Paul Rieckhoff: Saving the Friends We Left Behind

Saving the Friends We Left Behind
by Paul Rieckhoff
Posted March 5, 2008

Buzz up!

He was my most effective weapon in Iraq. Without him by my side, I was essentially deaf and blind. His name is Esam, and he served as my interpreter in Iraq. Iraqis like Esam put their lives on the line for their country, and for our troops. Now, most are facing forced exile, separation from their families, or even death.

Buzz up!on Yahoo!Esam is one of the lucky ones to have made it out of Iraq alive. More than 250 interpreters working for U.S. forces or contractors have been killed in Iraq since the 2003 invasion.

Current estimates put the number of Iraqis who have worked with American forces in Iraq in the tens of thousands. And in many cases, their cooperation with Americans has put them at a huge risk for retaliation. Unfortunately, they're finding it almost impossible to find refuge inside the U.S.

Our government has pledged to bring 12,000 Iraqi refugees to the U.S. by this September. But we have seen this promise broken before. As it stands now, only 1,432 refugees have been admitted since October of 2007. Sweden, a country with no troops in Iraq, has admitted 20,000 refugees in the same time period.

This is an issue our country has wrestled with in the past, so we know it has a solution; in 1999, President Clinton oversaw the admittance of 10,000 Kosovo refugees. Now it's clear that a similar, executive-level government effort is needed to ensure we don't leave these people behind without recourse and without hope.

IAVA and our Member Veterans are making this issue a major priority in 2008. In January, IAVA's Will Bardenwerper, an Iraq veteran, spearheaded an unprecedented working group in New York City with people involved in the fight to help our Iraqi allies. The speakers included advocates such as Kirk Johnson, a former USAID employee who worked in Baghdad and the founder of The List Project. The List Project is already tracking more than 1,000 Iraqis running from persecution as a result of their cooperation with American forces, and they hear from more each day. Kirk was joined by Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, The New Yorker's George Packer, Iraqis themselves (including five interpreters and their veteran sponsors), human rights organizations and other leaders in the field, to talk about the best way to tackle this problem.

The 2008 National Defense Authorization Act, signed into law by President Bush in January, included a provision to increase the number of special visas for Iraqi interpreters and other Iraqis who worked for the State Department or American contractors in the war zone. But progress has been stalled. Its implementation is being held up by officials in the State and Homeland Security Departments. Meanwhile, the Iraqis wait under constant threat.

As Kirk Johnson argues:

"If this doesn't prove why it's President Bush's responsibility to whip these bureaucracies into shape, and why the best intentions of Congress can only nudge things, I don't know what else can."

Join IAVA in bringing this urgent message to Washington. Click here to sign a petition to President Bush telling him to take real action on the issue. This is just the first step towards repaying our debt to the comrades we have left behind to die.