lebanon egypt are i do not think that we ought to be in the business of making lists of people the people who want to stay behind but we are in the business of changing the circumstances on the ground so that those who want to stay behind can stay behind and it's my experience for those of you who travel to iraq that ninety nine out of one hundred iraqis if not higher do not want to leave their country it's a huge to be uprooted to be pulled out of your home away from your family actions to help sustain these populations for the day when they can return to iraq in safety and dignity let me thank you and i guess i will add my comment to both of my colleagues i respect the fact that two of our witnesses after leaving are proud to be responsive to that i've heard that said on the record but i want to thank the chairman and chairman delahunt for using a provoking word neglected responsibilities and i really think as we have spoken to a number of advocacy groups in non governmental organizations that they really do think that we have neglected those individuals who have served the united states in the course of this conflict i would also suggest that there is a military phrase that i don't know who used it first but if you break it you own it and i am not suggesting that the government of saddam hussein was not horrific but many believe in the region and certainly in iraq that we broke it i've gone to iraq a number of times and i remember when now deputy secretary of the aponte was i believe the ambassador and we sat down with a group of women it was some years ago and i've been back since then and those women said that i can't send my children to school i have to drive them to school i don't know if they're going to come back so in a sense we have created the predicament albeit the high goals that we are attempting to achieve and i say that to all of you because i think the onus the burden is much higher when i served as a ranking member on the subcommittee on immigration on judiciary we would meet with first secretary powell and then a rise in our numbers were always down it was always difficult to try and see the light at the end of the tunnel so i want to maybe probe this a little bit more in first going to a basket of foley and embassador butler and i think my colleagues who are with the department  homeland security know that i sit on the homeland security committee but my question is when you speak of what we have achieved it seems as if you cite as the government my good friend  help facilitate or obstruct efforts of those iraqis who are in iraq and i know we're speaking of those who have also been displaced outside of iraq to leave if they desire to leave why is the  burden or at least this burden of security that you mentioned that things are safer now because of the work of embassador crocker and petraeus i'm frankly disappointed in that i was open it was safer because i'm out maliki government was standing up but what role do they have with these individuals that want to be relocated these are also still their citizens even if they are in syria do they have an office that addresses this question do they work with the various entities in the united states congresswoman i can speak to the question of the iraqis outside the country of the refugees this came up a bit earlier in the hearing when chairman delahunt talked about the the need for the iraqi government  to step up and help care for its citizens that happen to be forced to live outside the country and i didn't have the opportunity to respond at the time but your question gives me that opportunity we agree wholeheartedly this is first and foremost a responsibility of a government that as chairman delahunt indicated has increased resources available to it and when i was in baghdad in the fall i met with the government i met with the foreign minister to really press home the case that that the government of iraq needed to play its considerable whirl a year ago the government pledged twenty five million dollars in support to the neighboring countries hosting  nearly two million iraqi fellow citizens and it took the better part of eight to ten months for some of that pledge to be redeemed it has not all been redeemed i found it interesting when i did meet with the foreign minister in baghdad that he himself regarded that pledge of twenty five million dollars as somewhat nominal given the magnitude of the needs given the resources the government had given what was at stake for the government  priority for for the best for crocker in baghdad we still have i think a persuading job to do to make sure that the government of iraq meets its responsibilities in this regard thank you ambassador butler the government high as sixty depending on where the price of oil ends up the government's focus has been on providing security and the restoration of essential services earlier in the hearing we certainly  heard heard comments about lack of water lack of electricity these are things that go to the heart of being able to sustain any population in some cases might be precipitated why some refugees some persons chose to leave the country as opposed to stick around with no running water no electricity and you know life got to be better someplace else that's one challenge permanent security has been contributed to in a major way and is not yet fully recognized by the improve performance and numbers of the iraqi army who are increasingly getting better and i'm certainly hear more about that when general petraeus comes back and testifies early next month focusing on getting that million range that don't we have to around because i don't have accurate count on the refugees i'm going to be very blunt here to say government has a big challenge in terms of mobilizing resources and focusing on to support iraqis are outside of the  country the twenty five million dollars a day pledged a year ago in geneva for their refugee communities is not fully disbursed yet as ambassador foley has indicated we continue to urge the government to follow through on this one and they will have to get themselves organized to create the conditions for the return of the displaced persons both internally as well as extremely this is going to be a challenge got a long way to go and there's not a lot of positive i can say about what to accomplish up until now other than with improved security with a i mean which is rebounding from where it was there's no excuse not to not to dig into it and it's one of the things that ambassador crocker has on his agenda as does president bush when they talk to the government to help them as their news when you're up to your tailbone in alligators hard to remember your mission as well as the alligators get fewer they now remember their mission is to lower the swamp or in the case of the south actually raise the swamp which expect that we'll be able to report progress over time but you know i don't believe that pouncing on either ambassador foley is going to get me where i'd like to go but let me pounce on the maliki government and saying thank you for your honesty i think it's shame on them because they do have the g n p at least the resources and to not even be able to get the twenty five million dollars disbursed  those refugees outside the country because we've heard the complaints from syria and jordan to oversaturated areas and i assume there may be some other areas and i think that the maliki government again is in the in the spotlight of not standing up which means i don't know when we'll be able to transition any safety net to them which again goes to our responsibility of all the folks who have sacrificed by being translators an otherwise let me just  is slow and ratcheting up didn't have the necessary resources is it a question of the president's budget to be able to address the question of individuals who have i think at least minimally been vetted if they've been traveling embedded in out with our military as translators and maybe working for the embassy or other services that they've given we're going to get be able to get a report from you to says that we've cleared all those particular requests are you referring to special immigrant visa for all those who have been in the service of the united states is what i'm focusing on are several categories of that the special immigrant visa petitions that we currently have i think we current with what they adjudicated i think part of the problem is that subsequent to that adjudication of these has to be issued and up to this point there have been limitations on the number of visas that have been available we used all five hundred state department all five hundred of the visas that were and maybe usa id i know that you've done done some work and this is displaced children refugee children understand their place persons inside iraq that are not necessary categorized as refugees trying to leave  conditions of children i understand are even more dastardly terms of being able to go to school feeling secure and the combination of refugee children versus places anyone want to comment on the numbers of displaced children some of whom may be desiring to leave out of  iraq i can leave on that one well leap as best i can here we don't really have a number of kids that we think want to leave the country i think you're right in describing a situation where there are many children that want to go to school that have difficult time going to schools is to provide sanitation and water so that kids can go there we've been rehabilitating schools trying to fix them put in desks so that when the conditions are right for kids the schools are available for them the other thing that we're trying to do for kids in neighborhoods because particularly kids that are have been sort of brutalized by the violence we are setting up in a number of places sort of what we call sort of safe places on set is places where kids can come every district in which we work we have one of these facilities but a number of these places a number of the governments we have these types of programs and this is the government speaking so they're not going to have the numbers that united nations has offered about displaced children and  assume you're not going to have numbers about refugee children what i have heard is frankly that children are the most burdened and the most desperate some with families and some without but as i conclude i know i could pursue this even more but i just simply indicate that the reputation that we're getting although we may get individual success stories five hundred that have been processed is that these people who are either outside of  any lack of sincerity on your part but i would say to you that it is spiraling downward trend if you will about success stories i think is imperative because anything that i'd like to convey is that the mal not doing what it should be doing it is not standing up it is not helping to clear away this massive numbers of confusion inside their country and i call those displaced persons there by helping to either suggest refugees that they could even come home or are they helping those countries that the refugees find themselves and so i would hope the message would go back to secretary rice that we are concerned and frankly i would hope that  that i could get something in writing in particular as to when in fact the maliki government will finish paying on its compensation to those that it promised and whether or not be another twenty five million i frankly believe that what they have promised in that conference is not enough and they need to do more and i'd appreciate if i could get a response back in writing i do want to thank us for work not only and in iraq but in afghanistan but we're focused on what you're trying to do for those in iraq again if the government is not collaborating with you we are not the government ambassador crocker's not the government jumper trace is not the government and all this  all this does it says to members is that the hundred year representation that had been made publicly by a candidate for president is really what you're aiming to do is to have us there for a hundred years because we don't have a government that's taking care of its people and i think this  provide and make the president's goal of twelve thousand refugees processed within a year we settled in  is there something that we haven't done or could do to make that and are we going to see that happen i don't want to have another hearing where somebody winds up saying well you didn't give us this or that we need to do something else mr chairman if i if i may i would heart back to my statement at the requisite number of interviews of iraqi refugees to be able to move twelve thousand this fiscal year it's challenging there are as i said a few weak links in the chain that we don't control we don't have an ideal processing situation  all places but i am confident that we are doing everything we can in order to meet that goal and i'm not sure that it's at this stage a question of of resources or lack of resources  would say though in one respect that resources will will play a role and that has to do with the new legislation that does create a broad number crease number of s i per year five thousand per year the legislation also gives provides refugee benefits to special immigrant visa recipients and that i think has been estimated to be around forty eight million have the capability and actually are able to process that that doesn't translate into refugees are we going to hear that homeland security couldn't clear all these people or any of these people or most of these people is that going to be i mean i have cases in my office or immigration cases that have nothing to do with iraq or the middle east people from anywhere else in the world countries that have a much more normal i can use that word profile where people are just waiting years and years and years to be cleared some of whom i know personally nothing to do because the first name was similar to the first name of somebody else and one in the same year that's on some and it just seems to me that we're not chairman that's not been the case with this population we have been able to interview the cases and they've become ready for us to interview at this point since the beginning of the program we've approved seven thousand four hundred twenty two refugees for resettlement and at this point three thousand five hundred fifty nine have been admitted that indicate there are still four thousand in the pipeline to be resettled already  and we are continuing with the state department to plan for rigorous interview schedule in the third quarter we expect to interview another eight thousand iraqis at that point we haven't had problems keeping the interview schedule staffed and we haven't had significant problems with background checks or clearances either right now i think we have a total of forty five cases on hold for security reasons and that's all out of the entire population that that we've been processing category of providing substance to the terrorists but of course these people weren't looking to cooperate with terrorists they were just looking to get their relatives free from the terror is  it my understanding that that problem resolved it has been resolved and most of those arrests cases and we are exercising the exemption for material support provided under duress in those cases what about what about those who solicited the money we are not considering that's not considered to be solicitation is considered to be material support under duress we had some issue over whether that would be the interpretation but that's the interpretation  in your testimony you describe efforts to make the u s embassy in baghdad a post that can issue special immigration visas where are you in that process and once the process has been established members we are we have a resource plan for baghdad time to coordinate with the start up of the new program the five thousand program and their move into their new building so that they could begin processing as many as we're estimating fifteen hundred perhaps we're simultaneously keeping an eye on resources in amman damascus and other posts in the region because with our special immigrants they could actually we do initial processing through the national visa center here in the united states communicating with these applicants by e mail so that they can actually in the end apply for a visa at the place that is that is most convenient for most possible for them to physically  for the visa interview and mr gottlieb your testimony you note that a majority of returning wind at their homes have been occupied by others what happens to the return in that instance and does the ministry of migration have the capacity to provide or find housing for these families or for the families that they displace when they reclaim their property mr chairman most people i think i said about sixty percent of the least idea are in what we were in rented house and what we saw for return ease though was that only about half found their property inhabitable to condition so for a lot of people who are returning they're finding their houses  either not in a condition in which they can live or for many others that others are inhabiting those places if i can describe a little bit more of the picture though i think that what we've seen because of the splits between communities those that had resources have moved into houses that they could rent or some apartment or something twenty percent the ones that were most vulnerable are in some kind of public building the ones who have the least services and we've targeted most of those those are the ones we targeted mostly what concerns us however is that those who are renting and because the difficulty of employment in iraq many of those families are using up their resources  on rent and rents are going up so that we are trying to watch what's happening with that population because we anticipate that we may have to serve more folks who can no longer they have to abandon those places so for those who return if they've exhausted their resources the government has tried to have some limited programs where they provide for instance those that came in december i think was around eight hundred dollars for the numbers of families it was very small they actually were able to target with that money and now that that has dried up there where there are very few returning now so the government does have a program it's just been very  let me let me in the interest of mercy if nothing else to say that is very distinguished panel is there in the gratitude of a very aggressive and interested  pair of two subcommittees of the congress you've exhibited much patience through as everything else in this room is going on our passage of three suspension tabling one motion to bring up the privileges of the house getting back three motions to adjourn and