A US contractor in Iraq sexually harassed and retaliated against SIV-elligible female Iraq interpreters according to an article in the Washington Post. The man was an Army counter­intelligence specialist who had taken leave from his California National Guard to work for a US contractor in charge of security badges and clearances on a base inside Baghdad’s Green Zone. One of the women interpreters, known as “Linda”, has faced repeated death threats in Iraq for working for US combat forces for six years while many of her interpreter friends were burned to death by IED explosions. The US embassy in Iraq then denied her an SIV (Special Immigrant Visa).

The Iraqi women all took nicknames — Linda, Susan, Kathy, Mary, Angel — to make it easier for the American soldiers to remember them. They had college educations and spoke English well enough to work as interpreters with U.S. combat units, jobs that came with a high mortality rate even off the battlefield: Insurgents targeted them for assassination as collaborators.

Because of the lingering dangers for Iraqis who allied themselves with the Americans, the State Department created a special visa to allow interpreters and other workers into the United States. For most of the women, the Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) became a lifeline.

But applying for the visa meant winning the approval of Christopher J. Kirchmeier, a contractor in charge of security badges and clearances on a base inside Baghdad’s Green Zone. An Army counter­intelligence specialist who was fluent in Arabic, Kirchmeier had taken leave from his California National Guard unit in 2009 to work for Government Services, a Chantilly-based subsidiary of L-3 Communications.

Kirchmeier, then 26, sexually harassed at least two of the women he was charged with vetting, according to several former co-workers and the women. His alleged conduct was a violation of L-3’s ethics code, which says “physical conduct of a sexual nature is inappropriate in the work place and may be unlawful.” He also punished those who rebuffed his advances or who complained about his behavior by seizing their security badges and sabotaging their visa applications, according to the former co-workers and interpreters who recounted their experiences in a series of interviews…

…The women’s supporters…are trying to persuade the State Department to reverse its decision barring one of the women from the United States…

…‘He dug up . . . dirt’

Josh Phipps, a fellow L-3 counter-intelligence specialist who was Kirchmeier’s roommate at Forward Operating Base Prosperity, the facility in the Green Zone where they worked, says his erstwhile friend abused his authority by seeking retribution against interpreters who resisted his advances.

“He dug up as much dirt on people as he could and got them fired,” Phipps said.

Kirchmeier’s unit “had immense power,” said Underwood, the Army major who informed Odierno about the case, “because it did background checks [on Iraqis] for everyone” in the Green Zone, including the U.S. Embassy.

Although Kirchmeier’s relations with several Iraqi women drew notice, it was his treatment of an interpreter known as Linda, who had worked with U.S. combat units for nearly six years, that provoked particular anger…

…She “was the best interpreter I ever worked with,” Underwood, who served two combat tours in Iraq, wrote…according to copies of the e-mails Underwood provided to The Washington Post. “She was honest, loyal, and courageous. In the five years I have known her she has always been loyal to the U.S., and has a long list of former bosses who think she is an incredible person.”

After she resisted Kirchmeier’s “advances,” Underwood wrote, the contractor “had her fired and kicked off” the forward operating base…

…Denied visa lifeline

Underwood did not know Kirchmeier personally but had heard complaints about him from one of the interpreters and an American co-worker. Even after Kirchmeier was removed from his post, Underwood said, he felt compelled to press embassy officials repeatedly to explain their decision not to give Linda a visa.

Nomi Seltzer, the U.S. Embassy’s Immigrant Visa Unit chief, told him in a May 2010 e-mail that there was “a plethora of information regarding [Linda] to which you are not privy.”

Underwood remains unconvinced by those assertions. “Why isn’t she in prison? Why wasn’t she detained for whatever it was that was so bad?” he asked in recent interview with The Washington Post.

Another interpreter under Kirchmeier’s purview, a former PhD candidate in economics at Baghdad University, said in an e-mail to The Post that he “had relationships with many girls, brought many girls to his room” and “propositioned another girl for job.”

“If he didn’t like a girl,” the woman said, “he fired them without reason.”

After a November 2009 run-in with one of Kirchmeier’s subordinates, the interpreter’s security badge was confiscated, and she was immediately escorted to the gate.

“It was seven o’clock at night,” she said in a telephone interview from Iraq. “The situation outside the Green Zone was very bad. They didn’t care about me or what happened. I asked for 24 hours, but they would not allow it.”

She said she escaped to a hotel, then hid in a hospital for three days before making her way home.

She remains mainly in hiding, she says, out of fear that her work for the Americans, who no longer protect her, will get her killed… Read more here