The Foreign Service Journal, March 2008

28 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / M A R C H 2 0 0 8 irk Johnson has seen the worst of it in Iraq. As the U.S. Agency for International Development’s regional coordinator for reconstruction in Fallujah in 2005, he tried to put back together what was once one of Iraq’s most dangerous insurgent strongholds after a U.S.-led invasion destroyed much of the city at the end of 2004. About a year after leaving Iraq for medical reasons at the end of 2005, Johnson heard from someone he calls “an old F O C U S O N I R A Q , F I V E Y E A R S L AT E R H ELPING T HOSE W HO H ELPED U S S TATE HAS BEEN SLOW TO EXPEDITE IMMIGRANT VISAS FOR I RAQIS WHO HAVE ASSISTED THE U.S. GOVERNMENT . B UT THERE ARE , AT LONG LAST , SIGNS OF MOVEMENT . B Y S HAWN Z ELLER K Adam Niklewicz