Washington, Sept 20 (ANI): The US spy agencies are lacking in language skills required to talk to locals in Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Middle East, translate intercepted intelligence and analyze data, it has emerged.
The September 11, 2001, attacks prompted a major push for foreign language skills to track militants in parts of the world.
The intelligence agencies, however, are facing the reality that the languages they need cannot be taught quickly, and security concerns make the clearance process lengthy, senior intelligence officials have said.
"Language will continue to be a challenge for us," the Telegraph quoted Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, as saying.
"It's something we're working at, and will continue to do so, but we're probably not where we want to be," he said.
Clapper pointed out that the US government needs speakers of Arabic, Farsi, Pashto, Dari, Urdu, and other "exotic" languages that are more difficult for English-speakers to learn.
"If you hark back to the Cold War days, it was much easier for us to raise and have a cadre of highly qualified linguists say in Russian and East European languages which comes to our people much more naturally than to these Mideast languages," he added.
US spy agencies are reaching out to first- and second-generation Americans whose heritage would provide the language and cultural understanding quicker than trying to teach someone from scratch.
But they can face difficulties getting through the strict security clearance process because of family ties back in their country of heritage, the paper said.
Meanwhile, language experts have said that the root of the problem lies in an American education system that does not emphasise learning foreign languages. (ANI)
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