Five years after mass terror attacks on US which prompted America’s sweeping war on terror, only 33 federal agents speak Arabic. FBI says it's a problem to recruit Arabic-speaking agents - as they often don't pass stringent security checks....A senior FBI official asserted that agents do not need to know Arabic to do their jobs because in most cases they receive already translated documents.
UPDATE: What Irene writes in her comment is true; see WorldNet Daily Oct. 2003 - FBI: Jews need not apply for Arabic linguist jobs
Despite a shortage of Arabic translators, the FBI turned down applications for linguist jobs from nearly 100 Arabic-speaking Jews in New York following the World Trade Center attacks, WorldNetDaily has learned.The FBI's New York office in October 2001 asked a local charity that works with Arab Jews to submit applications for the linguist jobs, which are crucial to anti-terrorism investigations.
But not one of the more than 90 applicants was hired, even though some had helped translate Arabic for Israeli radio and TV news stations and the Israeli army before coming to America, the charity's director says.
''We sent them a lot of people, and nobody made it to the finish line. Not one person was found eligible for these jobs, which is outrageous,'' said Doug Balin, director of the Sephardic Bikur Holim, a Jewish social-services agency in Brooklyn, N.Y.
Posted by: Irene Solnik | Wednesday, 11 October 2006 at 06:29 PM