Fadi (Freddie) Fadhil is irrepressible.

The Iraqi, who arrived in Minnesota in June with a target painted on his chest, refuses to yield to winter or the failings of his favorite football team, the Vikings.

"I turn 27 soon and this is the first snow I've ever seen," he said. "I wish it would last. It's beautiful."

The cold? "I love the feeling on my ears," he said.

The Vikings? "They will bounce back."

Fadhil, who daily put his life on the line for two years as an interpreter for the U.S. military, is excited about nearly everything he has encountered since arriving in Apple Valley.

A problem: The United States hasn't embraced Fadhil as warmly as he has embraced the United States. The bureaucracy that provides visas here moves fast for no one.

That slow pace, and the possibility that Fadhil could be deported, stuns Michael Baumann, a retired Army lieutenant colonel who lives in Apple Valley.

Baumann, who led a battalion task force in Baghdad for a year, starting in March 2004, has seen Fadhil's courage and skill in the most difficult of situations.

Fadhil was Baumann's interpreter, the fourth commander he worked for. Fadhil went wherever Baumann went. He sat in on meetings with Baghdad leaders of all stripes. He helped U.S. troops find stockpiles of insurgent weapons. Unlike most interpreters, who work behind masks to conceal their identity, Fadhil worked, for $400 a month, unmasked.

"It helped create an aura of trust with the people we were dealing with," Baumann said.

Baumann saw Fadhil threatened. He knew that other Iraqi interpreters were getting killed. He saw how Fadhil had to sever contact with his mother and siblings in Baghdad because working with the Americans put his family at risk.

Baumann was certain that Fadhil would be killed if he stayed in Iraq, so Baumann urged him to come to the United States. "I can't begin to describe the service this man has performed for his country and our country," Baumann said.

"And what he could provide to this country now is inestimable. If he had not left, he would have been killed. If he has to go back, he would not survive two weeks."

Baumann says he is troubled on two levels. He believes that the young man he considers to be "my brother" has earned a hero's welcome. And he says Fadhil has skills that should not be wasted.

Fadhil has a master's degree in computer networking. He speaks several dialects of Arabic as well as French and English. But he can't work now.

The short-term visa he had to get out of Iraq has expired. The quota for work visas closed in August, on the day Fadhil found sponsorship and a job in the Twin Cities.

He has applied for political asylum and has Sen. Norm Coleman's support. Rep. John Kline has indicated a willingness to help.

The good: He's allowed to stay in the United States during the asylum petitioning. The bad: The process is slow, the outcome uncertain and he's not allowed to work while he waits and waits and waits.

Given all that Fadhil has risked and all that he offers, a hearty "thank you" and "welcome" would have seemed a more logical greeting.

Doug Grow • dgrow@startribune.com.