US military struggling to recruit Arab-Americans

DEARBORN, Mich., Apr 27 (Reuters) The US military is struggling to recruit Arab-Americans for its war on terrorism some five years after September. 11, with many in the community wary of US foreign policy and fighting wars in the West Asia.

Pentagon officials have often bemoaned the shortage of soldiers with Arabic skills that would be invaluable on the ground in Iraq, and could help translate a backlog of captured or intercepted material that could be critical to fighting militants.

Officials say that in a military of roughly 1.4 million people, about 4,000 have some proficiency in Arabic. The Pentagon says it will spend hundreds of millions of dollars in the next five years to beef up its foreign language capabilities, especially in Middle Eastern languages.

''What we're looking for is people who have native skills, who speak it fluently and who are also very familiar with the culture over there,'' said Capt. Hatem Abdine, a recruiter for the California Army National Guard who is a naturalized American of Syrian descent.

Since the 2001 attacks, the military has turned its attention to the United States' 3 million strong Arab-American community in hopes of bridging a deficiency that has complicated operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Communities such as Dearborn and neighboring areas around Detroit, home to one of the biggest Arab populations outside the West Asia with almost half a million Arab residents, are among those receiving particular attention.

Gunnery Sgt. Wayne Goode, a Dearborn-based Marines recruiter, said the Marine Corps had sent out a direct mailing to Arab Americans after September. 11 seeking linguists.

George Noirot, spokesman for the Army's Great Lakes Recruiting Battalion, which covers the area around Detroit, said, ''They (Arab-Americans) were anxious to work with us in the Army because I got the feeling they really wanted to show that they were Americans and love the country here.'' MORE REUTERS PR PM2118