It has been more than two years since Ali Salah arrived in Jordan, one refugee among hundreds of thousands who have fled the violence in Iraq.

Salah was forced to flee Iraq as months after the US-led invasion of Iraq, he volunteered to work with US troops as an interpreter, earning himself the hatred of some Iraqis who branded him an enemy collaborator.

"I felt I wasn't safe, and that meant that my family wasn't safe," said Salah, who worked with the Americans at the Al Waleed border crossing, which sits at the point where Jordan, Iraq and Syria meet.

Once in Jordan, Salah should have been fast-tracked for a visa to resettle in the United States under US policies which are supposed to ease the immigration process for those who worked alongside Americans during the war.

But instead, he was stonewalled by international officials and was even told that he never worked with US troops because he was unable to produce a US-issued badge that would provide proof in the eyes of official.

"When I arrived here, I went to the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and talked to them about my case, but I had no proof that I had worked with the US army," Salah, using an assumed name for security reasons, told AFP.

"A year later, I lost the hope to start over. Things weren't moving, and I wondered what I could do," he said.

According to Iraqi officials, there are up to 450,000 refugees from Iraq in Jordan, while Jordanian officials put the figure at 750,000.

"We don't have any statistics but we consider there are between 400,000 and 450,000 refugees from Iraq here," said Thamir Salman, a minister plenipotentiary at the Iraqi embassy in Amman.

"Jordan's population of five million has grown by 750,000 with the arrival of the Iraqi refugees," said Nasser al-Ramadan, director of the office of the Jordanian Interior Minister.

Salah is one of those Iraqi refugees who, in the words of one official, "will never, ever be able to go back."

"Most refugees want to go home. Most don't want to go somewhere new and restart their lives," said the diplomat, who asked not to be named.

"At this time, most Iraqis in Jordan don't see a situation where they can return. And some will never, ever be able to go back," he said.

In Jordan, Salah and his family were living off their savings and the money they had made selling both their cars before leaving Iraq. The former customs officer and interpreter was sinking deeper into despair.

Then, he was thrown a lifeline via the Internet.

"I put the name of the American commanding officer I worked with at Al Waleed in Google and I couldn't believe it when I found him and saw his picture. I screamed to my brother: 'Look! It's Luis,'" Salah said

This week, Salah was reunited in Amman with former US Army captain Luis Montalvan, who retired from the army last year after 17 years' service and recently set up an association to help Iraqi refugees.

"If it weren't for you, many of my soldiers would have died," Montalvan said to Salah as the two men embraced, four years after they last saw each other in Iraq.

Montalvan was in Jordan on a mission for Iraq Veterans' Refugee Aid Association (IVRAA), the non-profit he founded with fellow Iraq veteran, former Marine captain Tyler Boudreau.

"We feel it's our nation's responsibility to help; IVRAA is a way to correct some mistakes," Montalvan said.

"I feel a bit responsible as a former military officer for some of the displacement of Iraqis," Boudreau said.

"This is one way of trying to do something," he added.

In Amman, the two former officers met with Jordanian government officials, Iraqi and American diplomats, and representatives from UN agencies and non-governmental organisations.

During a meeting at the US embassy, a state department official told Boudreau and Montalvan that "based on the documents presented to them, they believe Salah qualifies for the Special Immigration Visa because it's been shown he served as an interpreter for coalition forces," Montalvan told AFP.

The Special Immigration Visa for interpreters would speed up the application process and allow Salah to take his entire family with him to America.

"Now in the streets of Jordan, I walk like this," Salah said, hoisting up his elbows and swaggering in his seat.

"But sometimes I'm still afraid I will be sent back to Iraq. I always think about this. Always."