It is six weeks since the Government promised an “urgent review” of the situation of Iraqis whose lives are in danger because of their work as interpreters for the British Army. During that time, the 5,000 British troops have pulled back from central Basra to the airport, mainly for their own safety. Nothing has been done for the interpreters. Several have already been tortured and killed. Some have received death threats from militia thugs who accuse them of collaboration. Their homes are unprotected and their families live in terror. Out of loyalty and honour, they remain at their posts, helping British troops understand the dangers and the confusion. In return, they have been contemptuously brushed aside, as though they were trouble-makers demanding special favours. This is utterly shameful.

There have been vague promises that the men will not be abandoned when Britain finally leaves – though all the talk is of “relocating” most of the interpreters, rather than guaranteeing them and their families asylum in Britain, far from the violence. The Home Office and the Ministry of Defence try to slough off responsibility, hiding behind the excuse of a “review”. Spokesmen insinuate that extending the guarantee agreed for the 91 full-time interpreters would set a precedent encouraging up to 15,000 Iraqis to demand entry into Britain. Furthermore, they argue, lawyers would claim that Afghans should also have a right to asylum, forcing Britain to admit thousands of impoverished tribesmen.

Such talk is as dishonest as it is immoral. This has nothing to do with immigration policy and everything to do with British integrity. That quality seems disgracefully thin, compared to the immediate and unconditional guarantees given to their interpreters by Spain, Italy and Denmark before they withdrew their forces from Iraq.

In fact, Britain’s indifference is doubly culpable. For it is not the final pull-out that needs now to be addressed, but the situation today. The troops are still in Iraq and the interpreters are still needed. Some are so frightened that they are forced to remain on base all the time. Nothing is being done to guard their families. In desperation, they have appealed to correspondents to tell the world of their plight. And with weasel-worded insouciance, Army spokesmen maintain either that those threatened want to have their dignity and anonymity respected or that there is no record of those who have recently been murdered ever having worked for the British. The Government would prefer you to read jolly stories about the troops playing cricket in the desert than about brave Iraqis facing torture and death.

Hundreds of Iraq interpreters rebuffed by UK

Nearly half of applications to settle in Britain have been rejected by the MoD already despite safety fears

Multimedia

• Video: the online war

• Pictures: Life in Iraq

BACKGROUND

• Story of brothers who worked for the British

• I’ve no regrets, says interpreter

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

• Abandoned: the 91 Iraqis who risked all

The Ministry of Defence needs to clarify its policy forthwith. If the interpreters are needed, they and their families must be protected. If they cannot be accommodated in the new airport base, they should be rescued and taken somewhere safer. Militia leaders in Basra are already boasting their they have “driven out” the enemy; now they are trying to demonstrate their patriotic zeal by punishing “collaborators” – and the more terrifying the cruelty used, the greater their intimidation of a cowed populace. The US military is committed to doing the honourable thing in Iraq; by contrast, Britain looks very much as though it has cut and run, at the expense of Basra and the interpreters. Honour, it seems, was withdrawn together with the troops.