Iraqi family that helped U.S. troops shows scars

updated 2:14 a.m. ET July 8, 2007

NEW YORK - The three Ali brothers — Saamir, Jamal and Fadi — were among those Iraqis elated when U.S.-led forces toppled Saddam Hussein. They eagerly offered their services as translators and suppliers for the troops.

Four years later, Jamal, the eldest, is dead — shot in front of his family at a Baghdad restaurant while resisting abduction. Fadi, the youngest, fled after a near-miss assassination attempt. He spent the past two years uprooted in Jordan, seeking a place of permanent refuge.

And Saamir, granted asylum in the United States, lives in New York City, struggling to find work, lucky to be alive. He still suffers the aftereffects of an insurgent’s bullet that slammed through his right cheek in 2004, tore a hole in the roof of his mouth and exited under his left eye.

“I am glad I helped the Americans — but I am sad for what happened to my family,” he says softly.

Scarred and splintered
Like so many Iraqi families, the Alis have been scarred and splintered by the war. And even with the high price they have paid for their loyalty to America, the prospect of full-scale reunion here seems faint.

The brothers’ mother and Jamal’s 17-year-old son have taken refuge in Turkey, trying in vain to get permission to move to the United States. Fadi, who also wanted to come to America, has just been accepted as a refugee by Australia.

“I feel awful about my mother,” said Hadeel Ali, Saamir’s older sister, who has lived in New York for eight years. “She’s been through so much pain because her sons worked for the U.S. Army. What kind of harm would she do here? Why can’t she come?”

More than 2 million Iraqis have left their chaotic nation since 2003, flooding into Jordan, Syria, Turkey and other Middle Eastern countries. Another 2 million or so have been displaced within Iraq.

Only a tiny fraction have been granted refuge outside the Middle East, including fewer than 800 to the United States. U.S. officials have promised to take nearly 7,000 more starting later this year, but critics say America has an obligation to accept far larger numbers.

“Seven thousand is drop in the ocean — it’s unacceptable,” said Michael Kocher of the International Rescue Committee. “There are so many people who cannot go back to Iraq, because they’d be killed or they have nothing to go back to.”

A one-inch difference in the bullet’s path, and Saamir Ali would have been among the dead. Instead, some of the U.S. officers he worked for interceded on his behalf and he became one of the relative handful of Iraqis allowed into in America during the war.

Mostly unemployed
Since arriving, however, he has mostly been unemployed. There was one three-month stint in a publishing unit at the United Nations, but otherwise he’s had only sporadic temporary jobs. When he offered to enlist in the military, he was quickly rebuffed.

“I’d do anything — I don’t care what,” he said. “I just want to feed my family. It’s not easy when you don’t have a job.”

It was natural instinct for Saamir and his brothers to embrace the conquering Americans in 2003.

Their father, Abdulmajeed Ali, was a general in the Iraqi army who was forced to retire in 1970 because he refused to join Saddam’s Baath Party. The family, Shiite Muslims, suffered ongoing harassment thereafter, and said Abdulmajeed’s death in 1997 followed repeated refusals by hospital authorities to provide him proper medical care.

“We had a bad regime in Iraq,” Saamir said. “We were so excited when the U.S. Army came, we worked four months for free — we didn’t take anything.”

Eventually, all three brothers became paid contractors for U.S. forces — interpreting, supplying snack food and cigarettes, sometimes offering information on possible security threats. But not all who noticed their work were pleased.

Two weeks in a coma
In February 2004, on his way back to Baghdad from a dangerous stint in the city of Fallujah, Saamir was shot and the friend driving with him was killed. Rescued by a passing U.S. convoy, Saamir was in a coma for two weeks and in the hospital for two months.

Despite lingering medical problems, he returned to work with the U.S. Army. In March 2005, he was allowed to travel to the United States for medical treatment, thanks in part to glowing letters of support from U.S. officers.

“In spite of his injuries, Saamir Ali continued to loyally and bravely serve U.S. and Coalition forces in the face of great danger to himself and his family,” wrote Army Maj. William Whitlow.

Shortly before Saamir flew to the United States, he and his brothers each received threatening notes, placed on the windshields of their cars.

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