Iraq's Displacement Crisis and the International Response

Thursday, December 6, 2007 9:00 am - 2:30 pm

December 6, 2007, 9:00am – 2:30pm

About This Event

The Iraq War has caused the largest population displacement in the Middle East since 1948. However, the dire situation has elicited neither a major international humanitarian response nor a policy debate over U.S. responsibility for the crisis. Sectarian fighting, political and criminal violence, lack of basic services, loss of livelihoods, spiraling inflation, and uncertainty about the future have pushed some 4 million Iraqis from their homes. Neighboring states, burdened by the influx of refugees and concerned for their own security, have imposed visa restrictions and effectively cut off entry. The Iraqis that have fled to neighboring countries face tremendous uncertainties, including the threat of deportation. Regional governments, coalition forces, and international organizations are grappling with the crisis while protecting against security vulnerabilities. The recent flow of Iraqis returning home may be a promising sign, but until security in Iraq improves and people can safely go back, critical attention must be paid to the remaining options: improved conditions inside Iraq, temporary placement in a host country, or resettlement in a third country.

The Center for American Progress and the Heinrich Boell Foundation invite you to join us for a conference addressing Iraq's displacement crisis, the international responses, and the prospects for improving the situation. The panelists will offer their insights on the current challenge and examine the moral and security implications of the crisis, share strategies, and identify programming and policy options.

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Program of Events:

8:30 a.m. A light breakfast will be served

9:00 a.m. - 11:30 a.m.

Introductions
Helga Flores Trejo, Director, Heinrich Boell Foundation, North America
John Podesta, President, Center for American Progress

Keynote remarks
Earl Blumenauer, Congressman, U.S House of Representative (D-OR)

Panel One: The Current Crisis and Responses Thus Far
Reinhold Brender, Counselor, Political Section, European Commission Delegation to the United States
Bill Frelick, Refugee Policy Director, Human Rights Watch
Said Hakki, President, Iraqi Red Crescent Society
Victor Tanner, Adjunct faculty member, Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University and consultant for the International Rescue Committee
Moderated by:
Anita Sharma, Center for American Progress

11:30 a.m. A light lunch will be served

11:45 - 12:45 p.m.

Introductions
Larry Korb, Center for American Progress

Luncheon Address
An Iraqi Account of the Situation and the International Response to the Crisis

Ahmed Ali, former translator and interpreter for numerous media outlets, the U.S. and Iraqi governments, recently resettled in the United States
Michel Gabaudan, Washington Director, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees

1:00 - 2:30 p.m.

Panel Two: The Next Challenges of Iraq's Displacement Crisis
Elizabeth Ferris, Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy Studies, and co-director of the Brookings-Bern Project on Internal Displacement
John Merrill, Director for Refugees, IDPs, and Parole Programs, Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, Middle East - Iraq Office
Kristele Younes, Advocate, Refugees International
Moderated by:
Mara Rudman, Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress

 

 

Location

Center for American Progress
1333 H St. NW, 10th Floor
Washington, DC 20005

Resources

Read about the event here.

Complete Transcripts of the conference:

• Keynote Address and Panel One: The Current Crisis and Responses Thus Far
• Luncheon Address: An Iraqi Account of the Situation and the International Response to the Crisis
• Panel Two: The Next Challenges of Iraq's Displacement Crisis

Watch video of the event:

Keynote and Panel One:

Luncheon Address:

Panel Two:

Biographies

Rep. Earl Blumenauer (OR-3), a lifelong resident of Portland, Oregon, has devoted his entire career to public service. Elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1996, Blumenauer has created a unique role as Congress' chief spokesperson for Livable Communities: places where people are safe, healthy, and economically secure. A member of the House Ways and Means and Budget Committees, Rep. Blumenauer has also served on both the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and the International Relations Committee, where he was a strong advocate for federal policies that address transportation alternatives, provide housing choices, support sustainable economies and improve the environment.

A leading environmental advocate both in Oregon and Congress, Rep. Blumenauer has authored and co-sponsored legislation to preserve and protect public lands, shift the nation's energy policy toward renewable energy and energy efficiency, curb global warming, clean our nation's water bodies, and much more. Last year, he led the International Relations Committee Democrats in demanding a congressional hearing on global warming during the 109th session of Congress. In his new position as a member of the Committee on Ways and Means, and the new Select Committee on Energy Independence and Climate, Rep. Blumenauer plans to continue his work to help craft policies that will address and mitigate the effects of global warming. He will also continue to promote honest trade, enhancing technology, financing critical infrastructure, building livable communities in a global economy, and ensuring economic security for working families.

Ahmed Ali has more than 10 years of professional experience with written, consecutive, and simultaneous translation of English, French, and Arabic. He has covered the Iraq war extensively as a translator, interpreter, journalist, reporter, and producer for numerous media outlets and humanitarian organizations in Iraq and Jordan, including Doctors Without Borders, Human Rights First, NBC News, The New York Times, NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corp), and CBS. From 2003 to 2004, Mr. Ali provided simultaneous translator/interpretation to the U.S. Military and Titan Corporation for high-ranking U.S. officers including Commanders of the Coalition Forces in Iraq such as General Ricardo Sanchez, General Martin Dempsey, General Mark Kemmit, Dan Senior, and Iraqi and U.S. governmental officials.

Mr. Ali taught French at the French Cultural Center in Baghdad and worked as a medical lab technician and instructor at the Medical Technology Institute in Baghdad. Mr. Ali has taken journalism and translations courses at the Combined Press Info Center, Baghdad and University of Baghdad, and holds a bachelor's degree in French Literature and Language with an English minor from the University of Baghdad and an associate's degree in Medical Laboratory Technology from the Medical Technology Institute in Baghdad.

Reinhold Brender has been Counselor (Political) at the Delegation of the European Commission to the United States in Washington, D.C. since November 2005. Prior to his present posting, Dr. Brender held various positions in the Commission's External Relations Directorate-General in Brussels. He also worked as the spokesperson for the "EU Pillar" of the U.N. administration in Kosovo. Before joining the European Commission in 1995, he reported for several years on a broad range of foreign policy issues, including German-French relations and developments in the broader Middle East, as a staff member of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, the leading German daily newspaper. Dr. Brender studied Politics, History, and Languages in Germany, France, and Switzerland and holds an M.A. and a Ph.D. from the University of Freiburg (Germany).

Dr. Elizabeth G. Ferris is Senior Fellow in the Foreign Policy Studies Program at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. and Co-Director of the Brookings-Bern Project on Internal Displacement. Prior to joining Brookings in November 2006, Dr. Ferris spent 20 years working in the field of international humanitarian response, most recently in Geneva, Switzerland at the World Council of Churches. She has also served as Chair of the International Council of Voluntary Agencies, as Research Director for the Life & Peace Institute in Uppsala, Sweden, and as Director of the Church World Service Immigration and Refugee Program in New York. She has been a professor at several U.S. universities and served as a Fulbright professor to the Universidad Autonoma de Mexico in Mexico City.

Dr. Ferris has written or edited six books and many articles on humanitarian and human rights issues which have been published in both academic and policy journals. Her current research interests focus on the politics of humanitarian action and on the role of civil society in protecting displaced populations.

Helga Flores Trejo has been the Executive Director of the Heinrich Boell Foundation in North America since 2003. She is an expert on German and U.S. foreign policy, EU affairs, the Balkans and immigration issues. As head of the Boell Foundation's North American operations in Washington, she focuses her work on global challenges confronting the United States and Europe, primarily regarding energy and climate change, engagement with China and Russia, and confronting fundamentalism in the Middle East, among others.

Prior to leading the Foundation in Washington, Ms. Flores Trejo worked in the Balkans as Senior Advisor for the Parliamentary Support Program of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe Mission in Belgrade. There, she directed a program to install parliamentary control and oversight of the military and security services in the region. Ms. Flores Trejo worked previously on foreign and European policy issues in Germany, first as a foreign policy and development advisor in the German Bundestag, then as Chief of Staff to Hamburg's delegate in the Bundesrat (upper house). She served concurrently as Senior Advisor on European Policy for the State Government of Hamburg where she also represented the State in the Bundesrat's Committee on EU Affairs. Ms. Flores Trejo holds a master's degree in Political Science and International Law from the Johann Wolfgang-Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany.

Bill Frelick is the director of Human Rights Watch's Refugee Policy Program, through which he monitors, investigates, and documents human rights abuses against refugees, asylum seekers, and internally displaced persons and advocates for the rights and humanitarian needs of all categories of forcibly displaced persons. The work of the Human Rights Watch refugee policy program is global in scope. From 2002 to 2005, Mr. Frelick was the director of Amnesty International USA's Refugee Program. He was also previously the director of the U.S. Committee for Refugees, which he served for 18 years (1984 to 2002). He has traveled to refugee sites throughout the world and is widely published. He was the editor of USCR's annual World Refugee Survey and monthly Refugee Reports.

A contributing author to many books, Mr. Frelick has written chapters in Refugees in America in the 1990s, GenocideWatch, Reconceiving International Refugee Law, Encyclopedia Americana, Forced Out: The Agony of the Refugee in Our Time, People Without a Country: The Kurds and Kurdistan, and America's Original Sin. Mr. Frelick taught in the Middle East from 1979 to 1983. He was co-coordinator of the Asian Center of Clergy and Laity Concerned 1976 to 1979. He has a B.A. from Oberlin College, Phi Beta Kappa, and an M.A. from Columbia University.

Michel Gabaudan has served as UNHCR Regional Representative for the United States and Caribbean since September 2006. His distinguished career with the agency spans more than 25 years and includes service in Africa, Asia, Latin America and Australia. Trained as a medical doctor, Gabaudan spent a decade working in Guyana, Zambia, Brazil, London, and Yemen before joining UNHCR as a Field Officer in Udon, Thailand.

His U.N. career subsequently took him to field operations in places ranging from Cameroon to Pakistan to Geneva, where he served at the agency's headquarters for several years. In 1995, he was appointed Regional Representative in Mexico. He then went on to become head of UNHCR's funding and donor relations service at headquarters. Between 2001 and 2004 he was the Regional Representative in Australia. Prior to coming to Washington he served as the Regional Representative for UNHCR in Beijing. Gabaudan attended the University of Bordeaux in France, where he studied medicine. He is married with three children.

Dr. Said Ismail Hakki is President of the Iraqi Red Crescent and Senior Advisor to Vice President Mahdi of Iraq. Dr. Hakki has been active in Iraqi politics since 2003. He has served as Senior Advisor to former Vice President and former Prime Minister Dr. Ibrahim Jafary in the Iraqi Interim Government. Additionally, Dr. Hakki served as Director of Medical Education in Iraq during the Iraqi Transitional Government. He was also Senior Iraqi Advisor to the Ministry of Health and Senior Advisor to the Ministry of Religious Affairs under the Coalition Provisional Authority.

Dr. Hakki has a long history in the medical practice and has served as Staff Urologist at Bay Pines VA Medical Center in Florida since 1986. He is an Assistant Professor of Urology at the University of South Florida and Scientific Advisor to UTEK Transfer Technology Company.

Dr. Hakki received his Ph.D. from the University of London in 1979 and earned his medical license from the State of Florida in 1986. He earned The Fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons from the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh in 1974. Dr. Hakki holds multiple patents and has published numerous medical articles in journals including the British Journal of Urology and Journal of Steroid Biochemistry Molecular Biology. Dr. Hakki is also the author of Radical Perineal Prostatectomy Book: Step by Step Surgical Procedure (Pelican Publishers).

Lawrence J. Korb is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress and a Senior Advisor to the Center for Defense Information. Prior to joining the Center, he was a Senior Fellow and Director of National Security Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. From July 1998 to October 2002, he was Council Vice President, Director of Studies, and holder of the Maurice Greenberg Chair. Prior to joining the Council, Dr. Korb served as Director of the Center for Public Policy Education and Senior Fellow in the Foreign Policy Studies Program at the Brookings Institution, Dean of the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Pittsburgh, and Vice President of Corporate Operations at the Raytheon Company.

Dr. Korb served as Assistant Secretary of Defense (Manpower, Reserve Affairs, Installations and Logistics) from 1981 through 1985. In that position, he administered about 70 percent of the Defense budget. For his service in that position, he was awarded the Department of Defense's medal for Distinguished Public Service. Dr. Korb served on active duty for four years as Naval Flight Officer, and retired from the Naval Reserve with the rank of Captain.

John Podesta is the President and CEO of the Center for American Progress and visiting professor of law at the Georgetown University Law Center. Mr. Podesta served as chief of staff to President William J. Clinton from October 1998 until January 2001, where he was responsible for directing, managing, and overseeing all policy development, daily operations, congressional relations, and staff activities of the White House. He coordinated the work of cabinet agencies with a particular emphasis on the development of federal budget and tax policy, and served in the President's Cabinet and as a principal on the National Security Council.

From 1997 to 1998, Mr. Podesta served as both an Assistant to the President and Deputy Chief of Staff. Earlier, from January 1993 to 1995, he was Assistant to the President, Staff Secretary, and a senior policy advisor on government information, privacy, telecommunications security, and regulatory policy. Mr. Podesta previously held a number of positions on Capitol Hill including: counselor to Democratic Leader Senator Thomas A. Daschle; chief counsel for the Senate Agriculture Committee; chief minority counsel for the Senate Judiciary Subcommittees on Patents, Copyrights, and Trademarks; Security and Terrorism; and Regulatory Reform; and counsel on the Majority Staff of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Mr. Podesta is a graduate of Georgetown University Law Center and Knox College.

Mara Rudman is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress, where she focuses on national security issues and advises Middle East Progress. She is also President of Quorum Strategies, an international strategic consulting firm.

From 1997 to 2001, Rudman served at the White House, including as a deputy national security advisor to President Clinton, and National Security Council Chief of Staff, where she coordinated and directed activities among the various federal departments and agencies with defense and foreign policy responsibilities. In that capacity, she also played a role on Middle East peace efforts. From 1993 to 1997, she worked as chief counsel to the House Foreign Affairs Committee under Chairman Lee Hamilton. Prior to her committee positions, Rudman was a litigation associate at Hogan & Hartson. Early in her career, Rudman clerked for the Honorable Stanley Marcus, now of the Eleventh Circuit, in the Southern District of Florida.

Rudman serves on the Middle East Investment Initiative board, the board of advisors of the Dickey Center for International Understanding at Dartmouth College, as a member of the Aspen Institute Middle East Strategy Group, and as an Aspen Institute Crown Fellow. She is also a frequent media commentator. She received her Bachelor of Arts degree from Dartmouth College summa cum laude and her Juris Doctorate cum laude from Harvard Law School, where she was the editor-in-chief of The Harvard Human Rights Journal.

Anita Sharma was the Executive Director of ENOUGH, a new initiative of the Center for American Progress and the International Crisis Group to abolish genocide and mass atrocities. She served as governance advisor in Indonesia with the Office of the United Nations Recovery Coordinator and has held international posts in Indonesia, Iraq, Jordan, and Kosovo with the International Organization for Migration, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, and the Council of Europe.

In the United States, she directed the Conflict Prevention Project at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and has also worked as the research director for the Role of American Military Power Project and the Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict. Additionally, Sharma has worked on several political campaigns, providing foreign policy expertise and coordinating national security efforts to 2006 Democratic congressional candidates and the Kerry/Edwards 2004 and Gore/Lieberman 2000 presidential campaigns. She is a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and holds a bachelor's degree with honors from Syracuse University and a master's degree from the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University.

Victor Tanner has worked with war-affected populations for nearly 20 years, both as an aid worker and a researcher, in Africa, the Middle East, and the Balkans. Since 2002, he has co-authored several studies on forced displacement in Iraq for the Brookings Institution, the most recent of which focuses on Iraqi refugees in Syria. He has also conducted extensive field research in Sudan, particularly in Darfur.

Tanner is an adjunct member of faculty at the Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University, an advisor to the International Rescue Committee's Middle Eastern initiative and a part-time employee at DAI, a Washington-based development consulting firm.

Kristele Younes joined Refugees International in February of 2006 after working as a Legal Officer with the Coalition for the International Criminal Court in The Hague. As part of the RI advocacy team, Younes has conducted missions to assess the plight of displaced Iraqis, humanitarian conditions in Lebanon during the Israel-Hezbollah conflict, internal displacement in Colombia, and the situation of refugees from Darfur and the Central African Republic in Chad.

Prior to joining RI, Younes worked with Medecins du Monde and the International Rescue Committee in Afghanistan, where she managed protection programs. She was also part of a team which explored the possibility of a joint European Union/UN/DRC government program to re-establish the judicial system in Bunia, a war-torn town in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, and has worked on Rule of Law issues with the OSCE's human rights department in post-war Bosnia. Younes has a law degree from McGill and a Master's degree in Public International Law and International Organizations from the Sorbonne. Younes is a Canadian and Lebanese citizen, and is fluent in French, Arabic, and Spanish.