WASHINGTON (AFP) -- The United States has accelerated its absorption of Iraqi refugees since October, but will likely have difficulty achieving its target of 12,000 for fiscal year 2008, official figures showed Monday.

According to the State Department's special coordinator for refugees from Iraq, 375 Iraqis arrived in the United States in January with refugee status, taking to 1,432 the total absorbed since October, the beginning of the fiscal year.
That figure represented a quicker pace of acceptance over fiscal 2007, when a total of 3,040 refugees from the war-torn country arrived in the United States.
But the pace was far behind the 12,000 targeted for fiscal 2008.
""This is a tall order but it remains attainable,"" Foley told reporters.
""While we will not cross the thousand arrivals (per month) threshold until some time in the spring, we are confident that we will have substantial numbers of arrivals in the fourth quarter of the fiscal year and thus we continue to aim for 12,000 arrivals by the end of September.""
Foley said that immigration interviews and investigations for refugees had been sped up. About 3,300 preliminary application investigations have been handled since October, according to government records.
The government expects to handle 5,500 more between January and March, and up to 8,000 in the March-June period, according to Foley.
The 12,000 Iraqis expected to be accepted took refuge in Jordan, Turkey, Syria, Lebanon and Gulf countries, and are being helped by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to apply to come to the United States.
In addition, Washington has said it would accept annually 500 Iraqis working directly with the US government -- translators, interpreters and their families -- through a special visa program.
Moreover, under legislation recently adopted in Congress, up to 5,000 Iraqis who have worked for the U.S. government and are considered living under serious threat of retribution in Iraq could be accepted for resettlement into the United States each year.
The UNHCR estimates that about 4.2 million Iraqis have fled their homes since the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003. About two million of them are internally-displaced refugees. Another 1.4 million are in Syria and 750,000 in Jordan.
The U.S. government has come under criticism from both Congress and non-governmental organizations for its sluggish reception of Iraqi refugees.