[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 158 (Tuesday, October 3, 2017)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1315-E1316]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




      IRAQ AND SYRIA GENOCIDE EMERGENCY RELIEF AND ACCOUNTABILITY

                                 ______
                                 

                       HON. CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH

                             of new jersey

                    in the house of representatives

                        Tuesday, October 3, 2017

  Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, today I held a hearing on the 
need for aid to be provided for victims of religious and ethnic 
persecution in Iraq and Syria. In August 2014, ISIS began committing 
genocide against Yazidis and Christians in Iraq. Three years later, 
they are still not receiving the assistance they need from the United 
States and so their survival in their ancient homelands is in jeopardy.
   Two consecutive Secretaries of State and the Congress declared ISIS 
was responsible for genocide. This year, the President and Vice 
President declared the genocide and committed the Administration to 
provide relief to the surviving religious and ethnic minority 
communities. In the final appropriations bill for Fiscal Year 2017, 
Congress required the State Department and U.S. Agency for 
International Development to fund the assistance promised by the 
Administration.
   But career staff at the State Department and USAID have ignored the 
law and thwarted the will of the President, the Congress and the people 
we represent. These bureaucrats have refused to direct assistance to 
religious and ethnic minority communities, even to enable them to 
survive genocide. This obstruction is unacceptable and I urge Secretary 
Tillerson and new USAID Administrator Green to put an end to it.
   I chaired my first hearing on atrocities against religious and 
ethnic minorities in Iraq or Syria in September of 2013. The hearing 
today was the 10th I have chaired focused in whole or in part on their 
plight. Last September I introduced bipartisan legislation, coauthored 
by my good friend Anna Eshoo, explicitly authorizing the State 
Department and USAID to identify the needs of these communities and 
fund entities, including faith-based entities, effectively providing 
them with aid on-the-ground. Even though the U.S. already has the 
authority to provide such assistance, we were aware some in the 
bureaucracy inaccurately claimed they lacked the authority and so we 
wanted to remove this excuse. It was also important to have a detailed 
authorization as the foundation for forth-going appropriations. This 
bill would also set an important precedent for how the U.S. should 
respond to future crises in which religious and ethnic minorities are 
targeted for atrocity crimes.
   Partially informed by my trip to Erbil last December to meet first-
hand with genocide survivors, we reintroduced this legislation as H.R. 
390 almost immediately after the start of the new Congress, with even 
stronger support from both sides of the aisle and many Yazidi, 
Christian, accountability and human rights groups and leaders. The 
House passed it unanimously in early June and the Senate Foreign 
Relations Committee passed it unanimously on September 19. There has 
been no subsequent action in the Senate. The appropriations bill for 
fiscal year 2017 has expired and the situation on-the-ground is 
deteriorating for these endangered communities. I respectfully ask the 
Senate to immediately pass H.R. 390.
   This hearing explored the urgent crisis for Christian and Yazidi 
genocide survivors, especially in Iraq, what the Administration can do 
now to enable them to survive, and what the consequences will be for 
these communities and our national security if we fail to act. We heard 
from several of our witnesses, helping these communities survive and 
return to their homes will reduce threats from Iran. It will also deny 
ISIS a major propaganda victory and recruiting tool.
   I should note the State Department and USAID were invited to 
testify. They were unavailable.
   Our first witness was known to many of you, my dear friend for many 
years, the former Representative for the 10th district of Virginia, 
Frank Wolf. He is testified today as the Distinguished Senior Fellow at 
21st Century Wilberforce Initiative and he visited Northern Iraq this 
August. In his written statement, Congressman Wolf warns ``if bold 
action is not taken by the end of the year, I believe a tipping point 
will be reached and we will see the end of Christianity in Iraq.'' 
About the Yazidis, he reports although ``Sinjar has been liberated from 
ISIS since the fall of 2015 . . . it is currently controlled by 
multiple different militia groups . . . few families have been able to 
return and few aid groups work in the area.''
   Congressman Wolf also raised the alarm about Iraq-backed militias 
filling the post-ISIS liberation vacuum as part of Tehran's ``goal of 
creating a land-bridge from Iran [to] allow Iran to move fighters, 
weapons and supplies to aid Hezbollah and other terrorist groups'' and 
offered several concrete policy recommendations the Administration and 
Congress should heed.
   Our second witness was Shireen, a Yazidi survivor of ISIS 
enslavement. She wrote in her statement for the record this ``captivity 
under ISIS . . . was like hell. They performed an abdominal surgery on 
me . . . and I am suffering from the effects of it . . . They committed 
all kinds of atrocious crimes against us including mass killing, sexual 
enslavement, and forced conversion.''
   Shireen also wrote ``19 members of my family and my relatives are 
missing. They may be killed or still in captivity but we don't know 
anything about them . . . We are still waiting for action and the 
liberation of thousands of Yazidis from ISIS captivity.'' She warns 
that ``Yazidis, Christians and other religious minorities, especially 
the non-Muslim minorities, cannot survive in Syria and Iraq under the 
current conditions. Without serious action from you and the world 
governments, many of these people will continue to flee their ancient 
homelands of Syria and Iraq.''
   Our third witness was Lauren Ashburn, Managing Editor and Anchor of 
EWTN News Nightly. She travelled to Northern Iraq earlier this year and 
has continued to report on the crisis. Her story-telling and video, 
rooted in more than 20 years as a journalist, has helped tell the 
stories of heroism, indomitable faith, and survival. As she reported in 
her written testimony for the hearing ``Christians in Iraq are on the 
brink of extinction . . . The United States is the only nation in the 
world that can provide concrete aid to rebuild the community that I saw 
in shambles.''
   Our fourth and final witness was Stephen Rasche, Legal Counsel and 
Director of IDP Resettlement Programs for the Chaldean Catholic 
Archdiocese of Erbil, and Legal Counsel and Chief Coordinator for the 
Nineveh Reconstruction Committee. Mr. Rasche testified before a hearing 
I chaired of the Helsinki Committee last September, and he reported in 
his written testimony today, ``I regret to say that we have still yet 
to receive any form of meaningful aid from the U.S. Government . . . 
While we have found the political appointees much more willing to help 
us since January, the fact is that even after the better part of a 
year, they have been unable to move the bureaucracy to take meaningful 
action.''
   The Obama Administration channeled all U.S. funding for 
stabilization in Iraq through the Funding Facility for Stabilization, 
administered by the UN Development Program, and the current 
Administration has continued this policy. Mr. Rasche testified in his 
written statement ``While status reports from UNDP work in

[[Page E1316]]

Nineveh purport to show real progress in the Christian majority towns, 
on the ground we see little evidence of it. Work projects are in most 
cases cosmetic in nature, and much of that cynically so . . . In 
effect, U.S. taxpayers are financing the spoils of genocide.''
   As an alternative option for U.S. assistance, he details the Nineveh 
Sustainable Return Program, an initiative of the ecumenical Nineveh 
Reconstruction Committee to repair homes damaged or destroyed by ISIS. 
The Program has already rebuilt several thousand homes and enabled 
thousands of Christian families to return, mostly funded by the Knights 
of Columbus and Aid to the Church in Need, with some additional funding 
from the Government of Hungary. Last month, the Nineveh Reconstruction 
Committee USA submitted a proposal to USAID to ensure the project can 
be completed and many more families can return.
   I strongly support this time-sensitive proposal and call on USAID 
Administrator Mark Green to ensure a decision is made about it soon. 
Because of the resistance among career staff at USAID to directing 
assistance to religious and ethnic minority communities, even though 
they were targeted for genocide, it is imperative officials appointed 
by the President are part of the review process and that the final 
decision be made by Presidential appointees. I included this proposal 
as part of the hearing record.
   As Mr. Rasche warns in his written testimony, ``Today, as I speak to 
you, we are caught fully exposed and at-risk, finding ourselves at a 
critical historical inflection point, foreign aid decisions over which 
will determine whether Christianity, and religious pluralism--vital to 
the U.S. national interest and regional security--will survive in Iraq 
at all.''

                          ____________________