[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 9]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages 13581-13582]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




 HONORING MR. KIRK W. JOHNSON FOR HIS COURAGEOUS WORK THROUGH THE LIST 
                    PROJECT TO RESETTLE IRAQI ALLIES

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. ALCEE L. HASTINGS

                               of florida

                    in the house of representatives

                      Thursday, September 12, 2013

  Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pride to rise 
today to recognize Mr. Kirk W. Johnson, the founder and executive 
director of the List Project to Resettle Iraqi Allies, for his 
continued efforts to safely resettle those Iraqis who have risked their 
lives working for the United States. I had the distinct honor of first 
meeting Kirk in 2008, when I began working with him and his 
organization on legislative remedies to this crisis. He has since been 
featured in numerous interviews and documentaries on the subject, 
testified on two occasions before members of the House and Senate on 
the consequences of our withdrawal from Iraq, and just published his 
first book. Kirk is truly an amazing individual who has selflessly 
dedicated himself to helping Iraqis who have worked for the United 
States in Iraq--and whose lives have been placed in grave danger for 
that service.
  Kirk was born and raised in West Chicago, Illinois. In 2002, he 
earned a bachelor's degree with general and departmental honors in Near 
Eastern Languages and Civilizations from the University of Chicago. 
During that time, he received a Foreign Language Acquisition Grant to 
study the Syrian colloquial dialect of Arabic in Damascus, followed by 
fellowships from the American Academy in Berlin, Yaddo, MacDowell, and 
the Wurlitzer Foundation. Finally, prior to his work in Iraq, he 
conducted research on political Islamism as a Fulbright Scholar in 
Egypt.
  In 2005, Kirk served in Iraq with the U.S. Agency for International 
Development (USAID), first in Baghdad and then in Fallujah, where he 
was the Agency's first coordinator for reconstruction in the war-torn 
city. A letter from an Iraqi colleague in 2006, which said, ``People 
are trying to kill me and I need your help,'' got him involved in 
helping America's endangered Iraqi allies. After Kirk successfully 
assisted his colleague, many other pleas for help followed, which led 
Kirk to found the List Project. The organization has grown to become 
the largest single pro bono initiative ever undertaken on behalf of 
refugees.
  His recently published book, ``To Be a Friend is Fatal: A Story from 
the Aftermath of America at War,'' tells the story of the List 
Project's seven-year struggle to protect thousands of Iraqi allies. It 
centers on the lives of four Iraqis who stepped forward to help the 
United States, following them as they flee from Iraq and come up 
against the challenging bureaucracy of the U.S. refugee resettlement 
program.
  To date, Kirk's writing on U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East and 
towards Iraqi allies who

[[Page 13582]]

approached him in dire need of help has appeared in The New York Times, 
The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post 
Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, and Foreign Policy. In addition, he 
has appeared on 60 Minutes, The Today Show, and World News Tonight. A 
leading public advocate for Iraqis who assisted the U.S. Government, 
Kirk's efforts have been recognized by Harvard University's John F. 
Kennedy School of Government, where he will be continuing his studies 
next year.
  Mr. Speaker, Kirk has so far helped nearly 1,500 Iraqis, which makes 
him a true American hero in my eyes. He has given a voice to those 
individuals who were there for us when we needed their help, but were 
left to struggle through the system when they needed ours. Kirk has 
faced significant challenges and proven himself to be a leader whose 
service to this nation has only just begun.

                          ____________________