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Uncle Sam needs a few good Arabic-speaking interrogators

SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM
Wednesday, May 1, 2002

The U.S. Defense Department is in the market for Arabic speakers to interrogate suspected Al Qaida insurgents captured in Afghanistan.

U.S. officials acknowledge that military and intelligence agencies do not possess a sufficient number of Arabic speakers to conduct interrogations of those captured in Afghanistan. The result has been poor and insufficient intelligent information, Middle East Newsline reported.

"It is true that the United States government does not have as many Arabic speakers as we would wish," Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said. "We're doing things about that and bringing people back in and borrowing people from other government entities and using reservists who are being called up who have that competence."

U.S. law enforcement agencies as well as the Pentagon have advertised for speakers fluent in Arabic, Farsi and Urdu. The latter two are languages spoken in Iran and Pakistan, respectively.

Rumsfeld said the shortage of Arabic speakers has forced the United States to use interrogators from other countries. The defense secretary said Washington required the permission of other countries for the use of their nationals.

"We are also using interrogators from other countries on occasion when those countries have indicated a willingness and desire to do so," Rumsfeld said.

U.S. officials said the need to use American interrogators is vital because their counterparts in the Middle East use different methods. They said torture is frequently used by Middle East regimes to elicit information.

The shortage appears most acute in experienced interrogators and intelligence officers trained in Pashto or Urdu, languages common in Afghanistan and Pakistan. In late 2001, officials said, only a handful of people in U.S. military intelligence could speak these languages.

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