Discarding Iraqi Employees

It’s been all quiet on the Iraq employees front for about two months, but in the background Dan Hardie has been lobbying hard. Despite the progress at the end of last year, the Government has been long on talk and short on actually saving lives. According to Dan,

A small number of Iraqis - fewer than a dozen, according to people close to the operation who are in contact with me- were removed from Iraq in the early autumn of 2007. Since the Prime Minister’s admirable declaration of October, how many Iraqi ex-employees have been evacuated from Iraq? According to all the Iraqis that I am in contact with: none.

Aside from the usual bureaucratic obstacles, which are understandable but objectionable when people’s lives are at risk, Dan describes how

… the policy itself is being used to keep out Iraqis who can prove that they worked for British forces, and who can prove that their lives are at risk as a result. One man, Hamed, worked for British forces on Shaibah Logistics Base for over two years, as the Government accepts. He was threatened by the militias, and gunmen went to his house, so he moved his family to Syria and slept on the base’s floor. He continued to work for the British. Hamed finally was given ‘notice to quit’ Shaibah when the base closed, and fled to Syria, where he cannot legally work and where he and his family are safe (so far) but hungry. The British Government knows who Hamed is. A British Army NCO who knew him has confirmed every detail of his story to me, saying that he knew that Hamed had reported the threats against him to the military authorities. The Government has written to Hamed to reject any claim for help, since he was ‘not directly employed’ by the military.

My last post on Mark Steyn drew a number of comments, one of which accused me of “moral self righteousness” and being a “traitor to reason”. Presumably my interest in saving the lives of those threatened with death - solely because of their own willingness to defend an embryonic democracy, however flawed, and provide for their families - is part of that complex. However if you are also a self-righteous traitor, perhaps you’d like to contact your MP to try and save some lives.

Write a letter to your MP, c/o The House of Commons, Westminster, London, SW1A 0AA. If you don’t know who your constituency MP is, go here and type your postcode in. When you’ve sent a letter, follow it up with an email: his or her address will normally be SURNAMEINITIAL@parliament.uk - for example BROWNG@parliament.uk. Two or three days after you have written the letter, call the Parliamentary switchboard on 0207 219 3000 and ask for your MP’s office. Repeat your concerns to the secretary or research assistant you speak to (and be nice: most of these people work damn hard for little reward), check that your letter has been received, and politely request that the MP ask questions of Ministers and reply to you. In your email, your letter, and your phone calls, you must be courteous: insulting an MP or a research assistant will discredit this cause. Talking points for the letter are on Dan’s blog.