EPIC's Year-End Appeal

Dear Friends,

This holiday season please consider making a year-end, tax-deductible contribution to the Education for Peace in Iraq Center. Give the gift of peace and humanitarian relief for the people of Iraq.

Armed conflict in Iraq has created one of the worst humanitarian catastrophes of our time. More Iraqis have fled their homes than any other population in the world.

One year ago this month, when the U.S. administration and Congress failed to act, EPIC was there to sound the alarm.

Today, we are urging President Bush to end his silence about the mass displacement of 4.5 million Iraqis. We are working to expand U.S. admissions of especially vulnerable refugees and generate emergency humanitarian assistance for Iraqis harmed by violence in Iraq. And we are getting results.

To strengthen our impact in the New Year, please make a year-end gift to the Education for Peace in Iraq Center today.

Consider what EPIC supporters like you helped make possible in 2007. Together we generated more than 3,000 constituent letters in support of critical legislation, including the Refugee Crisis in Iraq Act, introduced by Senators Ted Kennedy (D-MA) and Gordon Smith (R-OR). We contacted key offices, and pressed our case month after month.

In recognition of the cumulative impact of all of these efforts, I am very pleased to make a special announcement. Last week, we won final passage of the Refugee Crisis in Iraq Act! Within days, the President is expected to sign this important legislation into law.

This is a shared victory for all of us. The Refugee Crisis in Iraq Act requires the Bush administration to expand U.S. admissions of especially vulnerable Iraqi refugees and provide a comprehensive plan for assisting countries hosting large numbers of Iraqi refugees.

Without your continuing support, hard fought steps like the Refugee Crisis in Iraq Act would not be possible. Please make a year-end gift to the Education for Peace in Iraq Center today.

This month we also made further progress in generating desperately needed funding for Iraqi refugees and other noncombatants harmed by the war. Late Wednesday night, Congress passed an omnibus spending package for FY 2008 that includes:

• $110 million in emergency assistance to “support the growing humanitarian needs of persons affected by violence in Iraq,”


• $200 million in emergency assistance to “address the pressing needs of Iraqi refugees and of Palestinian refugees,” and


• $5 million for the Marla Ruzicka Iraqi War Victims Fund.

As part of their conference report, House and Senate appropriators stated: “The Appropriations Committees remain deeply concerned with the plight of Iraqi refugees and IDPs.” Furthermore, they expect additional assistance to be made available in 2008.

With your help and the help of coalition partners in Washington, Congress has done something that President Bush has yet to do, acknowledge the plight of more than 4.5 million displaced Iraqis.

This and the Refugee Crisis in Iraq Act represent hard-earned steps in the right direction -- steps made possible by supporters like you.

To strengthen our impact in the New Year, please make a year-end gift to the Education for Peace in Iraq Center today.

If you prefer to donate by mail, please send your tax-deductible gift today to:

Education for Peace in Iraq Center (EPIC)
1101 Pennsylvania Avenue SE, Suite No. 203
Washington, DC 20003

Thank you for your generous support. Together, you and I can translate the peace of the season into action for the New Year.

With deep appreciation,

Erik Gustafson
Executive Director
Education for Peace in Iraq Center

P.S. This year, you can check off your last minute holiday shopping and support peace in Iraq at the same time. When you click through the EPIC FreePledge portal to do your online shopping, a percentage of every purchase you make goes directly to support EPIC.

Iraq Calendar On-line

I finally made a special page on EPIC's website for the Iraq Calendar to allow for daily updates. The Calendar lists all Iraq-related events in the DC area from hearings to think tank forums. If you like you can also subscribe to receive the bimonthly edition in your inbox. In addition to listing events this pdf includes a compilation of recent government and NGO reports as well as transcripts, audio and video of past events. Subscription form is available here.

A link to the on-line Calendar has been added to the "links" section in the right bar.

Event Highlight:
2/14 USIP: Provincial Reconstruction Teams in Iraq
President Bush's "New Way Forward" in Iraq calls for doubling the number of Provincial Reconstruction Teams. These new PRTs will be imbedded with Brigade Combat Teams. A panel of officials from State and Defense will address the following questions: How do the new PRTs differ from those previously established in Iraq? Have challenges that have delayed the PRT program in Iraq been overcome? How do civilian led PRTs in Iraq differ from those led by the military in Afghanistan? United States Institute of Peace, 1200 17th St NW, 1:30-3:30 pm

It's existing; it's not living

Bilal Wahab, Iraqi Fulbright Scholar and EPIC spokesman was on NewsHour last night to discuss daily life in Iraq. Joined by Shahla Waliy, a Fulbright Scholar from Baghdad and Anthony Shadid, the Middle East correspondent for The Washington Post, Bilal described what it is like to live in an a country where the police are complicit in murders and kidnappings, and violence is constant.

"So when you have an issue, when there's a burglar at the door, when there's a terrorist to report, when there's a militiaman who is doing some crime or a gang at the door, who are you going to call? Are you going to call the police? How are you going to call the police? ...when your protector is your own aggressor, I think that will have a great impact on the people when there's no one to trust."

Iraqis rarely go to work or school these days out of fear for their lives, anyone who can afford to has left the country, and the hope offered by the removal of Saddam Hussein from power now seems untenable.

All in all, Bilal explains that"

"…life is unbearable. It's existing; it's not living."

read the transcript, download the audio or watch the streaming video of the broadcast

'Power Shifts' in War-Ravaged Baghdad

On October 31, Gen. George W. Casey Jr. acquiesced to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s demand that the U.S. military lift its blockade of Baghdad’s Sadr City, home to more than 2.5 million Iraqis – mostly poor Shiite Muslims – and some of some of Baghdad’s most notorious death squads. One of the reasons for the U.S. military’s action was to hunt for a missing U.S. soldier who is believed to have been captured by Abu Deraa, the leader of one of Baghdad’s most notorious death squads.

On Wednesday, November 1, I appeared on the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer alongside Robert Grenier (a veteran CIA officer who served nearly a year as the CIA's top counter-terrorism official) to discuss this unfolding story. On the show, I emphasized the urgent need to put a stop to Baghdad’s sectarian death squads while also strengthening Iraqi sovereignty:

“[W]hat I think the prime minister has done is demonstrate once again that he's not ‘America's man in Baghdad’ and that he can exercise Iraqi sovereignty… [It’s] important for him to do that because that helps [to increase his] authority [and] ability to get things done. The question is: Will he then use that to get things done, particularly in reining in the death squads?”

Here’s the full transcript or streaming video of the segment. The Houston Chronicle, Reuters, CNN and the International Herald Tribune (via the AP wire) were some of the other Western news organizations that covered the ramifications of Prime Minister Maliki’s increasingly assertive exercise of Iraqi sovereignty.

According to AP:

“the armed death squads in Sadr City could increase their attacks against Sunnis across the capital, in the worst-case scenario. At a minimum, the action could send the wrong message to Sunnis…that their rivals in the Shiite militia can act with impunity and with political cover…”

Indeed, Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi (a leading Sunni Arab political leader and the highest elected official of the Iraqi Islamic Party) has already threatened to resign over Prime Minister Maliki’s failure to confront Shiite militias. He predicted that the lifting of the U.S. military’s blockade on Sadr City would end a lull in sectarian death squad activity.

Did the U.S. military’s October 25 raid into Sadr City and subsequent week-long blockade reduce Baghdad’s body count, particularly in the first few days when militias operating out of Sadr City would have been the most disrupted? As the numbers are tabulated, that remains to be seen.

Scott Peterson of The Christian Science Monitor provided an opinion piece on Maliki’s recent orders to U.S. troops. He writes:

“Shiite from the crowded Baghdad district of Sadr City are reveling in what they deem their ‘victory’ over American forces after Iraq PM Nuri al-Maliki…ordered the dismantling of U.S. and Iraqi checkpoints surrounding the area…” his was an opportunity for the Prime Minister to “further assert his independence…just days before U.S. midterm elections, in which the Iraq War has become a defining issue…”

According to Peterson, after a week of tensions between Washington and Baghdad, Maliki’s aides said they want to increase the unpopularity of Bush and the Iraq War ahead of U.S. elections “to expand Maliki’s authority…” However, Maliki owes his ascendance to Iraq's Premiership to Muqtada al-Sadr, who controls the largest voting bloc within the ruling Shia coalition. In fact, Muqtada may turn out to be the biggest winner of the past week, and that does not bode well for anyone in Baghdad.