During the 2008 presidential campaign, Barack Obama promised to "provide at least $2 billion to expand services to Iraqi refugees in neighboring countries."

We looked at the combined budget figures for the State Department's two relevant categories: Migration and Refugee Assistance and the U.S. Emergency Refugee and Migration Assistance Fund. Here are the totals for the "Near East” sector, which includes Iraq:

Fiscal year 2009: $585.9 million

FIscal year 2010: $544.5 million

Fiscal year 2011: $533.3 million

Fiscal year 2012: $443.7 million

Four-year total: $2.1 billion

It's worth noting that this total covers spending in more than just Iraq -- it includes activities in Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, the Palestinian Territories, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates and Yemen.

We were unable to find breakdowns for what portion of the total $2.1 billion was spent on Iraqi refugees specifically. However, logic tells us that spending on Iraqi refugees accounted for only a fraction of the $2.1 billion spent on refugees in the region, particularly considering that Obama began winding down the Iraq War during his term, helping return the country to a more normal status. In addition, the overall trend for spending has actually decreased during Obama's presidency.

In a sense, this promise was overtaken by events.

"When then presidential candidate made that statement, it was a marker for the level of attention he would give the humanitarian consequence of a war that the U.S. waged, but which he never supported,” said Dara McLeod, director of communications for Refugees International. "Over the past year, events throughout the Middle East and North Africa, the Sahel and east Africa have taken much of the humanitarian attention off of Iraq.” Of special note is the civil war in Syria, which has not only displaced more than 400,000 Syrian refugees to neighboring countries but has also pushed "unknown thousands” of Iraqi refugees who fled during the Iraq war back to their homeland, McLeod said.

"While responding to the humanitarian consequences of conflict and natural disaster, particularly the Iraq war, was clearly a priority of the Obama administration, the evidence does not suggest that $2 billion was spent to expand services to Iraqi refugees in neighboring countries,” McLeod said. 

We rate this a Promise Broken.