Sauerbrey outlines State Dept.’s efforts to aid Iraqi refugees

Friday, April 6, 2007

Sauerbrey is assistant secretary of state for population, refugees and migration. In the 1990s, she made two unsuccessful runs for governor.

Sauerbrey’s department is now focused on helping Iraqi refugees who have either fled their country since the war began four years ago, or who have stayed in Iraq but are considered ‘‘internally displaced” after fleeing their homes. She estimated that there are now 2 million Iraqis living outside their country’s borders and another 2 million who have lost their homes but have stayed.

‘‘Syria, Egypt and Jordan are some of the countries where they’ve fled,” she said. ‘‘We are working diplomatically with these countries, to keep the borders open and accept international assistance” from the United Nations.

Since 2003, she said, the United Nations has spent $800 million in support of the displaced Iraqis. ‘‘Our goal,” Sauerbrey said of her office, ‘‘is first to make Iraq safe and stable” for the refugees to return. ‘‘They’ve got to be able to eventually go home. Second, we need to create situations in their home country where they know they’ll be safe. And third, we need to help them should they want resettlement.

‘‘Most people want to go home,” she said. ‘‘Only a small number have wanted to come to the United States to live.

From 1986 until 1994 the Baltimore native — a Republican — was a member of the Maryland House of Representatives. In 1994 and again in 1998 Sauerbrey ran unsuccessful campaigns for governor, losing both elections to Parris N. Glendening.

President George W. Bush appointed Sauerbrey to the State Department job in January 2006. Prior to that, in 2002 Bush had named her the U.S. representative to the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women. Sauerbrey’s agency, she said, works with the United Nations High Commission for Refugees and helps provide funding and oversight for refugees around the world. She has traveled to Burma, Darfur, Sudan and other areas in her new job, getting a first-hand look at refugee camps around the world.

Her department’s $1 billion budget includes about $600 million ‘‘to work on refugee issues,” she said. Another $400 million is earmarked to help refugees resettle in the United States. The United States’ commitment, she said, is about one-fourth the total spent by the United Nations to support refugee relief efforts.

Worldwide, Sauerbrey said, there are 365 volunteer organizations receiving funding from and supporting the United Nations’ refugee relief efforts.

‘‘We feel a moral commitment,” she said, ‘‘to stand up for an individual’s human rights ... but it’s too large for any one country to do.

‘‘Our first goal,” Sauerbrey said, ‘‘is keeping people alive.” Water, sanitation and health care, she said, are always given high priority, as well as funding programs to educate refugees and teach them job skills.

E-mail Paul C. Leibe at pleibe@somdnews.com.