Iraq exodus- US under pressure to stop saying no

WASHINGTON, Jan 31 (Reuters) Millions of Iraqi refugees fleeing violence and sectarian cleansing after the US-led invasion four years ago are finding it nearly impossible to get safe harbor in America, including those who risked their lives helping President George W Bush's war effort.

The new Democratic-controlled US Congress has begun pressuring the Republican Bush administration to open the door to them, especially the Iraqi translators and others who face gang-style execution at home for working with American combat troops.

''I think they (the Bush administration) are in the process of moving although I think it's very slow,'' Sen Edward Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat, told Reuters.

Kennedy was one of several lawmakers questioning US policy on Iraqi refugees at a Senate hearing this month.

About 3.7 million of Iraq's 24 million people have either fled the country for Syria, Jordan and other nations or left their homes for safer havens within Iraq, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Around 50,000 Iraqis flee their homes every month.

''This is the fastest growing refugee crisis in the world,'' Refugees International President Kenneth Bacon told the Senate Judiciary Committee on January 16.

In 2006, the United States accepted 202 Iraqis out of its 70,000 refugee slots worldwide. In contrast, Australia said it granted about 2,000 such visas to Iraqis last year.

''We are absolutely seized with the issue of how we can help those people who have worked for, provided assistance to the United States government,'' Assistant Secretary of State Ellen Sauerbrey told the committee. But she said there were hurdles.

EASIER TO SAY NO THAN YES Sauerbrey said domestic security steps taken in response to the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States made it difficult to accept Iraqi refugees. Tough screening procedures in turn discouraged the UNHCR from making referrals.

Bill Frelick, refugee policy director for Human Rights Watch, said Iraqis working for American forces go through extensive security checks before being hired: ''If you were a smart terrorist, you could find easier ways to get to the United States.'' Frelick said two factors contributed to the Bush administration's near moratorium on accepting Iraqi refugees.

Bureaucrats, Frelick said, don't want to take chances on Iraqis.

''It generally is easier to say no than to say yes.'' Politics also plays a role, he said.

''The very people the US is relying on for the enterprise of building a stable democracy in Iraq are the very people who are fleeing the country. To admit those people are fleeing would be to recognize the enterprise is not succeeding,'' Frelick said.

In 1939, the S S St Louis with about 1,000 German Jewish refugees was refused entry to the United States and sailed back to Europe, where many ultimately were killed in the Holocaust.

SIX-YEAR WAITING LIST But since World War Two the United States has mostly reacted quickly to refugee crises, according to rights groups, especially when American policy had a role in a human tragedy.

Seared into the American psyche is the 1975 image of an American military helicopter atop a Saigon apartment building lifting South Vietnamese to safety. About 1 million Vietnamese refugees ultimately came to the United States after the collapse of Saigon to the North Vietnamese.

A failed 1956 Hungarian revolt against the Soviet Union brought some refugees of that crisis to the United States and many Cubans fled Fidel Castro in the early 1960s, becoming a powerful political force in southern Florida.

Forty years later politicians are wondering if Washington is failing Iraqis who volunteered to fight in a US led war.

Two who made it to the United States recounted nightmarish escapes from Iraq in testimony to Congress.

Testifying behind a screen and using the pseudonym ''Sami Al-Obiedy'' to conceal his identity and that of his family still in Iraq, the 27-year-old Sunni Arab from Mosul said he worked as a translator for the US military, sometimes accompanying American convoys through hostile territories.

''Iraqi citizens, including translators, have been shot in the head or beheaded, but only after terrorists forced these people to 'confess' that they were spies and agents of the United States,'' Al-Obiedy said.

His name, along with others, was posted at several mosques with notes urging they be murdered. In late 2005, Al-Obiedy was injured in a car bombing. Soon after, he fled to the United States and was the first to get US asylum under a new law for translators.

Kennedy said 50 such visas are available a year, making for a six-year waiting list for Iraqi and Afghan translators.

Another witness, a 48-year-old calling himself John, was severely beaten twice for delivering water to American soldiers and was told to either leave Iraq or be killed. He took his tormentors' advice, saying he reached the United States after traveling through five countries and four continents.

''We took a taxi cab from Mexico to the United States border,'' crossing into California with a false passport from Greece, he said.

Refugees International's Kristele Younes said Washington should provide more money to help Iraqi refugees land in the US and other countries and Sen. Kennedy hinted that could happen.

''I'm certainly hopeful,'' Younes said.

REUTERS SY MIR RAI0933