Big words I know.

Gordon Brown came under renewed pressure yesterday to grant asylum to Iraqis
working for the British after the British Ambassador in Baghdad paid an
emotional tribute to their courage and dedication.

Dominic Asquith said that some local employees were under “very, very severe
threat”. He said that he had “unbounded admiration” for the courage of those
who braved death threats to work for Britain, and that the Government had a
“duty of care” to all staff. “We could not do this without them coming to
work with us,” he told The Times.

Further:

What’s Arabic for ‘we’ll stand by you’?

The only way to demonstrate to ordinary Iraqis that the interpreters are not
enemy collaborators but patriots, is to stand by them, to protect them while
we remain in Iraq, and to offer them shelter when we go. If they are left to
the mercies of the insurgents, that will simply confirm in the minds of many
Iraqis that this was always a cynical grab for oil and power, in which the
lives of Iraqis mattered little.

The precedents are clear, and horrible. When France finally pulled out of
Algeria in 1962, some 90,000 Arabs who had worked with the French managed to
escape along with the former colonists of European origin. Of the pro-French
Algerians who remained behind, it is estimated that between 50,000 and
150,000 were killed by lynch mobs.

In Vietnam, America made no effective plans to evacuate the thousands of
Vietnamese who had worked with it. One of the most chilling images of
military defeat are the photographs of desperate Vietnamese clinging to the
helicopters as they lifted off from the US Embassy in Saigon for the last
time.

Britain has yet to decide whether to grant asylum to the interpreters,
drivers, guards and other Iraqis who supported our troops. This may amount
to as many as 15,000 people – a small number when one considers that Sweden,
which is not a member of the coalition, will admit 25,000 Iraqi refugees
this year alone.

A failure to protect our closest friends in Iraq would be politically foolish,
historically ignorant and morally indefensible.

Go here to join the campaign.