Some of those who fled Saddam Hussein's Iraq for the United States said yesterday that they believe a U.S. program that aims to identify terrorist threats by monitoring Iraqi Americans is as perplexing as it is disturbing.
"If there is one group in America that wants to remove Saddam Hussein, it's Iraqi Americans," said Aziz Taee, a spokesman for the Iraqi-American Council in Washington. "We're very patriotic. We're just worried this kind of program would make other Americans question the patriotic feelings of Iraqi Americans, and that could cause a backlash."
The Iraqi-American Council is one of several interest groups that criticized the program, which was the subject of recent news reports. The operation aims to track those with Iraqi citizenship or dual Iraqi and American citizenship who might pose threats to U.S. security. Voluntary interviews with Iraqi Americans who might identify potential threats are also part of the program, according to the reports.
Monday's court ruling upholding the U.S. Patriot Act, which gives government intelligence agencies the authority to conduct broader surveillance, reinforces the Iraqi Americans' concern, Taee said.
James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute in Washington, said the program amounts to racial profiling. It erodes trust at a time when immigrant groups are trying hard to build trust with other Americans, he said.
"This is not how you do an investigation like this," Zogby said.
The U.S. government "ought to be smarter than that." Local Iraqi Americans say they are ambivalent about the program. They don't like being singled out for monitoring, they said, and believe they should be treated the same as any other group of U.S. citizens. However, many said the government's desire to root out terrorists makes sense -- at least in theory.
"It's something of a concern, but then I can see the concern of the U.S. government, too," said Zuheir Hamadi, a Falls Church resident who moved to this country in the 1950s to attend college. "I really can see both sides."
Muhamad Bahia, a Falls Church engineer who came to the United States 22 years ago, said he wouldn't object to being monitored. But he also said he believes that such a program would undermine the public's trust in people who he said are "100 percent behind the Bush administration in changing the regime in Iraq."
"Many Arabs are against intervention, but not the Iraqi Americans," he said. "I think if [U.S. government officials] do this and if it causes Iraqi Americans to be subject to hate crimes, I would call on them to protect us."
Some Iraqi Americans said the government's goal of conducting voluntary interviews with Iraqi Americans could be undermined by the fact that many Iraqi immigrants fear repercussions for family members still in Iraq.
Taee said that when he spoke out against Hussein in 1983, a videotape of his remarks made it to Iraq. He said the Iraqi government then arrested members of his family and killed his cousin. Taee said he still has family in Iraq.
"We are taking a very high risk when we speak out against Saddam Hussein and his crimes against the Iraqi people," Taee said.
Past experience with U.S. authorities also has left some Iraqi Americans with questions about the program, said Zakia Hakki, a Kurdish immigrant who lives in Annandale. Her son, Ali Karim, was held for 3 1/2 years in an Immigration and Naturalization Service detention center in California on secret evidence. He was released by a judge in 2000 after it was determined that he was not a spy.
Nevertheless, "for the safety of America, I would want them to monitor someone who was a risk, even if it was my own brother," Hakki said. "I do have concerns for the safety of the country, but we don't want [the U.S. government] to exaggerate this and punish innocent people, like my son."
