Originally published December 8 2005
Intelligence Committee chairs back new solution to counteract shortage of Arabic translators
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts and House of Representatives Intelligence Committee Chairman Pete Hoekstra are pushing for the release of documents seized from terrorist organization and sources to the general public, in an attempt to speed up the translation process, which is currently backed up with material that would take several years to translate, without extensive support from non-military linguists.
The Republican heads of the two congressional intelligence committees urged the U.S. government on Friday to let the public help translate a massive backlog of documents captured in counterterrorism operations.
U.S. and allied forces have seized millions of pages of documents, computer disks and other materials since Washington's declared war on terrorism after the September 11, 2001, attacks, which officials say are a potential treasure trove of information.
But since only people with special security clearances are authorized to sift through the documents, many of which are not secret, translation and analysis "will take decades, if ever, to complete," said Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts and House of Representatives Intelligence Committee Chairman Pete Hoekstra.
The Pentagon, CIA and other agencies have often bemoaned a shortage of linguists in Arabic and other Middle Eastern and Asian languages and said there was a huge backlog of material obtained by military and police operations, satellites, bugging and spies that needed translation.
"The sheer volume of materials that we have obtained is overwhelming our intelligence community's ability to properly categorize and translate the contents, analyze and review the information, verify authenticity and report to users the knowledge generated," Roberts and Hoekstra said in a letter to intelligence czar John Negroponte.
At the very least, they said, linguists in the public could help triage the information so intelligence officials could focus on the most vital data.
The lawmakers said the process should ensure that sources and intelligence procurement methods are protected, and involve U.S. allies in control of some of the documents.
The government has exerted substantial efforts to hire more experts in languages relevant to the fight against terrorism, but a limited pool of qualified applicants, difficulties in obtaining security clearances and stiff recruitment competition from the private sector have undermined the process.
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