Officers Battle Visa Hurdles For Iraq Aides

Team Infidel

Forum Spin Doctor
New York Times
May 14, 2008
Pg. 1
By Conrad Mulcahy
When Lt. Col. Michael Zacchea left Iraq in 2005, he was torn. His yearlong mission to train an Iraqi Army battalion had left him wounded and emotionally drained, and he was eager to go. But leaving Iraq also meant leaving Jack, his Iraqi interpreter, to face an insurgency that has made a point of brutalizing those who help the Americans.
In their year together the two had, among other things, thwarted an assassination plot and survived the second battle of Falluja. Even before he departed, Colonel Zacchea began working to ensure that Jack would not be left.
“Once the insurgents get a hold of your name, they never let up until they get you,” Colonel Zacchea said.
It took two years for Jack to get a visa. He is one of the very few to succeed among thousands who have worked as interpreters for the United States military.
To many veterans that is not an acceptable rate, given the risks the interpreters took, and Colonel Zacchea and others are taking up the cause.
They have created a growing network of aid groups, spending countless hours navigating a byzantine immigration system that they feel unnecessarily keeps their allies in harm’s way. There is, they say, a debt that must be repaid to the Iraqis who helped the most. To them it is an obligation both moral and pragmatic.
“It’s like this disjointed underground railroad that exists,” said Paul Rieckhoff, who served with the Army in Iraq as a first lieutenant in 2003 and 2004. Mr. Rieckhoff is now executive director of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, which has more than 85,000 members and a Web site at www.iava.org.
Leaving an interpreter behind, Mr. Rieckhoff said, is “like leaving one of your soldiers back in Iraq and saying, ‘Good luck, son.’”
A Perilous Job
The risk taken by interpreters in Iraq is considerable and widely documented. Those who work for the Americans are often accused of being apostates and traitors. Their homes are bombed. Death threats are wrapped around blood-soaked bullets and left outside their homes. Their relatives are abducted and killed because of their work. And of the interpreters themselves, hundreds have been killed.
But many work in spite of the repercussions, and that dedication resonates clearly for many American soldiers and marines.
While there is no detailed tracking of the total number of Iraqis who have worked as interpreters, their advocates estimate that more than 20,000 people have filled such roles since 2003. In the last quarter of 2007 alone, 5,490 Iraqis were employed by the multinational force as interpreters, according to the Department of Defense.
Nearly 2,000 interpreters in Iraq and Afghanistan have applied to the State Department for a special immigrant visa, which was begun in 2006 as a last resort for those fearing for their lives. So far 1,735 cases have been approved, though it is unclear how many interpreters have come to the United States.
In its first year the visa program for interpreters was limited to only 50 spots. Since then it has expanded to 500 spots a year.
But the numbers tell only part of the difficulty. The program does little to minimize the visa bureaucracy. The process, complicated for anyone, is especially hard for interpreters.
They are considered refugees, and refugees cannot apply from their native countries, in this case Iraq. But Jordan and Syria have closed their borders to the flood of Iraqi refugees. Passports issued by the government of Saddam Hussein are not valid, often making it impossible to cross borders legally.
Among service members who have served in Iraq, there is no dispute that the number of interpreters in danger is far greater than the number of those who have won visas. Many veterans are angry about the bureaucratic hurdles faced by the Iraqis who often came to work with a price on their heads. Many others have for years expressed frustration with the Bush administration for not doing more to help Iraqis who aid American forces, even as other advocates criticize the overall low numbers of Iraqis generally granted visas to the United States.
Gordon D. Johndroe, a White House spokesman, said the government’s hands were initially tied by the lack of federal legislation allowing special visas for interpreters. Now that more visas have been made available, he said, President Bush has directed Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and the homeland security secretary, Michael Chertoff, to “make sure the visa process for translators and others moves as quickly as possible.”
Helping Their Own
Lt. Col. Steven Miska, an Army infantry officer, has had more than 50 interpreters work for him during his years in Iraq. After looking into the visa process, he decided that “no Iraqi would ever figure that thing out,” and set his staff members to establish a network. They pair Iraqis with American veterans who help shepherd them out of Iraq, through Jordan and Syria and into the United States.
“Not only is it the right thing to do from a moral perspective, it’s the way to win,” Colonel Miska said, stressing that the assistance will help reassure Iraqis that they can trust Americans despite the risk in helping them.
Jason Faler, 30, a captain with the Oregon National Guard, was an intelligence liaison officer embedded in the Iraqi Ministry of Defense. After returning from Iraq in 2006 and learning that the lives of two interpreters he had worked with were in danger, Mr. Faler got involved, paying their visa application fees.
To broaden assistance to other interpreters, Mr. Faler established the Checkpoint One Foundation, based in Salem, Ore. The group, whose Web site is at www.cponefoundation.org, has helped two Iraqi families and one Afghan couple make it to the United States, spending most of the $25,000 it has raised. Even Mr. Faler’s parents have lent a hand, housing both Iraqi families for several weeks.
The foundation has become a second job that at times takes him away from work and family, Mr. Faler said. But he is unwavering in his support of interpreters. “There is a sense of loyalty that is almost impossible for me to articulate,” he said.
Will Bardenwerper, a 31-year-old Princeton graduate, was an Army captain responsible for reconstruction projects in Anbar Province from 2006 to 2007. His interpreter, whom he called Jeff, became a friend and adviser.
Mr. Bardenwerper was so struck by the danger Jeff faced that he began the visa application process for him even before returning to the United States last year. Like others, Mr. Bardenwerper ran into a thicket of red tape. He was particularly frustrated by the requirement that interpreters produce a letter from a general on their behalf. This, he said, was like a junior associate at a Fortune 500 company asking the chief executive for a letter of recommendation.
“Over the course of a year, I might have met two generals,” Mr. Bardenwerper said. “I mean, we were out in a wasteland in Anbar.”
But after a year of follow-up, Mr. Bardenwerper and Jeff finally had a breakthrough. Jeff arrived in America in March and has gotten to visit with Mr. Bardenwerper and other service members who took up his cause.
An Incomplete Ending
Although some veterans have succeeded in bringing their interpreters safely to the United States, the experience of Colonel Zacchea and Jack shows that a visa, while a substantial advantage, does not guarantee a happy ending to a war story.
Colonel Zacchea, who served with the Marines, said he spotted Jack immediately. Jack studied diligently and absorbed the complexities of military translation quickly. An enduring friendship grew around the training regimen and the combat missions. When the sun set each day, they drank chai, or tea, and often talked for hours.
In 2005, after the Colonel Zacchea left Iraq, Jack applied for a Fulbright scholarship. He had been a physics tutor before the war and wanted to teach high school students in the United States, but he did not qualify.
Within a week of the Fulbright rejection, Colonel Zacchea heard about the start of the special visa program. He wrote a recommendation for Jack, who also had a petition filed on his behalf by his American supervisors. But Jack was not accepted.
In March 2006, Colonel Zacchea learned that Arkan, another translator who had worked with them, was killed by insurgents. Two previous attempts on his life had failed, but not the third.
Colonel Zacchea kept pushing, and he resubmitted Jack’s paperwork. He stayed in constant contact with Jack, hoping to make sure he did not share Arkan’s fate.
After nearly two more years, Jack’s application made it through, and in September 2007 he landed at Newark Liberty International Airport.
But Jack struggled in the United States. The only safety net he had was the one Colonel Zacchea had created. Jack lived in the basement of his home and spent his days searching for work, but satisfaction was elusive. He worked at Macy’s briefly, then in the maintenance department of a hotel.
But because Jack was an Arabic speaker who had been vetted by the military and the Department of Homeland Security, both men held out hope for more — for a career as an interpreter or teacher in the United States.
When Jack finally got a job offer, in April, it was one he felt he could not refuse — even though it meant going back to Iraq. The military offered him a one-year contract, loaded with incentives, to return and work as an interpreter again.
After one year, he could return to the foundations he and Colonel Zacchea had laid in Connecticut — all with no change in his visa status.
The decision was wrenching: roll the dice in Iraq one more time for a life-changing payout, or continue foundering here.
Reluctantly, and against the advice of people close to him, Jack took the offer. On a rainy night in April they drove to a hotel at the airport in Hartford. Jack’s flight was early the next morning.
Over dinner, Jack tried to explain why he could not stay. “If I had found a job here, a good job when I came, I would, probably,” Jack said, searching for the right words. “I would not go back.”
Six hours later, Jack’s bags were checked and his ticket was in his hand. He and Colonel Zacchea exchanged a few words of farewell, hugged and then parted ways.
 
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