Iraqis avoiding Iraq like the plague

This is getting more and more sad and pathetic by the second. George Bush's deranged idea of liberating Iraq?: Liberating Iraqis from tyranny, Saddam Hussein their own country. The Associated Press is reporting that in the past three years, 2 million Iraqis have fled their home country for neighboring countries. 3,000 Iraqi citizens leave the country every day, with 85,000 of them having fled to Kurdistan, which has been autonomous since 1991.

As snow fell outside, the smell of frying eggplant and onions burned Umm Ali's eyes as she cooked in her kitchen — which doubles as the family bathroom. There's not much else: one other room for her, her husband and four children. Still, she says, it's better here than at the family's home in Baghdad, 180 miles south, at the center of Iraq's bloodshed.

"Even if we were living in a tent, without a real roof over our heads in this snowy weather, we'd still be happy to be away from that intimidation," said the 41-year-old Shiite.

She went on to say:

"Our joy comes in feeling secure," said Jawad, who took his wife and children from Baghdad's Dora district after a note was left at their house calling the family "Shiite infidels" and warning the children would be "slain like sheep" if the family didn't leave.

"I didn't care about my house," he said. "I just felt my children and I needed to live our lives." He now works as an electrician at a new three-star hotel here.

I'll have more on the magnificent "progress" being made by President Bush in Iraq later on this morning.

[Hat tip AmericaBlog!]