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Our Mission Continues: IVAW Calls on Congress To Honor Its Moral Responsibilities to Iraq

By T.J. Buonomo

According to Refugees International and UNHCR estimations, as many as 1.5 million Iraqis continue to subsist as refugees in neighboring countries. Approximately 500,000 of an additional 1.5 million internally displaced Iraqis are categorized as squatters with minimal access to basic public services. Congress has a responsibility to fund the foreign aid budget to support USAID, UNHCR and other organizations working to resettle these populations and help them meet their basic needs. It will take some time for the Iraqi government to develop the capacity to transition into the lead role in these efforts and the United States has both a moral obligation and a security rationale for ensuring that these gaps continue to be filled.

T.J. Buonomo

Members of the House of Representatives recently voted to cut the foreign aid budget as fiscal and political pressures mount to reduce the federal deficit. General Petraeus has said that this would be short-sighted. IVAW has called on Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Dan Inouye to hold the line on budget cuts to US foreign aid operations in Iraq.

IVAW also believes it is critical that the full human costs of this occupation be documented and, pending funding, intends to send a film team to Iraq in 2012 to capture the reality of the humanitarian situation there. Members of the Bush administration and their supporters in the media continue to sugar-coat the situation in Iraq in order to defend their disastrous policies, which resulted directly and indirectly in over 100,000 Iraqi deaths according to documents obtained by Wikileaks. Saddam Hussein and his sadistic sons may be gone but gratuitous torture continues to be perpetrated by elite security forces under the direct authority of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. While the current Iraqi government may not intend to rebuild Saddam's weapons programs, the Bush administration did more to incite terrorism against American citizens by invading Iraq than any propaganda Al Qaeda might have concocted on its own.

The United States must fulfill its moral responsibilities in Iraq and the American public must hold accountable members of Congress who disregard these obligations. IVAW and VVAW can play a critical role in accomplishing this by reminding Americans that whether or not our troops are engaged in headline-catching combat operations, we cannot forget the past or the present situation in Iraq and the burden of responsibility it places on us as a nation.

T.J. Buonomo is a member of the Board of Directors of Iraq Veterans Against the War and Chair of IVAW's Reparations Committee. He is a former Military Intelligence Officer and graduate of the US Air Force Academy.