The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad employs 1,000 people, of which 33 speak Arabic. And only six of them speak Arabic fluently. Throughout the intelligence community, the pressure to quickly translate intercepted Arabic messages is intense, but agencies and the military lack qualified and well-trained linguists.
With this in mind, one of the more obvious recommendations from the Iraq Study Group yesterday was the suggestion that the Bush administration “accord the highest possible priority” to language training. To which officials everywhere responded with a collective, “Duh.”
The White House, however, had its own tack. Tony Snow, unwilling to concede that the ISG was even remotely critical of the administration, had an interesting response to the issue.
Q: [The ISG report] says the U.S. intelligence community “still does not understand very well either the insurgency in Iraq or the role of militias.”
MR. SNOW: That is part of a section that talks about the fact that there — it recommends more Arabic speakers. It suggests the need for better and more robust intelligence. And that’s something that –
Q: So that’s fairly critical of the administration.
MR. SNOW: Well, I don’t know — Bret, as you know, as a former Pentagon correspondent, the Pentagon has been trying to address these. But you don’t snap your fingers and have the Arabic speakers you need overnight.
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