U.S. soldiers in Iraq stymied by translation tech

November 6, 2006 | Matt Marshall | Comments | |

Integrated Wave Technologies is a Fremont company that builds a translation device for U.S. soldiers in Iraq, produced 1,300 of its machines costing between $2,500 to $3,000.

Soldiers say “house search” into the machine, and it translates in Arabic: “We’re here to search your house. Please stay in this room. Do you have any weapons?”

But then the U.S. military realized what soldiers really needed was to have a conversation with the people they encounter, not just give orders. So it and other similar products haven’t proven robust enough to replace human interpreters.

Duh!

See story here.

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  • Cody Anderson
    My name is Cody Anderson I’m a freshman Central York High School I am conducting research on the cost of war in Iraq. I was wondering if I could interview you about what you think of the cost.
    Thank you for your time and attention.

    Sincerely,


    Cody Anderson
  • Cody the answer to your question depends on how wide or narrowly you wish to define cost. And therefore, an actual net cost number may not exist.

    It costs a few bucks for you to drive to school each day and buy lunch, but of course we don't view that as a "cost". The cost for you NOT to go to school will end up being in the millions. When you are a huge success as an adult, your income will allow you to buy services and products from others and help them too - for the rest of your life. This is why we don't view the cost of driving and lunch as a "cost". The readers of VB are the most extreme example of this formula. There is a reason why they are the most successful people around, and it's because they take an extremely long view when they invest "cost" in a startup business.

    Similarly, you can define the Iraq war by the budgetary cost that the congress and senate authorized to send US forces. Those numbers are available. Then you can define it by the cost all the other countries spent to send in their forces as well.

    But it doesn't end there, and this is where you have to decide how far you want to go to find the "true" costs. Start with your timespan. Over 30 years Saddam buried millions in mass graves, not just Iraqis but Kuwaitis and Iranians as well over several wars. And then started in gassing his own villages as we know.

    Since Saddam invaded Kuwait in 1991 the UN decided to remove him from power by imposing devastating sanctions on the country's economy. The costs to the Iraqi economy and population over that decade were many times higher than the current war. As we know he responded by building palaces and paying off countries and UN officials to to let him continue to sell oil illegally.

    When the Iraqi population death rate became unsustainable, the US felt it wwas worthwhile to remove him from power by force. Before the attack started, Saddam was given 24 hours to leave the country. So unfortunately we had to go in and get him.

    Today Iraq's 45 million citizens enjoy the highest education and healthcare standards in the Arab world with hundreds of new schools and hospitals. Building construction in Iraq is the highest in the middle east, even higher than Dubai. And best of all they have a democratically elected government, perhaps the only one in the arab world. Finally, the murder rate in Baghdad is less than that of Washington DC.

    Going back to the school cost analogy, you can see it is a very similar situation. In the case of Iraq, how do you calculate the cost decades from now?