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Posted on Friday, December 12, 2008

Wyden helps save lives of Iraqi interpreters

In a recent Oregonian editorial, Senator Ron Wyden and 11 of his colleagues from the House of Representatives were recognized for ending a "callous and senseless"  Pentagon order forcing Iraqi interpreters to uncover their faces. Many Iraqi interpreters work with the U.S. military at great personal risk. Senator Wyden and his colleagues recognize and honor their service and support.  Their intervention forced the Pentagon to rescind that policy.

Here is the editorial:

Iraqi interpreters: Wyden helps save some lives

Iraqi Interpreters: Wyden helps save some lives

by The Editorial Board, Monday December 08, 2008

The Oregon senator’s intervention persuades the Pentagon to change a foolish policy

It was a callous and senseless thing for the military to do in the first place, and it took the intervention of a U.S. senator and 11 representatives to make it right. A little more than two weeks after Sen. Ron Wyden, Rep. Earl Blumenauer and nine others sent a letter to Defense Secretary Robert Gates, the Pentagon quietly reversed its recent policy that stripped Iraqi translators of the masks that many of them use to conceal their identities.

Now the interpreters will be allowed again to cover their faces as they patrol with U.S. troops in Iraq, just as they had been doing for more than five years. Many interpreters choose to do so out of fear that they or their families will be targeted for assassination for helping the Americans.

Make no mistake: It’s enormously risky, even today, for Iraqis to work for the troops whom many in Iraqi regard as occupiers. Since 2003, several hundred have been killed, many specifically because of their work. At least one of them worked for Oregon National Guard troops in Baghdad.

"If any one of my neighbors see me with this uniform, I will get killed," an interpreter working with the U.S. 4-10 Cavalry Regiment, which patrols a large part of western Baghdad, told a BBC reporter last week. "Maybe they will kill my family. That’s the issue."

Soldiers and Marines are sympathetic to and appreciative of their interpreters, who make it possible for non-Arabic-speaking troops to converse with Iraqis. If it weren’t for the "terps," most Americans would be deaf to the sounds of Iraq. They couldn’t understand the preaching from mosques, the sounds of a dispute in a public market or why members of a family are pleading for help.

Nevertheless, some military bureaucrat concluded last month that masked interpreters looked unprofessional, or somehow sent the wrong message about the security situation in Iraq, and so ordered them not to cover their faces. It was an outrageously unfeeling conclusion, which is why it’s surprising that it took more than two weeks for the Pentagon to rescind the policy.

Officially, the military would prefer that Iraqi interpreters operate with uncovered faces, but won’t insist on it. The decision will be left to the military commanders working side by side with the interpreters. In practice, that should mean that the interpreters can again cover their faces when they feel themselves at risk.

Considering how much is asked of them each day, it’s not too much for them to ask in return.