Montana, August 15: US President Barack Obama on Friday named two senior officials to work closely with the Baghdad government on the plight of millions of refugees from war and violence in Iraq
Samantha Power, a senior National Security Council official, will coordinate the wider US government effort on the issue, across multiple agencies, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said in a statement.
Senior foreign service officer Mark Storella, who once served as number two in the US mission in Geneva, has already arrived in Baghdad to take up the job of senior coordinator for Iraqi Refugees and Displaced Persons.
“President Obama has long made clear that the United States is committed to working closely with the Iraqi government to aid Iraqis who have been displaced or are otherwise vulnerable as a result of the violence in Iraq,” Gibbs said.
“Since April, the United States has made available approximately 196 million dollars in additional support for these populations for a total of 346 million dollars to date in FY 2009.”
Gibbs said the appointments were made following discussions that took place during Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s visit to Washington last month.
Power was a key foreign policy advisor early in Obama’s presidential primary race in 2008 but left the campaign after she referred to his erstwhile foe, now secretary of state, Hillary Clinton as a “monster.”
A former Harvard academic, Power won the Pulitzer Prize for her book on the practicalities of intervention by foreign powers to stop genocide.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees estimated in 2008 that up to two million displaced Iraqis were living in nations bordering Iraq like Jordan and Syria.
A further 2.8 million Iraqis were internally displaced, the UNHCR said.
–Agencies