Lost in Translation

[November 7th, 2007]

The email in broken English to an Oregon man from “Mustafa” in Iraq is both urgent and polite.

“I have worked with us army for four years and six mothes since (april 2003 till the precent time) one year as sub contractor and three years and two months as interpreter,” Mustafa writes. “I was threated many times by phone calls and by letters, which made me and my family move to three diffrent places, and made my brother to leave Iraq he was interpreter also. I wished to leave with my brother and go out of Iraq but I could not cover the expenses of travel.”

This email and four others like it landed in the in box of Army Capt. Jason Faler last weekend, just days after an Oct. 31 editorial in The New York Times detailed Faler’s work on behalf of his new nonprofit, the Checkpoint One Foundation.

Faler, who trained and advised the joint forces of the Iraqi Ministry of Defense in 2005, formed the foundation over the summer to pressure the U.S. government to do more for Iraqi interpreters who have worked with Americans in the war-torn nation. CNN estimates there are 9,000 Iraqi interpreters now working in the country, and Faler is hoping to fund the relocation of as many as possible.

So when news of his efforts spread 7,000 miles away in Iraq among the tightknit group of interpreters there, requests for assistance started trickling in to Faler’s Tigard home.

The 3-month-old Checkpoint One Foundation faces a huge task, but it’s already made an immediate difference in the lives of one family.

Kamal Murad, who aided Americans in several capacities before interpreting for the U. S. Army starting in December 2004, arrived in the United States in September with Faler’s help. The two men, both in their early 30s, had worked together in Iraq.

Murad, a Shiite, paid a steep price for his affiliation with U.S. troops. A father of three children, Murad answered his phone one day last summer and was threatened because of his work. “The militia, they called me, and they said, ‘You are next,’” Murad says.

Now safe in a new Salem home, Murad works for minimum wage at a Chinese restaurant. A college graduate, Murad is the sole support for his three children and wife, who all traveled with Murad to Oregon. He had to sell his house quickly—and at a very low price—to pay for the expenses of immigrating to the United States with his family. He had taken precautions while working for the Americans in order to ward off threats. But he didn’t want to wear a mask to conceal his identity from insurgents. “I felt I wasn’t doing something wrong,” Murad says, explaining why he’d refused.

With the help of federal lawmakers like Sen. Gordon Smith (R-Ore.) and Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.), Faler and others like Kirk Johnson, who worked in Iraq for the United States Agency for International Development, are pushing for more aid to interpreters.

Currently, only interpreters such as Murad who have worked for the U.S. military are eligible for special visas to the United States. Interpreters who have worked for government agencies like USAID are not so lucky. “That’s not fair,” says Faler, 30. “Every one of them is a target in the eyes of insurgents.”

Interpreters must also solicit a letter of recommendation from a general and spend thousands of dollars to cover fees and other expenses. In addition, the number of special visas is capped at 500 a year; Smith has pushed for raising the limit to 5,000. Once in the United States, however, Iraqi interpreters aren’t eligible for the kind of assistance offered to other refugees.

In the meantime, the Checkpoint One Foundation, named for the security gate outside Iraq’s Green Zone, is expecting two more families to arrive in Oregon soon. To date, it has raised less than $10,000.

And while Faler has personal qualms about the direction of U.S. policy in Iraq, he’s not letting that get in the way of his work in Oregon. “This is about helping people who deserve to be helped,” Faler says.