[SJackson]

Interestingly through all the threads on this, no one has suggested recruiting arabic speaking Christians, of which there are many, which would solve the problem.

[muawiyah]

They may have been hiring Arabic speaking Christians in fact, but so terribly many of them are falangists (from Lebanon). Doing a clearance on those guys could be a bear as well.

As far as I know the Syrian, Chaldean and other ME Christian churches in this country have pretty much switched over to an English-only operation, much like the Roman Catholics, so they might not be a good source.

On the other hand, Standard Oil, Shell Oil, etc. all have thousands of American and European employees who speak Arabic! Could be those 100 native speakers were simply edged out by others who were more competent.