The List: A Mission To Save Iraqi Lives

Branded As Collaborators By Insurgents, Many Iraqis Who Helped The U.S. Face Grave Danger

(CBS)  On Pelley's trip to Jordan, Johnson was getting so many calls that he decided to start meeting refugees in groups. "Everyone of you will be assigned a lawyer. Some of you have already been assigned one and because there are so many new names there is a delay, but I promise you all will have an American lawyer that will work for you for free," he told one such group.

Those American lawyers are coming from three big firms which Johnson recruited. Holland & Knight, Proskauer Rose and Mayer Brown have donated the time of more than 150 attorneys. Private donors fund Johnson’s work.

Pelley met one of the refugee families getting that legal help. They've been in Jordan 18 months. For the safety of their relatives in Iraq 60 Minutes won't use their name. But all of them worked for the U.S.

One man printed the new Iraqi constitution on an American contract and handed them out to the public; his wife worked with Americans training teachers.

"You are sure you can't go back to Baghdad?" Pelley asked.

"No. Of course not," the woman said. "I'm going to be killed there. I'm certain about that. Either me or one of my kids."

Another family member fled to Jordan after the woman's sister was shot and killed. "We left everything. Friends, family, houses, jobs, everything, our country. They took my sister from me," she told Pelley. "I just want to live safe. That’s it. I don't want that to happen again with my children, with my family. I don't want that. I just want to live safe."

"One of the things that the U.S. government says about why this takes so long is that people have to be interviewed again and again because they’re concerned about letting a terrorist into the United States," Pelley told one of the refugees.

"I can understand them," the refugee replied.

"But I also sense from you that you’re frustrated by that," Pelley remarked.

"Because I'm not a terrorist. That's why I'm frustrated," the refugee said.

"If we can't get to the point where we can't even save the people who are themselves fleeing terrorists, if we can't somehow regain our senses and say 'You've been riding in Humvees with our Marines, you've been translating for our diplomats. We understand that you're not the terrorists,' if we don’t have the capacity to do this, I don't even know how finish that sentence. I know that we do. We just lack political will," Johnson argues.