In Iraq, "...some of the hired interpreters are betraying soldiers hunting for guerrilla fighters and the caches of arms they're using to attack American soldiers... "We heard about dozens of cases where the infantry would find out where stuff was, brief the interpreter, but the interpreter would get out of sight... [a]nd when the infantry went on the raid, the stuff wouldn't be there." (...) investigators in Iraq observed that local interpreters seemed to be holding back information from soldiers during interrogations of detainees. (...) some interpreters have led soldiers to the wrong targets. (...) a shortage of competent and reliable interpreters is hurting occupation efforts. "The U.S. Army does not have a fraction of the linguists required to operate" in either Iraq or Afghanistan (...) the Army had only 209 authorized positions for human intelligence collectors - and 39 of them were unfilled (...) Due to the translator shortage, American commanders have had to hire former Baathist and Fedayeen members to help with interrogations (...) weeding out the disloyal interpreters is difficult. (...) Defense analysts say Iraqi interpreters and informants could be an asset or a liability, depending on how closely soldiers monitor them. If soldiers lose contact with them for any period of time, they are more likely to be misled. (...)
Source: http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=37039
