August 26, 2007	Sunday	Sha’aban 12, 1428

BAGHDAD: Abu Usama, accused of being a spy for working as a US military translator, thought he would protect his family from retribution if he left Iraq.

In January, four months after he went alone to Jordan, his father, brother and brother-in-law were snatched by suspected Al Qaeda fighters near their home in western Baghdad. None has been seen since. All are presumed dead.

Abu Usama’s story is typical of many of the thousands of Iraqis who put their lives at risk by working as translators for the Americans, British and others whose forces are fighting Iraq’s relentless insurgency.

For a few hundred dollars a month and with a dream of helping to build a new Iraq — or of a visa to get out — they put themselves and their families in danger of reprisals by militants.

Many are in limbo, stuck in third countries like Jordan and Syria, where an estimated two million Iraqis have fled.

Translators interviewed by the news agency refused to give their names for fear of retribution.“Abu Usama” — the name is an alias — earned about $350 a month working for a US military police unit in Abu Ghraib, a violent neighbourhood in western Baghdad. “It was a very terrible place,” he said.

He twice received death threats, one delivered in a message to his front gate. He decided to go, leaving behind his wife, six-year-old son and four-year-old daughter. Their third child was born two months after he left.

“I am without work and it is very difficult for me to get them here,” he told the news agency by telephone from Amman.

“I came here to Jordan to emigrate to America. It is very difficult. I have passed one year here trying,” Abu Usama said.

It is hard to get an exact figure for how many Iraqis work as translators for US military and reconstruction teams.

Most work for a contractor which pays about 8,000 translators a flat fee of $750 a month. They can earn bonuses of $150 a month if they live with their units and another $150 if they go out on patrols.

BEHEADED: “Shak”, who lives in Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone with his wife and five children, believes in his work and says US forces are trying to help the people of Iraq.

But he also knows the risks after the body of a 26-year-old colleague was found last year near Sadr City.

“They found an ID badge in his pocket that said he worked for US forces. Unfortunately, they cut off his head. He was my friend,” Shak told the news agency.

Many try to keep their work secret in a bid to protect themselves and their families.

“A woman in my neighbourhood stopped me and asked if I worked for the Americans,” said “Sal”, who lives in Rusafa in Baghdad’s predominantly Shia east.

“I laughed and said: ‘I wish I worked for the Americans. I don’t speak English. I work in a supermarket’. I don’t think she believed me,” he said.

The US Department of Homeland Security said in May it could accept as many as 7,000 refugees through the current fiscal year. This was after President George Bush’s administration came under fire from Congress for accepting only 466 Iraqi refugees since the US-led invasion in 2003.

The US embassy in Baghdad said in a statement that the Bush administration was separately seeking legislation from Congress that would grant special immigration visas to all eligible “locally engaged staff” after three years of service.

“The administration is committed to taking care of the many brave Iraqis who have worked or are working for the United States in Iraq,” the statement said.

The treatment of translators in Iraq gained greater prominence in July after Denmark said it had secretly airlifted about 200 translators and other Iraqi employees and their families out of Iraq.

An admission this month that automatic asylum would not be granted to the 90-odd interpreters working with the 5,000-strong British force in southern Iraq was soon followed by newspaper headlines like “Abandoned — The 91 Iraqis Who Risked All”.

US efforts so far come as little comfort to the thousands of Iraqis like Abu Usama who are still without visas and want Washington to follow Copenhagen’s example.—Reuters