WASHINGTON -- Thousands of Iraqis are fleeing the war in their country daily. In the past seven months, the U.S. has admitted just 69 of them, including only one last month.

That dichotomy has set off the latest round of battling between the Bush administration and Democrats in Congress over the war. With large and growing numbers of Iraqi refugees in Syria, Jordan and other countries, Democrats are pushing legislation to drastically increase the number of them given haven in the U.S., including thousands of interpreters, drivers and others whose service has put their lives in jeopardy.

But the administration has yet to decide on a method to screen potential Iraqi refugees for possible terrorism ties. The U.S. also lacks any facilities in Iraq or its environs to process immigration requests from Iraqis who worked for the U.S. embassy, military or contractors.

Even if the U.S. gets the procedures in place, the administration likely can accept only a few thousand Iraqis by the end of the fiscal year in September. "The number of visas issued so far is less than paltry," says Rep. Gary Ackerman (D., N.Y.). "We're talking about people who have risked their lives for us, who now have targets on their backs."

Nearly a tenth of Iraq's prewar population is estimated to have fled the country since 2003. Most have left over the past year as ethnic clashes and mass killings uprooted large areas of the country.