THE US, UN AND IRAQ V

If you can reduce our atrocities to a "post war mess," then you and I have no conversation.

Steve, this kind of thought awakens me at midnight. Has this engine become a self-perpetuating agent of destruction? A force of any kind can feed on its own internal power. I have never had such fear for the future of this country.

deploy forces in sufficient numbers and with the right training and equipment to restore law and order, until Iraqi police forces can operate effectively;
set up urgently an effective and fair vetting procedure for members of the Iraqi police forces, so as to reduce the chance of restoring to their duties officials who may have been involved in human rights violations;
ensure, in exercising or supervising policing functions, that the rights of freedom of expression and assembly are not arbitrarily restricted.

THE TRANSLATOR CRISIS.
Speechless
by Anne O'Donnell

Post date 12.11.03 | Issue date 12.22.03

In July and September, when two American interpreters were separately detained on suspicion of espionage at Camp Delta, the U.S. facility in Guantanamo Bay where suspected Islamic militants are held, many observers expressed surprise that spies might have infiltrated the highly secure facility. After all, the personal histories of both interpreters, Ahmed F. Mehalba and Ahmad I. Al Halabi, contained red flags that should have prevented them from obtaining the required security clearance: Mehalba filed for bankruptcy in 1997, and Al Halabi was under investigation for making anti-American comments.

But the lapse isn't really that surprising. The simple fact is that the U.S. Army--like the CIA, the FBI, the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), and other government agencies--is desperate for speakers of Arabic, Farsi, Pashto, and other languages to assist in the war on terrorism. But qualified translators have been hard to come by--even as the need for them continues to grow. "The archival material [American forces] found in Afghanistan strained DIA and CIA to the limits," says Reuel Marc Gerecht, a former CIA operative stationed in the Middle East. And that documentary trove doesn't even compare to the reams of material found in Iraq. "The material that ought to be reviewed for intelligence purposes on weapons of mass destruction, terrorism, and de-Baathification is enormous," Gerecht says.

The good news is that, since September 11, 2001, the government has launched an effort to train and hire many more translators. The bad news is that the effort has been fitful, disorganized, and ineffective. In some cases, this has meant hiring translators who are unqualified or, in the case of the Camp Delta incidents, possible national security threats. (General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters that the Guantanamo Bay infiltrations "should not be a surprise.") But, more often than not, it has meant that translator jobs in military, law enforcement, and intelligence agencies have simply gone unfilled--with potentially disastrous consequences.

On the eve of the September 11 attacks, only a handful of FBI agents spoke Arabic, and millions of hours of Arabic-language intelligence tapes--some of which, it turned out, contained information that might have been used to anticipate the attacks--lay untranslated. According to a January 2002 General Accounting Office (GAO) report, such shortages were prevalent in the State Department and in the Army as well. During fiscal year 2001, 68 percent of the Army's positions for Farsi speakers and 50 percent of its positions for Arabic speakers were unfilled. Days after the attacks, FBI Director Robert Mueller publicly pleaded for "English-speaking individuals with professional-level proficiency in Arabic and Farsi" to come to the Bureau's aid; the National Security Agency (NSA) and the Department of Defense issued similarly desperate appeals. The Department of Education poured money into a newly created National Middle East Language Resource Center, a consortium of language experts from more than 20 major universities, to improve opportunities for learning the region's languages. And, last winter, when Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz visited Dearborn, Michigan, home to a large community of Iraqi-Americans, he announced that the émigrés could help liberate their homeland by joining an Army program in which they would serve as interpreters for U.S. units.

This campaign had some effect. The CIA, for example, reports that, in the last several years, it has tripled the number of Arabic-speaking staffers it employs--though the CIA won't divulge how many it had to begin with. Other agencies have not fared as well. Although the FBI and NSA were inundated with resumés of Arabic speakers following September 11, the vast majority of applicants were unqualified. The Army, too, has failed to attract Arabic speakers, resulting in a serious, sometimes embarrassing, strain on its Iraq operations. According to one American official in Iraq who speaks Arabic, "When one American official was giving a pep talk to his [new Iraqi] staff, basically saying, 'We expect you all to work hard for us, and, if you don't, you know that you'll be fired,' his words were translated as, 'We expect you to work hard for us, and, if you don't, you'll be lined up and shot.'" Many of the interpreters hired in Iraq, the official says, are from other Arab countries and speak dialects virtually impossible for Iraqis to understand.

Part of the problem is a lack of Arabic-proficient Americans: U.S. universities have traditionally given Arabic-language studies low priority. But responsibility also rests with government agencies that seem unwilling, or unable, to change their practices for hiring translators. The January 2002 GAO report that studied foreign-language shortfalls in State, the FBI, and the Army drew up a list of specific hiring recommendations to help each analyze their shortages and develop a strategy to address them. The FBI initially stepped up to the plate, unveiling a plan that called for hiring 193 language-capable agents. Yet, despite this plan, when Senator Russell Feingold's office evaluated the FBI's progress nearly a year later, it found the Bureau had not hired a single new Arabic-speaking agent under the plan. State and the Army, meanwhile, simply told the GAO that they weren't interested in its suggestions. The strategies they had were working so smoothly, it seems, that State today employs only 54 fully professional Arabic-speaking diplomats worldwide to operate in over 20 Arab nations.

The government has not only failed to hire new linguists; it may have difficulty retaining the ones it already has. In part, this is because many agencies continue to treat language capability as a secondary ability at best, and translators feel as though their skills are woefully underused. A group of linguists from Utah's National Guard and Reserves in Iraq recently complained to The Salt Lake Tribune that they spend their days as glorified gofers, chauffeuring intelligence collectors from one place to another. The Utah linguists--many of whom learned foreign languages on Mormon missions--are known for their prowess, but these men say their skills have atrophied in Iraq. That's probably because they speak Mandarin Chinese and Spanish, not Arabic. The men were apparently deployed as part of a reserve call-up without anyone noticing that they could be better employed studying Arabic. (Translation skills are, to an extent, transferable among languages, so linguists often learn several.) Although money has been allocated for the men to learn Arabic back in the United States, the military has extended their deployment orders, meaning they're still in Iraq "painting the rocks," as they call their inactivity on base. Guard officials fear many will opt not to re-up when their Iraq stint is over.

The government also has not offered translators the kind of financial incentives that might prevent them from leaving for the private sector. All government agencies provide "foreign-language proficiency pay" to employees who keep up their language skills, but, for active duty Army personnel, it only adds a maximum monthly bonus of $100 per language. Reservists get even less. A special operations reservist who is registered as an Arabic speaker--precisely the kind of person the Army wants to have available to be called up when needed--is paid only an additional $13.33 per month for his skills, because he technically only uses the language during his one weekend per month of active training.

Even without training new government employees or retaining the linguists already in the public sector, government agencies could plug their translator holes with native speakers. Yet State, the FBI, the NSA, and other agencies have been unable to hire enough native speakers to fill the void. This is not entirely their fault: Arab nationals have an extraordinarily difficult time passing the security clearance process. (More than 90 percent of the applicants who sent resumés to the FBI and NSA after September 11 were rejected because they could not obtain clearance.) "The very best people are great because they grew up in Syria or Lebanon," says one Arabic linguist at the Defense Department. "But you can't clear those people for obvious reasons." There are native Arab-American speakers, however, who have lived in the United States for decades and who would make ideal candidates. "There's no shortage of Arab immigrants with all the language skills one could hope for," many of whom "are about as red, white, and blue as they come," says Dr. Kirk Belnap, director of the National Middle Eastern Language Resource Center. But Justice Department campaigns to track and register Arab-Americans have made many mistrustful of working for Uncle Sam. "The good news is these [Arab-American] communities ... have the numbers and language skills our government needs," says retired Lieutenant Colonel Stephen Franke, a former Army Arabic linguist. "The bad news is they've become so traumatized" that many of them--especially community leaders--now want very little to do with government recruiters.

Even Arab-Americans who want to volunteer as linguists find there is no easy way to do so. News of the program announced by Wolfowitz last winter spread across the country at a snail's pace. When Franke contacted an Army recruiting office in California weeks after the program was announced on behalf of an Arab-American friend whose son wanted to enlist, the recruiters "didn't have a clue what I was talking about," he says.

With the number of Arabic, Pashto, and Farsi speakers still so low, the government has been forced to improvise. The Department of Defense, for one, has turned to contractors, asking the San Diego-based Titan Corporation to search for linguists. But contractors are at best a stopgap solution. According to several reports, when professionals are unavailable, contractors normally hire native speakers who have never worked as linguists, give them only two weeks or so of training, and throw them into live situations. For example, Titan's recruiting practices include cold-calling people in the phone book who have Afghan-sounding names and posting hiring messages in online chat rooms frequented by Arab-Americans.

Contractors also may not vet their hires closely enough, as the alleged Guantanamo infiltration shows. One of the suspected spies was supplied to the military by Titan; as a result, the company's contract is "under review." But, while Titan was responsible for the initial background check, the government was supposed to perform a more complete security investigation. In response to Senate questioning, Charles Abell, a principal deputy undersecretary of defense for personnel, testified, "We all recognized that we didn't have enough Arabic linguists already employed to meet our requirements. ... In our rush to meet the requirements, ... I think folks were brought on based on those initial checks."

Many government officials realize something more needs to be done. Responding to questions two months ago about the Guantanamo debacle, General Myers said that Arabic is "a language skill that has been in short supply, certainly. ... And we've got to do everything we can do to find people to help." Of course, they said the same thing back in September 2001.

Anne O'Donnell is a reporter-researcher at TNR.

Funny thing is, despite all of the Bush administrations poor policy moves, I am convinced they actually think they are doing the right thing.

Steve, this kind of thought awakens me at midnight. Has this engine become a self-perpetuating agent of destruction? A force of any kind can feed on its own internal power. I have never had such fear for the future of this country.

You and Steve needn't worry too much about the continuation of forceful global policy after Bush simply because it will be a long time before another president has the guts to call it like it is and to risk re-election in the process.

It would appear that you have swallowed every fruitcake allegation that the leftwing nuts have thrown out and have stopped thinking for yourself.

I agree that Kara is a fine well educated and thoughtful participant to the forum.

Atrocities should be used to describe Saddams actions---I believe Amnesty International would number his murders over one Million. If you count the deaths of all his wars then the total is more like 20 million.

If you put our actions in that category then you and I have no further need for discussion

...(when I was dreaming Kara goes to Hollywood)

'We expect you all to work hard for us, and, if you don't, you know that you'll be fired,' his words were translated as, 'We expect you to work hard for us, and, if you don't, you'll be lined up and shot.'"

...but these men say their skills have atrophied in Iraq. That's probably because they speak Mandarin Chinese and Spanish, not Arabic.

Men were let down, says Iraq war widow
By Michael Smith, Defence Correspondent
(Filed: 27/11/2003)

The MoD is to to launch an inquiry into the death of a British tank commander who was not wearing body armour when he was killed in Iraq because of equipment shortages.

Baghdad Burning

... I'll meet you 'round the bend my friend, where hearts can heal and souls can mend...
Friday, December 12, 2003

Meanwhile...
We heard the latest statement from Washington about Germany, France, Russia and Canada not being allowed to have anything to do with the reconstruction. Iraq no longer feels like a country- it feels like war spoils: the winning team gets the pickings. So how is the world supposed to be involved in the reconstruction of Iraq when they are being deliberately excluded?

It's a decision like this one that brings to light the complete uselessness of the Governing Council. Why is Washington calling the shots on the reconstruction issues? This means that even after a military occupation, we'll be under an economic occupation for years to come. Why aren't any of the new ministers or GC members saying anything about this? Somehow, I have a feeling that if they have anything to say, it'll be in accordance with this latest decision.

There was a demonstration in Baghdad yesterday of about 4,000 people. The parties who are a part of the GC took part in an 'anti-terror' protest. The roads were closed for security reasons and helicopters were hovering over head. There were a couple of women's groups… I recognized some women from Al-Da'awa Al-Islamiya- Al-Jaffari's party. The Iraqi communist party and SCIRI were also involved. The irony is seeing SCIRI members hold up the "NO TERROR" banners (they could start by not terrorizing the Al-Iraqiya station because the anchorwomen don't wear hijabs…).

There were other demonstrations in some provinces, and they've all been lobbed together with the one in Baghdad. The truth is that some of them were actually anti-occupation demonstrations, like the one in Khaldiya. There were large crowds demonstrating in Khaldiya, demanding the release of boys and men who have been detained for over 3 months in American prison camps.

Today (well, technically, yesterday) there was another large demonstration in Baghdad which was a peaceful anti-occupation demonstration. The demonstrators were mainly university students and teachers who were opposing the raids occurring in some colleges and universities. They were demanding the release of three women who were detained when the Technology University in Baghdad was raided. Their spokesperson, a professor, I think, said that this was going to be the first demonstration in a long series of anti-occupation activism being organized by teachers and students.

There were some loud explosions a while ago... I just read it might have been inside of the 'Green Zone'.

- posted by river @ 2:22 AM

I don't understand this. Are you saying forceful global policy will stop after Bush and won't restart because any likely follow up president is a wimp?

Shia demand UN decides on elections

Friday 12 December 2003, 17:59 Makka Time, 14:59 GMT

Iraqi Shia are critical of the US-led occupation of Iraq

Grand Ayat Allah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's highest-ranking Shia cleric, wants the United Nations to rule if early elections can take place in the country, in a new embarrassment to the US occupation authorities.

Washington, which has decreed a lengthy delay before proper elections are held in 2005, can ill-afford to snub the religious leader of Iraq's majority community.

"Ayat Allah Sistani maintains his call for elections in Iraq unless a neutral UN committee, appointed by Secretary General Kofi Annan, visits Iraq and reaches the conclusion that in the current circumstances it is technically and politically impossible to hold general elections," said interim Governing Council member Muwaffak al-Rubaie.

Agreement

The Governing Council signed a 15 November agreement with the US-led occupation coalition to transfer sovereignty to a transitional national assembly by 31 May next year.

General elections would not take place until March 2005, a date Sistani has rejected as far too late.

The deal gave no role at all to the United Nations, but
stipulates that the transitional assembly will be made up of
notables elected by a 15-member committee.

Five of the committee would be appointed by the Governing Council, the rest by provincial assemblies.

Compromise

Sistani, who has repeatedly called for general elections to the
first assembly in the new Iraq, rejected a compromise offered by the Governing Council.

Kofi Annan says it is dangerous
to resume Iraq operations
"We did not reach an agreement on this question and discussions are continuing between the Governing Council and the Marjaiya" (Shia leadership), Rubaie told reporters.

He met Sistani for three hours along with Ahmed Chalabi, another Governing Council member who is also a Shia, but Sistani threw out their proposal for a referendum, Rubaie added.

"We put forward a compromise proposal: the appointment of a
committee of 100-150 people from all political currents in Iraq, including those not represented on the council."

The names would then be put to a national referendum which
Rubaie said would be "easier to organise than general elections" that require constituencies to be drawn up, a list of candidates and an electoral campaign.

Debate

The interim council's 25 members are clearly divided over the
election issue.

The debate pits those whose prime objective is the return of sovereignty and an end to occupation against those who stress that the Iraqi people must first be consulted to give legitimacy to any new leaders.

Annan ruled out in a report this week any quick return to Iraq
for the United Nations, saying it remained too dangerous to put his staff at risk.

But he nevertheless said emergency and humanitarian work could be stepped up despite the grim outlook for security.

I posted his declaration a few pages back in case any of you missed it

That is----until Bush II came along-----now his ass is bouncing over the hills on a donkey

Of course he can still dictate a tape from his donkey