http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle.asp?xfile=data/theworld/2006/April/theworld_April1012.xml§ion=theworld&col=DEARBORN (Mich) — The US military is struggling to recruit Arab-Americans for its war on terrorism some five years after Septeber 11, with many in the community wary of US foreign policy and fighting wars in the Middle East.
Pentagon officials have often bemoaned the shortage of soldiers with Arabic skills that would be invaluable on the ground in Iraq, and could help translate a backlog of captured or intercepted material that could be critical to fighting militants.
Officials say that in a military of roughly 1.4 million people, about 4,000 have some proficiency in Arabic. The Pentagon says it will spend hundreds of millions of dollars in the next five years to beef up its foreign language capabilities, especially in Middle Eastern languages.
“What we’re looking for is people who have native skills, who speak it fluently and who are also very familiar with the culture over there,” said Capt. Hatem Abdine, a recruiter for the California Army National Guard who is a naturalized American of Syrian descent.
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