Angelina JolieAngelina Jolie has called for action to be taken in rebuilding war-torn Iraq to help prevent future conflicts in the area.

Angelina arrived in the country on Wednesday in her role as a United Nations goodwill ambassador and yesterday visited US troops stationed around Baghdad as well as refugee groups in the area.

After meeting with the Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and the US commander in Iraq General David Petraeus, she said yesterday: “There’s lots of goodwill and lots of discussion, but there seems to be just a lot of talk at the moment. What happens in Iraq in the years to come is going to affect the entire Middle East.”

“And a big part of what it’s going to affect, how it settles, is how these people are returned and settled into their homes, brought back together and whether they can live together and what their communities look like.”

“It’s in our best interest to address a humanitarian crisis on this scale because displacement can lead to a lot of instability and aggression.”

Around 16% of Iraqis - 4.2million people - have lost their homes and become refugees since the military invasion of the country in 2003, with around 2.2million people fleeing to neighbouring country and the remaining 2million displaced internally.

Independent research estimates that around 1million Iraqi civilians have experienced violent deaths since the start of the conflict and over 4000 coalition military personnel have also been killed.