http://www.aina.org/news/20110301210208.htm

For Nina Shea, who tracks the persecution of Iraqi Christians and other minorities as a member of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), one thing is clear: "Terrorists have been able to wage ruthless attacks against Iraq's Christian communities with impunity."

Despite repeated calls to better protect houses of Christian worship and other community gathering places, "the Iraqi government has failed to protect this defenseless minority and has failed to provide them with the minimum of justice in the wake of horrific assaults that by now constitute a religious cleansing of historic significance," she told Newsmax.

USCIRF first designated Iraq as a "country of particular concern" in 2008 because of the inability or refusal of the Malaki government to prevent wave after wave of attack against Iraqi Christians.