Iraq's Christians are anxious to flee nation

Even those in relatively safe city want out
BY DENIS D. GRAY
ASSOCIATED PRESS
November 30, 2008

TELKAIF, Iraq -- Young Christian women in jeans mingle easily with Arab matrons draped in black head-to-toe robes. Both church spires and mosque minarets rise above the low-slung houses. Violence is rare.

"The people here look out for each other -- Arabs, Christians, Kurds, Yazidis. If all of Iraq was like this, it would be a great place," said 1st Lt. Jeremy Glosson, leading a U.S. Army patrol through Telkaif's medieval-like alleys.

And yet, many Christians in there say they want to flee a town where their ancestors have lived for generations and, if possible, to abandon a country where their religion has survived for 2,000 years -- longer than in Europe -- but one they fear is growing ever more violent. the rest