Iraqi interpreters seek refuge in U.S.

[sabra]

Source: McClatchy Newspapers

DAMASCUS, Syria — Mohamed Abdul Kareem's crushing culmination to three years of service as a translator and cultural adviser to U.S. troops in Iraq came on the recent day that he joined a long line of Iraqi widows and children at a refugee registration center here.

An air of defeat engulfed him despite his spotless gray Nikes and expensive Oakley sunglasses. He took his place in the somber queue, and eventually received his appointment date with a United Nations refugee specialist: Jan. 10, 2008.

That gives him seven additional months to stew in the bitterness of his abrupt transition from trusted U.S. military interpreter with a high security clearance to just another castoff of the war in Iraq, an Iraqi refugee among 1.4 million others in Syria.

"I think maybe one of the reasons (American military officers) haven't replied is because they think I betrayed them by coming here to Syria," Abdul Kareem said. "But, believe me, I had no other place to go."

...

Sometimes, he said, the nostalgia for American life is overpowering. When he went to the Syrian-Iraqi border to renew his permit to stay in Syria, he caught sight of a U.S. Marine unit patrolling the area. He longed to shout to them in English, ask them for work, shoot the breeze. But he stood on the other side of the razor wire, among bedraggled Iraqis who glared at the Americans and cursed them in whispers.

Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/iraq/story/17103.html

[Barrett808]

1. k & r

[Orsino]

2. Republican heads explode.

Must...say we promote...freedom...must hate...immigrants...illogical.

[maddezmom]

3. Update: Iraqi translator finally gets visa for U.S.(different one in Jordan)

Ansam, the 34-year-old Iraqi translator for the U.S. Marines that McClatchy first wrote about in March, appears to be headed for the United States. On Wednesday, she got an e-mail saying a visa is waiting for her and telling her what paperwork will be required.

That’s a big turn in fortunes for a woman whose hope for political asylum in the United States were at a dead end. Several U.S. military officers had written letters of support and she had a “guardian angel” in the form of Angela Williams, a State Department employee who took a special interest in her case, but there’d been no movement in her case.

Two weeks after the story ran, the U.S. government flew her to neighboring Jordan and set her up with a salaried embassy job and free lodging. Ansam credits both the publicity and Williams’ tireless behind-the-scenes work for getting her predicament noticed in Washington.

“Now I’m in the embassy, working on visas, and before this I couldn’t even get a passport!” she said during a phone interview from Amman. She proudly added that she would be paying her own expenses within a few weeks.

more:http://www.mcclatchydc.com/iraq/story/17178.html