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The office is buzzing. Tonight is the highly anticipated one-night only production of Betrayed at the Kennedy Center, George Packer's play based on his New Yorker article of the same name. 

The sold-out event is co-hosted by Matt Dillon and Sarah Jessica Parker who will be at the VIP reception this evening prior to introducing the play. 

We're putting together all the finishing touches for the event today and are thrilled that it is generating such a large turnout. 

In early 2007, George Packer published an article in The New Yorker about Iraqi interpreters who jeopardized their lives on behalf of the Americans in Iraq, with little or no U.S. protection or security. The article drew national attention to the humanitarian crisis and moral scandal.  Betrayed, based on Mr. Packer’s interviews in Baghdad, tells the story of three young Iraqis – two men and one woman – motivated to risk everything by America’s promise of freedom.  In early 2008, the article was turned into a play which premiered in New York to rave reviews, and which ran for six months in Manhattan. 

Refugees International was moved by Mr. Packer's play and article as it vividly told the stories that our own staff had heard throughout the Middle East since we first traveled there in 2006. As our own Kristele Younes has frequently pointed out, it isn't only Iraqis who have worked for the U.S. that face the obstacles depicted in the play.

After the performance of the play, RI president Ken Bacon will moderate a panel discussion about the crisis with playwright and journalist George Packer, director Pippin Parker, RI’s Iraq expert, Kristele Younes, and Kirk Johnson, on whom one of the play’s characters is based and founder of The List Project to Resettle Iraqi Allies.

The lively discussion will remind us that unlike many problems in the world today, this is not a crisis without a solution. And it is the job of Refugees International, The List Project and each of us to ensure that the U.S. government does not forget Iraqis as it crafts a new Iraq policy.