thanks for helping to save the lives of american women and men

we really appreciate it. we know you're in danger just because you did help us. but guess what? we don't give a flying yoo hoo! lucy, you can't be in the show (or come to america)
how we can turn aside and leave them in harm's way is beyond me.
Visas for War Zone Translators Halted
Current Quotas Are Nearly Filled

By Walter Pincus Washington Post Staff Writer
The State Department has stopped processing the applications of 551 Iraqi and Afghan translators seeking special visas to come to the United States, because the current legal quota of 500 visas for the program this year is about to be reached, according to department officials.
The applicants, all of whom have worked for U.S. military forces, received an e-mail notice from the State Department's National Visa Center last week. "We have temporarily stopped processing cases," the message said, adding that "the applicant should NOT make any travel arrangements, sell property or give up employment until the US Embassy or Consulate General has issued a visa." ............
...............More than 250 interpreters working for U.S. forces or their contractors have been killed in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. Many American service members have worked to help their former translators gain a visa to come to the United States under a 2006 congressional program initially designed to admit 50 translators per year, a quota later increased to 500. .............

no additional comments from me are necessary

U.S. Embassy employees fearful over Green Zone attacks

By Leila Fadel
McClatchy Newspapers

BAGHDAD, Iraq - U.S. Embassy employees in Iraq are growing increasingly angry over what they say are inadequate security precautions in the heavily fortified Green Zone, where recent mortar and rocket attacks have claimed the lives of six people, including two U.S. citizens.
In spite of the attacks, embassy employees complain, most staff members still sleep in trailers that one described as "tin cans" that offer virtually no protection from rocket and mortar fire. The government has refused to harden the roofs because of the cost, one employee said.
A second official called it "criminally negligent" not to reduce the size of the embassy staff, which a year ago was estimated at 1,000, in the face of the increasing attacks and blamed the administration's failure to respond on concerns that doing so might undermine support for President Bush's Iraq policy...........