further to my post at 6am this morning.
"The U.N. cites a figure of 700,000 Iraqis who've fled their country,
here is how President Bush depicted what the U.S. had done for Iraq, following Iraqi elections:
"For the people across the broader Middle East, a free Iraq will be an inspiration.(Iraqis) have proved that the desire for liberty in the heart of the Middle East is for real. They have shown diverse people can come together and work out their differencesYears from now, people will look back on the formation of a unity government in Iraq as a decisive moment in the story of liberty, a moment when freedom gained a firm foothold in the Middle East and the forces of terror began their long retreat."
The speechwriter who equipped President Bush with these lines should be burning with shame. President Bush indulged in a fantasy at a time when thousands of Iraqi civilians were fleeing abroad, every month, to escape worsening violence and tens of thousands more were being displaced internally nearly half a million in the last ten months, according to UNHCR.
In reality, there were no encouraging signs of the U.S. troop presence stabilizing the situation in Iraq. Today, even President Bush acknowledges that news from Iraq is "unsettling," as daily headlines report battles, kidnappings, torture, and murder.
Nevertheless, the President will likely ask the Congress to approve 97.7 billion dollars in supplemental spending for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan which will be in addition to the Pentagon's $560 billion dollar budget. According to some estimates, U.S. taxpayers will pay close to 2 trillion dollars for a doomed war in Iraq.
100,000 Iraqi refugees who, every month, according to U.N. estimates, flee from Iraq."
source...
www.counterpunch.org