Terp wars in Iraq and Washington
Since 9-11 there has been a shortage of Arab interpreters at the FBI and CIA, it would be a shame to waste such a valuable resource and also save some friends who helped us achieve our mission in Iraq. This is a chance to turn a part of the Iraq mission into and immediate plus in the war on terror.Days after fleeing Baghdad, and after his relatives had been gunned down and burned in their cars for collaborating with U.S. forces or their allies, Khalid Abood al-Khafajee reached Amman, Jordan, in December. There the Iraqi translator and his family joined thousands of refugees hoping for passage to Western Europe or the United States.
His odds weren't good. About 2 million refugees have poured out of Iraq since the U.S. invasion in 2003, yet only a trickle have managed to make it out of the Middle East. And the 60-year-old Abood was also seeking a way out for his wife, Batool, 59, and their two daughters, Nadia, 29, and Shaimaa, 23.
But Abood, a translator for Marines and for NATO forces in Iraq since 2003, had one advantage: More than 6,000 miles away, in Wrightsville Beach, N.C., a young Marine was working to bring the translator and his family to the United States.
Putting out dozens of calls and e-mails every day, Capt. Zachary Iscol, an Iraq veteran, spent months trying to unclog the bureaucratic pipeline between Jordan and the United States. Iscol's effort would culminate on Capitol Hill, where he would stand before a Senate panel and make an impassioned plea for his friend and former translator, plucking Abood's case out of a sea of names and faces.
Iscol explained how Abood had helped keep him and his men alive, translating for him in tense meetings with clerics and during bloody battles in Fallujah in 2004, when Iscol was 25. He was determined, he said, to repay the silver-haired translator who had become a father figure for him.
"I feel that I was able to bring 30 Marines back to their families alive," Iscol said. "Some of them may have been pretty beat-up, but they were alive. And that was down to Abood. I don't know how I could repay him for that. I'll be indebted to him for the rest of my life."
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Striking pacts with groups in the city, Abood helped keep Iscol's men from becoming targets, the Marine said. At least a dozen times, Iscol's platoon drove past roadside bombs that detonated seconds later, he said, as another convoy passed. Iscol is convinced this was because Abood forged ties with local factions, who in turn afforded Iscol's Marines special treatment. By the end of intense combat to take Fallujah, only one member of Iscol's platoon had been killed.
"The secret of counterinsurgency is you can't win it with bullets and grenades," Iscol said. "It's about forging relationships. . . . I needed Abood for that."
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In mid-January, Iscol was asked to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee in a hearing examining the Bush administration's failure to provide sanctuary to Iraqi refugees. The night before the hearing, the news came through that Abood and his family had been granted refugee status by the U.N. High Commissioner -- the first step in getting them here. The next day, as Iscol testified, lawmakers noted that it had taken a Senate hearing to rescue a single Iraqi and his family.
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Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), who led the hearing, said Iscol's "passion and desire to help someone who had risked his life for him and our country had a profound impact on our hearing, and I believe helped his translator get to safety."
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The British are also looking to help their terps when they leave. The agencies who need this resource need to be proactive and seeking out these people we already have reason to trust.
As for Aboud, like a lot of Americans, this Iraqi had the good fortune of having a Marine fighting for him.
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