I'm ashamed to admit that the U.S. government has abandoned these people. No one seems eager to bring more Iraqis into this country in an election year.
President Obama has failed to keep his 2007 campaign pledge to rescue these Iraqis. A group of concerned senators, mostly Democrats, including Pennsylvania's Bob Casey, has made inquiries, but gotten no answers from Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta or Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano. Nor has a peep been heard on behalf of the "terps" from Republican senators who backed our war in Iraq.
State Department officials say they're working hard to expedite the visa process. Yet the number of visas for Iraqis who helped us slowed to a trickle just when they were most urgently needed, as U.S. troops quit Iraq.
Nor has the Pentagon made any move to rescue Iraqis who worked with our soldiers. Many U.S. officers moved mountains to get their Iraqi aides out, but others have been thwarted. Moreover, individual officers can't organize the large-scale evacuation that's now needed.
Official figures show that 39,000 Iraqis (including family members) are in the pipeline in the Direct Access program for Iraqis who worked with us. Only 153 of these visas were issued in December. There are about 15,000 (not including family) in the pipeline for the Special Immigrant Visa program. Only 50 SIVs were issued last month.
The supposed reason for the freeze is new security regulations imposed after two Iraqi refugees in Kentucky were accused of having terrorist connections. But these bad apples never worked for Americans. Those who did went through numerous security checks before getting their jobs.
A few of the e-mails I've received since the PBS show will give you a feeling for the Iraqis we are betraying.
