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Iraqis seeking passports hit roadblocks

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Times Staff Writer

Long before the sun had risen or the mosques had called the faithful to predawn prayers on a cold morning in early February, Abu Hussein Allawchi, his wife and their two small children were awake. They were about to embark on a nightmarish mission: getting new passports.

By 5 a.m., they were out of the house. By 6 a.m., they were in line outside the main passport office, the only place to get the application forms.

When the gate opened two hours later, there was a frantic rush to enter the building and reach the window where applications are handed out. Guards’ attempts to form lines were futile.

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“It was so difficult just to get inside the building,” Allawchi said. “The crowds were terrible.”

Foreign travel was never easy for Iraqis during the 34-year rule of Saddam Hussein, who barred most people from leaving the country. Restrictions loosened after his April 2003 ouster, and in July 2004 the new Iraqi government began issuing so-called S-series passports to millions of people clamoring to travel for the first time.

Now the noose has tightened again.

The United States announced in January that it would no longer accept the hastily crafted S passports, with their pasted-on photographs and handwritten information. Instead, all Iraqis coming to the United States must show G-series passports, which were introduced by the Iraqi government about a year ago and meet international anti-forgery and other security standards. European and most Middle Eastern countries have done the same.

The rule affects Iraqis already outside the country as well as those still here, and it comes at the worst possible time for them. An estimated 2 million people have fled Iraq to escape its violence, and millions more desperately want to as the mayhem increases and health, education and other services deteriorate.

The government cannot keep up with demand for the new passports, leaving would-be travelers facing a wretched choice: Pay hundreds of dollars -- even thousands, depending on family size -- to unofficial middlemen to speed up the process, or go the official route and end up like Allawchi, who ending up waiting 70 days -- nearly twice as long as the process is supposed to take -- to get his passport.

“This is daily suffering. Almost every day I go to wait,” Allawchi said during his endeavor.

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Allawchi is 31 and has never been outside Iraq. “The only flags I have ever seen are the flags of Iraq and America,” he said.

His quest to change that began on the morning of Feb. 7.

His wife made it to the front of the crowd and grabbed the necessary papers -- one for each family member, even the toddlers.

Thus began a journey reminiscent of a voyage through a particularly hellish DMV office, minus the electronic numbering system.

After filling out the four applications, Allawchi stood in line at the next window to submit them, along with copies of the various documents required for each applicant, including food ration coupons and national identity cards. “I waited in that line from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.,” he said.

The family went home, but it was only the first day of an application process that takes at least two days. Allawchi went back Feb. 8 to retrieve the paperwork, which by then had been checked to ensure that the information on it matched what was on the national identity papers.

From there, he went to a third window, known as the “computer window,” where the information was entered into a database. Then it was on to window No. 4, where color photocopies of the family’s ID cards -- not the black-and-white ones accepted the first day -- were required. At yet another window, information on the identity documents once again was compared against that on the applications.

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Clerks at the final two windows formally accepted the finished packages and handed Allawchi receipts for them, along with a date on which the passports were to be ready: March 28. The process had cost about $80, plus what Allawchi paid to make copies.

That’s far less than what it would have cost had he paid someone to speed things up. Brokers are charging $500 or more per application, about twice the average monthly salary in Iraq. And the price is growing with demand, Iraqis say.

Abeer Thahab, 39, said the unofficial price used to be about $100. He also went the official route in applying for a G passport because he cannot afford the brokers. Thahab submitted an application for himself, his mother, brother and sister and was told to pick them up in 45 days.

“Based on the experiences of others, I don’t believe it,” he said, echoing the frustration of Iraqis whose lives have become a series of logistical and bureaucratic hurdles since the U.S.-led invasion.

He didn’t understand why he should have to endure the process.

“I’m angry. I have a passport and it was issued here. Why should I get another?” Thahab said. “Everything is a mess, and this is part of it.”

Allawchi returned as scheduled on March 28 to pick up his family’s passports. They weren’t ready.

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He returned almost daily to check on his own application.

It was a painful process watching a clerk go through applicants’ receipts one by one, checking each against stacks of passports on a desk that are in no apparent order.

Allawchi and other applicants waited as the hours-long process was repeated, day after day.

The Iraqi government has acknowledged problems. In March, it announced a suspension of processing of new passport applications because of overwhelming demand.

Maj. Gen. Yassin Yasiri, head of the passport directorate, said the government planned to streamline the application process, add staff and expand working hours.

According to various Iraqi media reports, he also said eight offices would be opened at Iraqi embassies around the world to handle requests.

Until the rush is under control, priority will be given to postgraduate students and holders of passports issued under Hussein, before the S series was introduced, an Iraqi newspaper quoted Yasiri as saying. The government’s apparent reasoning was that Hussein-era documents are even harder to use than those issued after the dictator’s fall, and that those holding them are in more urgent need of upgrades.

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That was good news for Allawchi, who holds a master’s degree in agricultural sciences and never obtained an S passport.

On April 17, the wait paid off and he received his passport.

Allawchi, who has been making a living selling construction materials, hopes to move to a safer country where he can finally put his agricultural expertise to use.

“I’d go to Dubai, Egypt or Sweden,” he said. “They have green land.”

*

susman@latimes.com

Times staff writer Raheem Salman contributed to this report.

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