Head of U.S. Chaldean group presses government, U.N. on Iraqi exiles

Published: 2006-08-29

ARLINGTON, Va. (CNS) -- Joseph Kassab, head of the Chaldean Federation of America, met Aug. 25 for the sixth time this year with officials from the State Department to press the case to allow Chaldeans -- Iraqi Christians -- fleeing their homeland to emigrate to the United States. "We've got their attention," Kassab told Catholic News Service during an interview in his hotel room in Arlington, a Washington suburb, prior to meeting No. 6. After the sixth meeting, he told CNS by telephone, "There's going to be a little help. ... There's a little light at the end of the tunnel." Kassab, whose brother is Chaldean Archbishop Djibrail Kassab of Basra, Iraq, is still waiting for effective action. He estimated that less than half of the 1.1 million-1.2 million Chaldeans who were in Iraq before the U.S. war began in 2003 remain in Iraq today. Kassab said most of them -- 92 percent -- have fled to Greece, Syria, Turkey and Jordan.

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