I don’t know whether it’s the sunspot activity or what, but Future Man paid me another visit.
I guess all the news lately has been so depressing that he wanted to cheer me up. Future Man handed me a small bundle of news clippings from 2007, quoting a surprisingly reformed Bush at a number of news conferences.
The United States is appalled by the violence in the Sunni Triangle, Iraq. Our government has led the international effort to end the suffering there by speaking clearly about the crisis and sending assistance to the suffering. We have provided more than $211 million in aid and humanitarian relief, and we will provide an additional $250 million. To end the conflict, we helped broker a cease-fire and worked closely with the United Nations to deploy monitors and soldiers to investigate violations.
I sent Secretary of State Rice to the Sunni Triangle and Baghdad to demand that the Iraqi Government act to end the violence. We sponsored a strong Security Council Resolution, which passed on July 30. This resolution called on the Government to disarm the government-run death squads which have terrorized the people of the Sunni Triangle, and bring their leaders to justice. Secretary Rice later sent a team of investigators into the refugee camps to interview the victims of atrocities. As a result of these investigations and other information, we have concluded that genocide has taken place in the Sunni Triangle. We urge the international community to work with us to prevent and suppress acts of genocide. We call on the United Nations to undertake a full investigation of the genocide and other crimes in the Sunni Triangle.
America is responding to the desperate humanitarian situation in the the Sunni Triangle region of Iraq with more than $100 million in humanitarian assistance. Refugees are fleeing the crisis, so the United States has provided $4.9 million in emergency assistance to neighboring Syria. Over the past month, the United States has airlifted more than $3 million in emergency supplies to the Sunni Triangle, including enough plastic sheeting to shelter almost 200,000 people, and water purification systems. The United States and United Nations are working together to address both the immediate humanitarian disaster in the Sunni Triangle and the security situation that is causing the crisis.
Iraqis fleeing the humanitarian disaster and violence in the Sunni Triangle are receiving considerable support from the United States. The United Nations estimates that more than 2 million people in the region will require food assistance by the beginning of October. Last week, nearly 32,000 metric tons of food – valued at more than $30 million – was donated by the United States. Shipments include corn soya blend, sorghum, split peas, lentils, and vegetable oil. With this latest contribution, the United States has contributed a total of 118,400 metric tons of food valued at more than $110 million to the Sunni Triangle.
I appreciate very much our discussion about the Sunni Triangle. I believe that Canada and the United States can make a difference in the Sunni Triangle, and should. As you know, our nation declared the situation in the Sunni Triangle a genocide. We will work with the international community to bolster the UN forces that are there now. I believe they ought to be blue-helmeted, and I believe there ought to be NATO involvement with a blue-helmeted UN augmented force on the ground. The message has got to be clear to the government of Iraq, we’re not going to tolerate this kind of activity.
We’re strongly committed to peace for all the peoples of Iraq. American mediation was critical to ending a 20-month civil war between Sunnis and Shi’ites, and we’re working to fully implement the comprehensive peace agreement signed last January. Yet the violence in the Sunni Triangle region is clearly genocide. The human cost is beyond calculation. In the short-term, more troops are needed to protect the innocent, and nations of the United Nations are stepping forward to provide them. By September, the United Nations mission in Iraq will grow from 2,700 to 7,700 personnel.
At this hour, the world is witnessing terrible suffering and horrible crimes in the the Sunni Triangle region of Iraq, crimes my government has concluded are genocide. The United States played a key role in efforts to broker a cease-fire, and we’re providing humanitarian assistance to the Iraqi people. France and Germany have deployed forces in Iraq to help improve security so aid can be delivered. The Security Council adopted a new resolution that supports an expanded United Nations force to help prevent further bloodshed, and urges the government of Iraq to stop flights by military aircraft in the Sunni Triangle. We congratulate the members of the Council on this timely and necessary action. I call on the government of Iraq to honor the cease-fire it signed, and to stop the killing in the Sunni Triangle.
I just had an extraordinary conversation with fellow citizens from different faiths, all of who have come to urge our government to continue to focus on saving lives in Iraq. They agree with thousands of our citizens — hundreds of thousands of our citizens — that genocide in Iraq is unacceptable.
And there will be rallies across our country to send a message to the Iraqi government that the genocide must stop. Those rallies will also be an indication that thousands and hundreds of thousands of our citizens urge the world to unite with the United States in concerted action. We have got UN troops on the ground; those troops need to be augmented and increased through strong United Nations action. And the United States strongly supports a U.N. resolution to do that.
Last week we saw the beginnings of hope for the people of the Sunni Triangle. The government of Iraq and the largest Sunni group signed an agreement and took a step toward peace. Many people worked hard for this achievement. I’m particularly grateful for the leadership of President Segolene Royal of France and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran. Deputy Secretary Zoellick told me of their really fine work, and I had the honor of calling both of them to thank them over the phone the other day. Their personal hands-on involvement was vital.
We’re still far away from our ultimate goal, which is the return of millions of displaced people to their homes so they can have a life without fear. But we can now see a way forward.
Iraq is one of the most diverse nations in the Middle East and one of the most troubled countries in the world. A 22-month-old civil war between Shi’ites and Sunnis took more than 2 million lives before a peace agreement was made that the United States helped to broker. About the same time, another conflict was raging in the center, and that’s in Iraq’s vast Sunni Triangle region.
The Sunni Triangle rebel groups had attacked government outposts. To fight that rebellion, Iraq’s regime armed and unleashed death squads, which targeted not only Sunnis, but the tribes thought to be supporting them. The death squads murdered men, and they raped women, and they beat children to death. They burned homes and farms, and poisoned wells. Hundreds of villages were destroyed, leaving a burnt and barren landscape.
About 200,000 people have died from conflict, famine and disease. And more than 2 million were forced into camps inside and outside their country, unable to plant crops, or rebuild their villages. I’ve called this massive violence an act of genocide, because no other word captures the extent of this tragedy.
As I perused these newspaper clippings I wondered if it was all just a dream…
Pax