Iraqi REfugees in Syria - Up close and personal

by Susan Galleymore

Our government is still woefully unwilling to acknowledge -- or even grasp -- the magnitude of the forces weve unleashed in Iraq and surrounding countries. With hundreds of thousands of refugees spilling into Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Turkey, and Egypt and the 466 admitted to the U.S. since 2003 the time is ripe to share what life is like for some Iraqis who have fled to Syria, what life is like for those some who remain in Baghdad, and what some Syrians think of it all.

But, first, a reminder about what our president told the American People -- and the Iraqis -- on the eve of war, March 17, 2003: Many Iraqis can hear me tonight in a translated radio broadcast, and I have a message for them. If we must begin a military campaign, it will be directed against the lawless men who rule your country and not against you. As our coalition takes away their power, we will deliver the food and medicine you need. We will tear down the apparatus of terror and we will help you to build a new Iraq that is prosperous and free. In a free Iraq, there will be no more wars of aggression against your neighbors, no more poison factories, no more executions of dissidents, no more torture chambers and rape rooms. The tyrant will soon be gone. The day of your liberation is nearWe are a peaceful people.

Back home in Iraq the Hameed family was typically middle class. Ahmed was a colonel in the Iraqi military and his wife, Zanib, worked as a middle manager in the largest bank in Baghdad. Now scraping by in Damascus, they are worried about what is happening to their home and property in Baghdads Adamiya neighborhood, their extended family and friends, the life savings that they are unable to access in Damascus, and the pensions each is due for over two decades of hard work contributing to Iraqs economy. Their oldest son, Hamid, is an optometrist and his wife, Intelar, is a gynecologist both were educated gratis by Saddam Husseins national education program. During the six hours I spent with this family, Intelar rarely smiled and barely talked. Shed just learned that bombs had been dropped on her parents house in Baghdad: her parents were unhurt but the house was badly damaged. Hamid and Intelar have a one-year-old daughter and they were on leave from work but expected to return to Baghdad shortly. Wissam, Ahmeds 28-year-old daughter, Sunni like her family, was recently divorced by her Shia husband as her religion had become a problem for him and his family. After generations of intermarriage, Sunni and Shia are eyeing one another with deadly suspicionand divorce is an easy choice when the alternative is getting ones throat slit in broad daylight for fraternizing with the enemy. Hassan, the second son, attends college in Damascus and is coming along well. He still has nightmares about his three best friends who were shot, execution-style on a Baghdad street, coming home from university. It was sheer luck that Hassan wasnt with them that day. Nevertheless, for months after their murders Hassan didnt leave his parents house, didnt shave, barely showered, and talked to his worried family only when he couldnt avoid it. The youngest son fifteen year old Arkan -- attends high school in Damascus where he hangs out with other Iraqi boys. He reports that some of the Syrian boys are friendly but that some of his teachers dislike the Iraqi students; one teacher makes overt fun of their accents in class and, sometimes, refuses to accept answers that dont use local vernacular.

Zanibs brother-in-law, Waleed, was visiting from Baghdad and I suspect he was considering moving his family to Damascus if they, too, have to flee. Publicly, he stated that neither he nor his family would depart their homeland. It was difficult to get soft spoken Waleed to talk directly about the situation hed left in Baghdads Adamiya neighborhood. When Ahmeds sons called friends back there and conversed via speakerphone we heard gunfire and explosions in the background. Waleed frowned when the friends agreed thered been more violence than usual. Later, when he accompanied me to another Iraqi familys temporary home in Damascus, Waleed was stimulated by his host Mamouns story and related some of the everyday events he witnessed in Adamiya: dogs gnawing on bodies left lying in the street anyone attempting to follow the precepts of Islam and retrieve a body for burial was threatened -- or simply shot too; in one case, a good Samaritan ventured in the street to rescue a badly wounded man and, as he reached out, his cell phone rang and the voice on the other end threatened to shoot him if he touched the victim. Waleed continued, The wounded man died overnight and lay there for three more days. Such events cause much trauma and confusion. I even know of Sunni dead being buried in Najaf. [This is one of the holiest cities of the Shia branch of Islam.]

Mamoun and his wife, Ayser, left Baghdad the end of July 2004, soon after Mamoun recovered from a kidnapping. On 5 July, Mamoun, an office administrator left work and was mistaken for his boss, an optometrist. His five kidnappers, dressed in Iraqi police uniforms and driving an Iraqi police vehicle, forced Mamoun into the car and, within fifteen minutes, sold him to men Mamoun described as a gang of low-class thugs. For four days gang members beat the 68-year-old with wooden planks and demanded US $750,000 ransom. Finally, with the gang and their women friends drinking in another room, Mamoun broke a small window and, with a sliver of glass, slashed deeply into each wrist. I couldnt stand the beating and saw no other way to escape. I knew that in kidnap cases like mine the hostage rarely escapes with his life even if the money is found to pay the ransom. There was no way Ayser could raise that sum for my life. With blood pumping from his wrists Mamoun waited to die. After a few minutes, however, a gang member found him, wrapped his wrists in tape, and drove him to the approach of Al Khindy Hospital. Mamoun was dumped within sight of the hospital entrance but, in the dark night, he was too weak to attract attention. I had just enough life left to raise my voice to scare off the dogs that waited for me to die. But Mamoun didnt die. At dawn, a young man heard his whimpers and carried him into the hospital. Mamoun asked, When you go back to the U.S., suggest to your government that they establish a plan for refugees there are so many of us -- that allows us to withdraw our money at Syrian banks. As it is, if I need money I have to travel to Baghdad. Thats impossible.

Maysaa Ali is Syrian. She is sympathetic to the almost one million Iraqis flooding into her country. Of course we offer them safety and places to stay. What kind of Moslems would we be if we did not extend our hospitality to them? They are Arab, just like us, they are our brothers and sisters and we offer them everything we can. Right now many Syrians agree with Maysaas view. Rents are skyrocketing and Syrian families are benefiting from the boom by leasing their own homes to refugees who can afford the rates. The schools are not overcrowded yet and there is little social tension between Iraqis and Syrians -- so far.

But Syria is considering closing its border to Iraqi refugees. Indeed, it has already closed its border to desperate Palestinians fleeing Iraq due to escalating abuse by Iraqi officials. Jordan has closed its borders to all but the wealthiest. Lebanon can barely care for its own citizens after the war with Israel last summer; Lebanese refugees returning to villages in the hard hit south who find their homes destroyed are living in tents. Saudi Arabia accepts almost no refugees and is, in fact, building a barrier along the border with Iraq to keep them out.

United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) predicts the number of internally displaced in Iraq could reach about 2.7 million by the end of 2007. And what is our governments plan for this impending tragedy? It doesnt have one. For this year, it is considering upping the quota of Iraqi refugees allowed into the U.S. to 20,000. The Washington-based Brookings Institution proposes that, if Iraq spirals into further civil war, U.S. troops might have to establish "catch basins" along Iraq's borders for the tens or hundreds of thousands fleeing the violence.

Catch basins. Four years after our presidents pre-invasion assurances his plan for refugees is similar to his post-war plan: non existent. Despite the president spurning congress and the Iraq Study Groups official report, The Way Forward - A New Approach, think-tanks continue to offer proposals -- and catch basins is their best solution for hundreds of thousands perhaps millions -- of human beings. And these to be established by American troops who themselves have never been properly equipped for the war and occupation and who have earned a reputation for fearsome brutality throughout Iraq.

If, my Fellow Americans, you think were seeing a blood bath in Iraq now, these proposed catch basins will generate even more horror.