Of course, OUR translators were generally taken from immigrant or first generation Americans, "trained" at Monterey or brainy euro-americans also "trained" at Monterey: and about as fluent as my cat.
(My favorite was a fairly high level conference held between country A and country C that eventually shifted over to language R because a fair number on each side had a fair command of that language and little or none of each other's.)
Strategic intelligence has probably not enjoyed the electronic and systems advances that we see in tactical intelligence today. There are a whole lot of languages and branches of languages that would be hugely difficult to cover entirely (note comment about Fukinese translators - one variety of Chinese and unintelligible to several other Chinese dialects).
In addition, on the strategic side the system is probably still geared to dumping stuff into a hopper and waiting for it to come out the other end, to be processed into a report for consideration next year, or the next. A lot of what may appear immediate and tactical today was considered in terms of longer range policy - or would have had to be verified up, down, and cross-ways before anyone would go arm waving into the boss' office lest they be punished for over-reacting.
All that even before the PC wonders of our recent administration and various congresses.
As a graduate of Monterey, I would have to say that your cat needn't be very smart to be more fluent in Arabic than the majority of DLI's grads. Sad, but true.