WASHINGTON, Sept 19 (Reuters) - The United States appointed senior officials on Wednesday to clear hurdles to admitting refugees from Iraq, following sharp criticism that it had neglected people who risked their lives to help the U.S. war.

The United States has admitted only 990 refugees from Iraq since last Oct. 1 -- less than one percent of more than 10,000 refugees allocated to the United States for admission by the U.N. High Commissioner on Refugees, a U.S. official said.

For the two new posts, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice named diplomat James Foley senior coordinator for Iraqi refugee issues and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff tapped immigration law expert Lori Scialabba as senior advisor.

Foley, a former U.S. ambassador to Haiti, is tasked with ensuring that "any bureaucratic roadblocks that come up are being handled appropriately," said State Department Deputy spokesman Tom Casey.

He said Rice sought a "bureaucratic brick-breaker" to work with the Iraq Refugee and Internally Displaced Persons Task Force and other agencies to clear the refugee backlog.

More than 4,309 interviews have been completed thus far, and the Department of Homeland Security expected to have interviewed approximately 4,500 Iraqi refugees by the end of this month, Chertoff said in a statement.

"Yet we also must be mindful of the security risks associated with admitting refugees from war-torn countries, especially countries infiltrated by large numbers of terrorists," Chertoff said.

Restrictive security procedures imposed since the Sept. 11 attacks to ensure incoming refugees do not include Islamist militants have slowed Iraqi refugee admissions, said Ellen Sauerbrey, assistant secretary of state for population, refugees and migration.

That slow pace of admitting Iraqis -- including people at particular risk for having served in jobs such as translators for U.S. authorities -- came under sharp criticism at a hearing before the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.

"The United States has not been as forthcoming as it should," Republican Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania told the forum, which was also attended by Sauerbrey.

"These are Iraqis that have cooperated with the United States," he said. "They're at risk. They're being killed ... it's a matter of what we owe them."

According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the Iraqi Red Crescent, about 4.2 million people have fled their homes in Iraq during four years of war.

More than 2 million people are displaced within Iraq, 1.4 million are believed to be in Syria and Jordan estimates that it is hosting between 500,000 and 750,000.

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