Summary: Kirk W. Johnson tells why and how he started The List Project, which has helped more than 1,500 Iraqis who worked with Americans find refuge in America. In To Be a Friend Is Fatal, he writes of going to Iraq in January 2005, as USAID’s only Arabic-speaking American employee, and working alongside idealistic Iraqi translators who believed in the idea of a peaceful, democratic Iraq. Johnson also writes about how the violence, kidnapping, torture, and led him into a severe depression and PTSD.
