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U.S. Seeking To Recruit Arab Nationals For Special Forces
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The U.S.
Army, including its special forces, are suffering from an acute
shortage of foreign language specialists, particularly those
fluent in Gulf region languages
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WASHINGTON,
October 13 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) – After making use of
the Northern Alliance in it’s war in Afghanistan to topple the
Taliban government, the U.S. special forces is now considering
recruiting foreign nationals, including Arabic-speaking citizens
of Middle Eastern countries, for combat missions
overseas.
This
comes as Washington prepares for possible military action against
Iraq, a defense official said Saturday, reported Agence France-Presse
(AFP).
"That's
an initiative that we are looking at," Major Gary Kolb, spokesman
for Army special operations, told AFP in a telephone interview from
Fort Bragg, North Carolina. "We have not determined any specifics
yet."
Under current regulations, only U.S.
citizens can serve in the Green Berets, the Delta Force and other
elite U.S.
special forces units that are often tasked with carrying out the most
sensitive military missions abroad.
But
the U.S.
Army, including its special forces, are suffering from an acute
shortage of foreign language specialists, particularly those fluent in
Arabic as well as Central Asian and Gulf region languages.
As
many as 50 percent of Army vacancies for Arabic language experts and
68 percent for those proficient in Farsi, which is spoken in Iran,
remained vacant earlier this year, according to a report by the
General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of the U.S.
Congress.
Since
the project was still at a very early stage, Kolb said, no decision
has been made as to what specific foreign nationals the special forces
would be trying to recruit.
But
he made clear that when all the necessary approvals were collected,
Middle Easterners would be among them.
"It's much better to work with someone who has grown up in a
country than just an expert," the spokesman said. "Language
is a part of it, but it's also the whole culture issue."
Special
forces troops have been widely used in Afghanistan on reconnaissance
missions, identifying targets and calling in air strikes, pursuing
al-Qaeda and Taliban operatives and searching for caches of weapons.
According
to military experts, they are certain to be widely used in any
possible U.S.
military operation against Iraq.
But
defense officials have privately complained that the Afghan campaign
has also revealed the limited ability of American-born soldiers to
blend into local society and maintain their cover.
It
will take an act of the U.S.
Congress to allow foreign nationals to join these secretive strike
teams, said Kolb, adding that no top Pentagon official has yet
reviewed the proposal.
However,
the U.S.
military already has experience in recruiting foreigners for some of
its most sensitive operations overseas.
At
the height of the Cold War, Congress passed the so-called Lodge Act of
1950, which authorized the Army to recruit 12,000 alien nationals
outside of the United States in exchange for citizenship after five
years of service.
The
statute was used to recruit dozens of Eastern Europeans to create
special forces teams that could be dropped behind the Iron Curtain to
sabotage Soviet supply lines and organize anti-Communist guerrilla
movements, according to military historians.
There
is no evidence the units have ever actually been deployed. As
the United States gears up for a possible war with Iraq, the Defense
Department also confirmed Saturday it was repositioning some of its
military forces in support of the president's effort "to
identify, locate and hold accountable terrorists and those who support
and harbor them."
Following
the September 11 strikes in the U.S. the Central Intelligence Agency
(CIA) announced vacancies for individuals able to read and translate
Arabic, Dari, Pashto into English.
In
November, 2001, U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft announced a
program to reward foreigners in the United States who provide
information on terrorism with help in getting visas and eventual U.S.
citizenship.
In an interview with NBC television, Ashcroft described a new
"Responsible Cooperators Program," designed to encourage
people to provide information that "helps to save American
lives."
"Obviously,
we think it's the responsibility of all people to cooperate in the
fight against terror," he said. "For individuals who are
visitors in this country, sometimes they might be in possession of
information because of their language skills, or because of what they
know from at home that might be especially valuable to us."
Ashcroft
declined to call the new program an amnesty for illegal aliens, but
said, "if they bring information forward, they're not going to be
inquired of about their own status."
"We're
interested in helping them with their visas in the United
States," he said. "This is a program to give them improved
standing in processing visas and becoming citizens ultimately
someday."
In
a CNN report, Ashcroft said that if a person brought
"reliable" and "useful" information to the FBI or,
if overseas, to an embassy, "you could, as a result of that
information, be provided a visa which will allow you to be in the
United States, allow you if necessary to work in the United States and
provide a basis for your someday becoming a citizen."
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