Ltr. to President Obama on Iraq crisis 8-7-14.pdf
Senator Levin has strongly urged President Obama to create a safe haven for all the minorities in the crisis region, send emergency assistance to the Yezidis that are trapped and to approve air strikes against ISIL. The president has called for an emergency meeting with his security advisers this afternoon and has announced that he will address this issue at 4:00 pm today. Senator Levin is very hopeful that what he asked the president to do will come through
Summary of the phone meeting with David Richelsoph, Adviser of the US mission to the UN, from Samantha Powers’ office, the U.S. Ambassador to the U.N
The U.N. security council has moved up their emergency meeting from tomorrow to today at 5:00 pm. We will receive an email with the results. We thanked them for the press releases about the situation and brought the discussion about the crisis and asked for the following:
1. Asked for Safe haven lead by the international community
2. Recognize ISIL as an international threat and not just a regional issue. ISIL will create an instability to the peace process in the region. They recognized ISIL as an offshoot of Alqaeda and wish to take steps to deal and eradicate this problem.
3. Asked for other countries in the UN to duplicate France’s offer to accept Iraqi Christians. Specifically asked the U.S. and Germany to do so. In the email that will be sent, a phone number of the UN representatives of France and Germany will be provided.
4. Humanitarian aid for the region especially for the Yezidis.
5. He also wanted to know about the events that occurred in the last few weeks. He specifically asked for the day that the residents of Qaraqosh left in June out of fear. He mentioned that details like that make a difference when you present these arguments to the security council.
Issues of visas and DHS clearances were mentioned but they responded that it’s not their department