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Why Iraqis, Including My Brother, Take Life-and-Death Risks for Work

By Sarmad Ali

I received an unanticipated email from a close friend in Baghdad last week telling me that my younger brother had just gotten a job with the U.S. military. My friend, who has been helping my family get travel documents and identification cards so they can leave Iraq, said my brother would be working as a guard for a U.S. military convoy, at a base about 20 miles north of Baghdad.

I was shocked. My brother never mentioned anything about plans to quit the carpentry work he had been doing for over a year and certainly has never said anything about working for the U.S. military. I suspect he kept it from me because he was afraid that I would try to dissuade him from making such a risky choice. Furthermore, my brother speaks little English.

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U.S. Army officers and a masked Iraqi interpreter, working with the Army, question an Iraqi boy while investigating a series of roadside bombs in Mosul. Iraqi translators wear caps, dark sunglasses and masks to hide their identities for fear of reprisals.

In addition to jeopardizing his life and drawing unneeded attention to his family, once my brother starts his new job he will only be able to visit my mother and my two sisters once a month. He told my friend to get in touch with me to tell me all of this and to let me know that I would need to take over what he had been doing to tend to their needs. I also would have to help with all that must be done in order for them try to move out of Iraq, something that would be very tricky for me from here. I don’t have documents that would allow me to move freely between Iraq and the U.S.

My friend told me that my younger sister had called him as soon as she heard the news. She was terrified, fearful for my brother’s safety and worried about how my family will cope without my brother in the house. He shops for my family because they are too scared to go outside, and they rely on the money he brings in. She wanted to know when they were moving and when I would be coming to meet them for the move.

My family has vacillated between staying in Baghdad and moving to a relatively safer neighboring country. My brother has proven hard to convince to leave. He seems too scared, dejected and hopeless to imagine change and another life. He has told me that he would rather die with honor at home than be treated disrespectfully by Arabs in other countries; he was referring to the widespread stories about discrimination against Iraqi refugees in Jordan and Syria.

Jordanian authorities have been known to stop Iraqi refugees at the border and send them back. I came to the U.S. three years ago, before the massive influx of refugees, and even then it was difficult to get into Jordan. I went by car to Amman to get my visa. Of the seven passengers, only three made it across the border. Others were sent back because they raised the suspicion of Jordanian border guards. Iraqis who overstay their visas in Jordan have been assessed a per-day fine; that happened to me and I paid the equivalent of about $5 a day.

The last time I talked to my brother, a couple of months ago, I asked him if he was afraid of being killed if he stays in Iraq. “I’m not better than the many who are dying here every day,” he said. (I’ve had little contact with him recently. He often is unwilling to speak with me because he is angry that I am in the U.S. rather than at home with my family. As I have written before, my mother has encouraged me to stay in the U.S. until I have travel documents that would make it possible to leave and then re-enter the U.S. — and until it’s safer in Iraq.)

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An Iraqi interpreter, who works for Titan Corp., helps a U. S. soldier, right, to inspect a man.

Immediately after reading my friend’s email on Monday, I tried calling my brother’s cellphone but he didn’t answer. Because my family’s landline has been down for a while, I called my friend who sent the email.

My friend told me what he has heard about the place where my brother would work. “It’s one of the most dangerous places to be in,” he said. “It’s like throwing yourself in the middle of hell without expecting to be burned by its fire.” He told me that my brother would be going to the same place that his friend, Ali Jamaiya, had gone to work. “His bones were all shattered in an attack on the same military base even though he was just a cook for them,” he said. Ali has received treatment in Jordan; his face is disfigured and he is still unable to walk steadily.

I had spoken to Ali a few months ago, shortly after he was injured, and he told me that the main reason he accepted that precarious job was the high and tempting salary. In that job, he said an Iraqi with a bachelor’s degree, like himself, could earn up to a million Iraqi dinars — a little less than $1,000 — each month, which is a very good payment in Iraq. Ali, who was in pain from bruises, fractured bones and burns, told me he regretted “stepping in that hell.”

I know of some others who have decided to take dangerous jobs.

Last fall, I received an email from another friend, also named Ali, telling me that he had been resettled to Alabama on a special immigrant visa program for Iraqis and Afghans who had previously worked as interpreters for the U.S. military in their home countries. Part of the reason they were given special visas is because of the danger they faced at home for their work for the military. I was glad to hear that he had made it safely to the U.S.

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A U.S. Army officer, left, and a masked Iraqi interpreter working for the Army, right, meet with residents in Mosul.

A few days later, though, I talked to Ali again, and he asked me to vouch for him, as he was planning to apply for a job as a military interpreter, back in Iraq. A friend of his, Muder, who had come to the U.S. under the same circumstances, also was planning to return.

Both Ali and Muder said that they would like to go back, despite the risks involved, because they would have many of the same benefits as American soldiers now that they had their U.S. documents. “I would work there for a while to get some cash to be able to start my own business or go to school” in the U.S., Ali told me. “It’s hard to start from scratch here.”

Translators who have a green card, like Ali and Muder, earn more money than Iraqis who don’t have one. They also get health benefits and other things that they wouldn’t get without their immigration documents. When I last spoke with Ali late last year, he was in Virginia, waiting to get an interview for a translation job.

As an Iraqi who lived in Iraq before and after the U.S. invasion, I can understand why people would risk their lives to get a decent, stable salary. I don’t blame them for doing so. But, still, I wish my brother wouldn’t.

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    • If more Iraqis were like your brother, then U.S. forces would be able to achieve their objectives and go home more quickly.

      Anyone would be afraid for his family. But your fear of working with U.S. forces, even as you take shelter in our homeland, is really ironic and makes me sad.

      “It’s like throwing yourself in the middle of hell without expecting to be burned by its fire.”

      Yes, sometimes it is — and it is Americans like the ones you see every day at school, who are shouldering the burden in that Hell, alongside brave Iraqis like your brother. Only by working together can Iraq be a safe and better place.

      U.S. forces cannot just leave Iraq as it is now, unsafe and in ruins, so it is in every Iraqi’s interest to help them.

    • FYI – Democrat policy = Republican policy. When will Americans realize there is no discernible difference. Mitt, Rudy, Hillary, Barack, McCain…a vote for one is the same as a vote for all. BTW, how could you support Bush for “protecting” our country from the Iraqi threat?? What threat? Were they going to bombard us with their catapults? Come on now, be realistic.

    • reporter, USA, http://theclearsky.blogspot.com/
      If you think that voters can react that quickly to foreign policy, you are nuts. The president is in office for 4 years! By the way, I happen to support the President’s decision. He did what he thought was the best thing to protect our country.

      If anybody is watching this log I hope they instantly take your message off of this site – I don’t care if you are a reporter. You have no right to encourage refugees to kill Americans.

      I sympathize very much with the refugees – I wish things could be different for them. But advocating more violence is not a good answer to the problem.

      It seems like you are just trying to get people to hate the Republicans so that they will vote for Democrats. Let’s hope nobody is encouraged to kill because of your irresponsible comments.

    • Dear E Chris:
      “These are just the victims of extremists and jihadists who don’t want Iraq to prosper and don’t want the US to succeed in its mission.”

      I disagree with your point that they don’t want Iraq to prosper, but I wholeheartedly agree on your point that they don’t want the U.S. to succeed in its mission. They want Iraq to prosper, eventually, but the “extremists” (can we please call them something else more appropriate like resistance fighters, or freedom fighters?) are fighting for control of the country. They do not want the U.S. or some other western country raping the country of its oil and imposing a western system of values (i.e. christian values) on its people. In my opinion, this whole mess following the invasion could have been avoided if the U.S. had simply provided security to the people, clean drinking water, food, electricity, and stable employment. Instead, the Iraqi’s have no security, limited electricity, and a vast majority of the population is malnourished. Anyone looking for insight into what went wrong, and how it went wrong in the immediate aftermath of the invasion should read this book: “Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq’s Green Zone” by Rajiv Chandrasekaran. This is a NYT Book of the Year.

    • Thank you for opening up and sharing your experiences yet again.