The question here is what is your point. Do you think they were in danger back in 2005, but they are no longer in danger now? Let's take a look instead at the people we are talking about...


Marine Reserve Capt. Jacobs, who will head back to Iraq next spring for a third tour, said Jasim is a man of impeccable character and uncommon bravery who could always be relied on to reflect the Americans' message.

"He believes in our cause," said Jacobs, 35, principal at the private Challenger School in San Jose. "That opened a lot of doors for us."
...
Jacobs asked him how he was doing. Jasim shot him back an e-mail and told him his family needed to get of the country as soon as possible.

"It was very emotional when he e-mailed back," Jacobs recalled Thursday. "I always felt that we screwed the translators. They gave so much, and we gave them so little in return."

That's when he and his wife, who served in Iraq but in a different location, decided helping Jasim was a moral imperative. They got friends and strangers to donate cash, furniture, clothes - anything that would help out the Jasim family.

Jasim hopes to get a job in the engineering field in Silicon Valley, and refugee officials say they have no doubt he will.

"These translators are well-educated, speak English fluently and are highly skilled people," said Reza Odabaee, director of refugee and employment programs at Catholic Charities of Santa Clara County.

http://origin.mercurynews.com/news/ci_9785518

Doesn't sound like anyone at the 7-11 I've ever met,

More...

Chris and Sarah, nicknames they asked to use because of security concerns, are interpreters who work for a civil affairs unit of the United States Army. Like thousands of other Iraqi nationals working for the American military here, they have risked it all for their jobs.

Sarah says her name is on a militant hit-list. Her mother was forced to flee her own home because of death threats. Chris's parents' home was bombed twice. And he has lost 11 of his interpreter friends and colleagues since 2006.

The Shiite couple say there is even a $20,000 reward offered by militants for killing interpreters. The amount is double for female interpreters. Extremists consider it a dishonorable profession for women, says Sarah.

Iraqi interpreters: hope rises to go to U.S. | csmonitor.com

But let's not just take their word for it...

The visa programs grew largely because of the combined lobbying efforts of “refugee experts, nonprofit organizations, United States government employees who worked in Iraq and American soldiers and marines,” Ms. Templeton said.

American military officers and State Department employees who were loyal to the Iraqi translators with whom they had worked were forceful in personalizing the plight of Iraqis who were imperiled. Death threats were put on the Iraqis’ windshields, bullets were left on their doorsteps, they or family members were kidnapped, and sometimes their homes were bombed.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/25/wo...ss&oref=slogin

Another approach...

Channel 4 - News - Iraqi translators feel 'abandoned'

For less than £10 a day, hundreds of Iraqis are putting their lives on the line as interpreters for the British Army in Basra. Many have now fled, having received death threats.

They claim they're being systematically targeted and murdered. The militias, jostling for control of Basra, consider them traitors. At least two have been killed this month.

Unlike the American government, which has announced plans to resettle 7,000 particularly vulnerable Iraqi refugees, the British government has made no such commitment.

Shameful!

Ditto,