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  We quickly discovered how integral our experience was going to be in figuring out how to make this work. A decision to take a group of Christians wouldn’t be made by one person, but through the buy-in of multiple actors throughout the government.

  To get the ball rolling, we decided to front-load our communications with information that would immediately address the concerns of a wide variety of agencies. Instead of focusing on the group of Iraqi IDPs, we decided we would first establish our bona fides as former US government officials and then explain the comprehensive steps we planned to take to identify and vet the applicants.

  If we were going to have any chance of convincing the Slovakian government (or any other government, for that matter) to accept these families, they would have to be comfortable that any asylum candidates we put forward would not pose a security threat to their country. There was only one way we could make this promise: We would have to go to Iraq.

  We would need to meet with, vet, and gather documentation for each of the asylum candidates individually. This way, we could give potential governments very specific information about the people we wanted to help. We wanted to be able to speak authoritatively to the various officials who would most certainly ask questions about the vetting process as well as the stories of the people we were representing.

  While Joseph made travel plans, I reviewed the UNHCR registration applications and asylum process. We wanted our system to be as airtight as possible. No method is perfect, of course, but if we were putting our names and reputations behind the effort, we wanted ours to be as foolproof as we could make it. And it was. By applying vetting strategy and tools that we’d used as intelligence officers in the CIA, Joseph and I came up with a vetting program that was even stronger and more comprehensive than anything used by the UNHCR or the United States.

  First, every Iraqi applicant over the age of eighteen would fill out the comprehensive application forms we’d designed, which requested full biographical details, work experience, and education. Second, each applicant would need to provide as many identity documents as possible. Third, we would work to confirm that the documents we collected were valid. This effort included reviewing papers, comparing them with others from the same issuing authority, and, when possible, checking with the issuing authority to confirm their authenticity.

  Knowing how important documentation is in the Arab world and the care and attention people give to those documents, we knew that most people would have carried the papers with them when fleeing their homes—even those who left in a hurry. That’s why when many arriving refugees told European officials that they had no documentation, it should have been an immediate red flag. Birth documents, identity cards, driver’s licenses, and religious certificates are even more essential to everyday life in the Middle East than they are in the United States. So if people pitched their docs, that meant that either they were legitimately running from ISIS (and should have a good story to tell to explain the lack of documentation) or they were trying to hide something.

  Last but not least, we planned to interview each family, asking about their identities, backgrounds, job history, educational level, and reasons for wanting to leave Iraq. As seasoned intelligence officers, we knew how to identify verbal and nonverbal responses that required additional attention and investigation, and because we were so familiar with the culture, we’d recognize whether the stories we were being told were logical and fit stories from other sources. In short, we could easily figure out whether the answers were culturally, historically, and geographically accurate.

  Once our plan was in place and our flights booked, Joseph and I set off for Erbil in September.

  I have to admit, I never imagined I’d be returning to Iraq. When we finished our respective tours and left the country back in 2007, I was so relieved to get on that plane—to leave the killing fields—I vowed I’d never go back. But as I said earlier, never say never.

  Complicating matters even further, we knew that this time around, we would be significant targets for many of the groups we had worked against while in Baghdad, including AQI and ISIS. More important, we were concerned about being targeted by Iranian-backed militant groups and their associated government ministries. We were almost certainly on a list of US government employees who had served in the war zone, and there was no doubt we remained on an Iranian intelligence target list. Just as we assumed that ISIS had sympathizers and even operatives in Kurdistan, so did Iran, and they were a much bigger threat to us than ISIS at that time. We were concerned about being thrown into the back of a car or stuffed in a trunk and being driven across the Iranian border, never to be heard from again. The Iranian regime has targeted some of its enemies in this way, kidnapping them out of neighboring countries.

  We decided to return to Iraq anyway. We needed to be aware of our surroundings and take appropriate precautions, but how could we not go? Everything we had done up to this point in our lives had led us to this moment. For years, I had been asking God what it all was for—the hardship, the frustration, the danger, the separation from family and friends—and now he had answered. This is what we had been training for. This is what we had been called to do.

  Mar Elia Chaldean Catholic Church served as the temporary home of 560 Iraqis, and between September 6 and 12, Joseph and I interviewed the four hundred IDPs there who wanted to seek asylum in another country. The single-wide trailer that had served as a library and occasional classroom to the camp’s children had been transformed into a makeshift interview room, as had Father Douglas’s small office. Books, crayons, and small toys lay next to piles of applications. We interviewed small families, big families, and everything in between. We collected a huge amount of documentation for each person, and by the end of our trip, we had enough paperwork to fill a suitcase.

  To say that it was exhausting is an understatement. We worked from about nine in the morning until about nine at night, taking a two-hour break for lunch. It was an enormous undertaking, requiring a team of ten young people to help candidates fill out extensive application forms, make copies of their documents, take photographs of each applicant as well as their larger family grouping, and schedule the interviews.

  And since my Arabic is not sufficient to capture the details of such important discussions, several people on the team served as Arabic and Aramaic translators for me. We could not have accomplished this task without the tireless efforts of every person involved, as well as Father Douglas’s assistants, who kept the interview line filled with anxious hopefuls.

  The interviews were complicated and required a great deal of energy because we had a lot of information to cover. We explained to the IDPs that we represented a group of Americans who cared deeply about them and wanted to help them find a place of refuge, if that was what they wanted. We were forthright and honest, making clear that we had not identified any countries, we couldn’t promise anything, and that if we did find a place, it would be because God opened the door. The last thing we wanted to do to people who had lost their homes and livelihood was to make empty promises or get their hopes too high.

  Knowing how difficult it would be for these people to leave their home country and resettle in a new place, we repeatedly warned them, “It doesn’t matter what you are running from. Even if you are fleeing ISIS, the most difficult thing in the world is learning to live in a new country. It will require great struggle and sacrifice, and it might even be more difficult than remaining here in Iraq.”

  They looked at us like we were crazy. They could not comprehend how difficult it would be to establish new lives elsewhere, but we had to tell them anyway.

  Then, we asked them to explain to us, in detail, why they wanted to leave Iraq. Their stories were heartbreaking. The majority of the IDPs were from Hamdaniyah, located near Mosul in northern Iraq. Hamdaniyah is about twenty miles southeast of the city of Mosul and thirty-seven miles west of Erbil, close to the ancient Assyrian cities of Nimrud and Nineveh. The vast majority of its inhabitants were et
hnically Assyrians, people who still speak Aramaic, the language of Jesus. They have carried the torch of the Christian faith through the ages, never imagining they’d one day be displaced from their homeland.

  After arriving in Erbil, many of them had received death threats via phone calls and text messages. The callers demanded that the Christian families return to their homes and said that they had to convert or their spouses and children would be beheaded. The most disconcerting part of it was that the terrorists mentioned family members by name. It was clear that many of those threats were issued while the terrorists were in the Christians’ homes riffling through documents bearing the families’ personal information: names, phone numbers, and other personal data.

  Other IDPs were contacted by Muslim neighbors who said that they should pay the jizya (tax) if they wished to return to their already looted homes and businesses. Other callers gave this warning: “If you return to Hamdaniyah and you do not convert, we will burn your house to the ground—with you and your whole family inside of it.”

  This is the story we heard repeatedly from the families we interviewed. However, the last interview we conducted on the evening of September 11 was one that I’ll never forget. It was the interview that reminded us of the staggering losses these people had experienced, the human toll of ISIS’s violence and destruction.

  With heads hanging down and expressions of profound pain on their faces, a husband and wife, holding tightly to their two children, told us their story.

  Once church leadership gave the signal to leave the city, they—like everyone else—gathered their extended family members together, preparing to leave as quickly as possible. In the confusion, they were separated from the wife’s sister and brother-in-law, who were in a separate vehicle. The sister and her husband were unsure which path to take out of town and must have taken a wrong turn. That was the last time this family saw them, because the next thing they found out was that ISIS had captured the couple.

  ISIS called the family and informed them that they had the sister. They demanded $2,500 for her release. The family paid the ransom but never received any instructions about how to retrieve the young woman. They were soon contacted again, allegedly by the kidnappers, who now demanded $30,000. The family had nowhere near the resources to provide such a sum, so they approached their bishop and asked for help.

  Even though it was against church policy, religious leaders agreed to provide the funds to buy back the sister. They paid the first $15,000 and told the kidnappers they would provide the remaining amount upon delivery of the sister to her family. The money was taken, but the sister was never released.

  Tears trickled down from the wife’s eyes as she told this painful story, while rocking her sleeping baby on the couch in front of us.

  She and her husband think that her sister became an ISIS bride (sex slave). I could not imagine carrying on with life, knowing the hell she was enduring. I didn’t know how I could go on living if I knew my sister were in such circumstances, but I doubt this family felt any differently. They were probably taking one day at a time, doing their best to carry on despite the extreme pain of this life-altering tragedy.

  When we inquired about their brother-in-law, the room became very quiet. Several painful seconds went by, until the husband explained that their brother-in-law had worked for Coalition Forces during the war and it was likely that ISIS learned this early on in the kidnapping. He added for clarification, “We don’t think he’s here any longer.” Our hearts dropped. We understood what he was suggesting.

  As if they hadn’t suffered enough, the family mentioned that one of their young cousins had also been taken captive by ISIS during the takeover—she was only fourteen. The family had been repeatedly told that she was also married off to an ISIS fighter, as a spoil of war.

  We spoke with another gentleman, Yohanna (John), a journalist who lived with his wife and two children in Mosul. When ISIS spilled over the Syrian border and took control of Mosul, they threatened all of the journalists, demanding that they write and release only ISIS-approved stories. Any departure from these narratives would cost them their lives. Indeed, scores of journalists were killed after they secretly passed on information to Reuters or other news agencies and were somehow identified as the sources.

  After being warned by ISIS over his cell phone that he was next on the hit list and that the group planned to slit the throats of his two children, Yohanna and his family fled Mosul for a majority-Christian village east of the city. They found refuge there for a short period of time before ISIS invaded those villages, sending them packing once again.

  When Yohanna related his story, he didn’t do so with the affect of a confident journalist. Rather, he sat in front of us with his six-year-old daughter on his lap and his head hung low. He spoke softly, almost in whispers, as a man who had been repeatedly beaten down, as a man overcome with frustration that he could not do more for his family, that he could not shield them from this tragedy.

  Because he did not come off as poised or self-assured, I wondered if he really was a journalist. Then he pulled out a folder that contained extensive credentials and copies of several of his articles. As we thumbed through the remnants of his former life, we commented on how impressed we were by the file. I think he needed to hear that.

  Yohanna had lost his job and his livelihood, and his family had now been displaced twice by terrorists. Sitting in front of us was a man emptied of life and expression, emasculated by being unable to provide for the physical, emotional, and mental well-being of his family.

  The eyes are the window to the soul, and Yohanna’s eyes revealed a deep well of sadness. They lacked any sparkle; they lacked life. Instead, they reflected the scars of repeated emotional trauma that had emptied them of hope.

  Several hours after reading the sorrow in Yohanna’s face, I was taken aback by the cold look of another man—Hamad, the fiancé of Danial’s daughter, Miriam.

  [12] After much lobbying by the human rights community and pressure from lawmakers, the State Department finally declared on March 17, 2016, that the Islamic State’s attacks on Christians and other minorities in Syria and Iraq constituted genocide. See https://2009-2017.state.gov/secretary/remarks/2016/03/254782.htm.

  [13] Ishaan Tharoor, “Slovakia Will Take in 200 Syrian Refugees, but They Have to Be Christian,” Washington Post, August 19, 2015, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/08/19/slovakia-will-take-in-200-syrian-refugees-but-they-have-to-be-christian/?utm_term=.8c7d0d69f460.

  After a brief glance, Hamad wouldn’t look me or Joseph in the eyes again.

  When he entered the trailer with Miriam, he gave us weak handshakes and quickly sat down. Given the trauma so many men had been through, his slouched posture and downcast eyes weren’t an immediate cause for alarm. But it was clear that he didn’t want to be there. Unlike all of the nervous applicants who had actively engaged with the people they hoped could help them escape such desperate circumstances, Hamad seemed almost bored. That made no sense. If he is risking so much, why does he seem so blasé about meeting with us and having this conversation?

  “As I’m sure Miriam told you,” I began, “when we met with her family today, she asked that you be added to the list with them since you are a recent convert to Christianity. We need to speak personally with each person interested in leaving Iraq, so we thank you for coming in.”

  He gave barely a grunt, so I continued.

  “So, Hamad, why did you convert?”

  “Ah, well . . . I always had leanings toward Christianity, and one day I just decided that since I lean more toward Christianity than Islam, I should just convert.”

  Wait . . . wait . . . wait. That makes no sense! In a culture where rejecting Islam is punishable by death, that was a very unimpressive justification for conversion. This is not a wishy-washy choice or one that’s made haphazardly. It is a life-and-death decision.

  Joseph and I exchanged a look. Is this guy kidding?

  Jos
eph pressed for more details, and Hamad gave him the name of the priest he said had baptized him. Next, we asked Hamad to tell us more about donating his kidney, and he pulled up his shirt to show us a long scar he said he’d gotten from the surgery.

  Something still seemed off.

  “Tell me, Hamad, what you think of Jesus,” I asked.

  Hamad’s body language immediately changed. As he shifted in his seat, his knee began bouncing up and down. Seemingly unsure of what to say, Hamad paused for several seconds and then offered, “Well, Jesus was a good man. I really respect him.”

  Boom. There it is. This man was no convert. Muslims respect Jesus as a man and as a prophet, but if you have converted to Christianity, Jesus is no longer just a man; he is your Savior. He is the reason why you are willing to put your life on the line. Hamad was using the language of a Muslim—not a convert.

  Joseph moved closer to Hamad, looked him straight in the eyes and, using religious terminology only a true Christian convert would understand, asked, “Hamad, what did Jesus do for you on the cross?”

  At that, Hamad sat up straight in his seat and pushed his chair back from us. His eyes glossed over and his entire countenance changed. It was almost as though he had been taken over by something—or someone—beyond his control. It was downright creepy.

  Next to him, a noticeably anxious Miriam tugged at his sleeve. “Well, Hamad, answer him!”

  Silence. He did not so much as blink.

  Suddenly, a strange, highly inappropriate smirk began to spread over Hamad’s face. I felt a chill run down my spine.

  “Hamad, answer him!” urged Miriam.

  He just sat there, motionless, glaring at Joseph, seeming not even to breathe.

  “Hamad,” a near-hysterical Miriam slapped him on the arm and pleaded, “why can’t you answer the question? Hamad? Hamad! . . . Hamad!”