Arabic, other Eastern language speakers are high on FBI wish list

[Harold F. Schiffman]

http://www.knoxnews.com/kns/national/article/0,1406,KNS_350_5365555,00.html

Arabic, other Eastern language speakers are high on FBI wish list

By MOUSTAFA AYAD February 19, 2007

Standing in the main prayer room of the ornate Pittsburgh Sikh Gurdwara in
Monroeville, Pa., the FBI's special agent looked out at a sea of
turban-wearing worshippers with dark beards.  The clean-cut agent, armed
with brochures and a short video extolling the virtues of Sikhs to the
worshippers gathered for prayer services, was playing an increasingly
important post-Sept. 11, 2001, role - that of recruiter. The FBI is
mounting such recruiting efforts at a time when the need among its ranks
for speakers of languages such as Punjabi, spoken by Sikhs, as well as
Arabic, Urdu and Farsi, is high and the supply is low. Just a fraction of
1 percent of the 12,000 FBI field agents have limited working proficiency
in Arabic, for example - a total of 40, up from 33 in October.

Turning places of worship into the front lines of recruitment in the
global war on terror means the FBI and other government agencies in charge
of protecting U.S. citizens are now venturing into mosques, temples and
community meetings in search of the next expert linguist, analyst or field
agent. "They were looking for FBI special agents with Punjabi language
skills and cultural knowledge," said Rajbir Singh, the associate director
of The Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund, of the recent
recruiting effort focused on Sikhs in the Pittsburgh area. The Sikh
civil-rights organization helped coordinate the FBI meeting last month.

Sikhism, which has millions of adherents and is among the major organized
religions in the world, was founded in India in the 16th century. Sikhs
grew to be a significant regional political and military force. They have
clashed with Indian governments over issues of independence and religious
rights. The FBI presentation emphasized their history as a vigorous,
athletic people known for their military prowess. In the past, Singh said,
"I think they failed on a number of levels at recruiting people with the
language skills they need." Now the FBI is taking a proactive approach, he
said.

The agency's road to increasing language and cultural proficiency among
its ranks has been rocky, because of the agency's history and culture,
requirements for becoming an agent, and the fact that it must seek help
among groups that are also targets of FBI inquiry. Daniel Armanios, 22,
winner of a Rhodes scholarship and a University of Pittsburgh
undergraduate, speaks colloquial Egyptian Arabic and qualified for the
FBI's elite Honors Internship Program in Washington. There is no guarantee
of a position with the agency after the three-month internship, but
interns who do well are often candidates for jobs, the FBI says. Armanios,
a first-generation Egyptian-American, wanted to apply his language skills
and cultural knowledge in the counterterrorism field.

The FBI decided his educational background in engineering better suited a
position in a fingerprinting lab. Armanios, a Coptic Christian born in
Georgia, decided to forgo the internship. The FBI did not comment on his
case, but some who study security issues say that language historically
has not been a priority at the agency and that changes in attitudes are
slow in coming. "The problem is they want to catch suspected terrorists
using the same traditional set of hiring practices they have always
valued," said Daniel Byman, an associate professor and director of
Georgetown University's security-studies program and Center for Peace and
Security Studies.

"The question becomes, if they fundamentally recruit agents who are not
proficient in Arabic and they hire from pools of police officers,
detectives and others with law-enforcement histories, are they devaluing
the knowledge of Arabic in their investigations?" Armanios expressed the
same view in reflecting on his experience with the FBI. "If your priority
is to treat the counterterrorism effort like a massive Cold War, then
maybe having Arabic speakers is not essentially a priority in your Middle
East policy," Armanios said.

Margaret Gulotta, chief of the FBI's language-services section, said that,
while having only 40 agents who speak Arabic might seem deficient, those
agents are backed by teams of highly qualified language analysts who are
often native speakers. She said more than 2,000 agents have a working
proficiency of some of the agency's high-value languages such as Russian,
Farsi, Chinese and Spanish. "Could we use more agents who speak Arabic?
Absolutely, absolutely,"  Gulotta said. "But we can use agents who speak a
lot of other languages as well.

"You have to have the skills to be an FBI agent, and having language
abilities is a plus," she said. "But, if you just have a language and
don't have the interview skills, then you won't be a very effective
agent."

http://www.knoxnews.com/kns/national/article/0,1406,KNS_350_5365555,00.html
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