Here’s a spectacular piece of ostrich-like behaviour from the US. An American spokesman in Baghdad says:
We’re not seeing internally displaced persons at the rate which causes us alarm
Huh? Is this real?
As I [wrote](http://ohuiginn.net/mt/2006/04/displacement_in_iraq.html) a while back, the Samarra bombing at the end of February sparked a refugee crisis which should be alarming everybody. There’s no doubt it is happening, and it is ludicrous for the US to explain it away, like they do, as people moving for “personal reasons”
Quible about the numbers if you like; none of the available figures are totally accurate. The
IOM
[estimate](http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/RWB.NSF/db900SID/EKOI-6Q54MU?OpenDocument) has recently risen to 97,900 from a previous [68,000](http://www.iom-iraq.net/newsletters.html#marApr06) 68,000, bringing it in line with the 100,000 suggested by the Government of Iraq. But, as the IOM [explains](http://www.iom-iraq.net/newsletters/IOM_Iraq_Newsletter_marApr06_English.pdf), these numbers are more likely to be under- than over-estimates:
Discrepancy between di