Iraq: Have Thousands of U.S. Friendly Iraqis Been Targeted for Assassination?

American soldiers may have left Iraq, but they have left behind hundreds of thousands of Iraqi comrades whose lives remain in danger. More than 150,000 Iraqis who worked with the US, and are now under constant threat of assassination for aiding American forces in that country.

BAGHDAD, IRAQ (Catholic Online) - For four years, the US government has had a program to help rescue these individuals -- a process known as the Special Immigrant Visas (SIV) program.

The SIV program is specially designed to expedite the visa application process for as many as 25,000 people over five years who worked with Americans and are found to be facing an ongoing threat in their country.

But, the US has dragged its feet. President Obama mandated more detailed background checks which have only served to lengthen the process. Now, the average wait time for an applicant is at least nine months. That's a long time for someone living under the threat of assassination.

In fact, it's too long for at least 300 people who have been killed for working with US. Today, only 7,000 visas have been issued according to the State Department, and more than 30,000 applications are still pending a decision.

Many Iraqis who are still waiting for their visas have fled to nearby countries such as Saudi Arabia, and Jordan because they are in danger at home.

Since reconstruction efforts came to an end, Iraqis who cheerfully helped the United States rebuild the country have suffered a dangerous reversal of fortune. During reconstruction, money was lavished on the Iraqi people.

Facilities and infrastructure that was damaged and destroyed during the war, or neglected under the regime of Saddam Hussein, were built and only the extremists complained. But once the money stopped flowing, and the reconstruction efforts halted, resentment against the United States and those who helped American forces spread rapidly.

Now, many of those who worked with US have had their information obtained by radicals and extremists, who have threatened to kill those who worked with United States. To a great number of Iraqis, those who aided the Americans are traitors.

The American government maintained careful records on the Iraqi civilians that aided reconstruction. However, at least some of those records have fallen into the wrong hands, possibly sold to insurgents who paid to obtain names of people to target.

And so the waiting continues, for more than 30,000 Iraqis who don't know if they will be alive to taste freedom in the United States. It is a shameful legacy that we have brought the troops home in time for Christmas, but left behind thousands who risked their lives and contributed to US efforts in that country.

Although technically, these people have not been abandoned, they have been betrayed -- at least in a bureaucratic sense. Unless the State Department can expedite the already expedited process of approving these visas, that  betrayal could prove fatal for many.

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