Gordon Brown’s decision to review policy towards Iraqi staff serving Britain presents the Government with a complex administrative and moral problem.

Des Browne, the Defence Secretary, said today that as many as 20,000 Iraqis could qualify to be resettled in Britain, if the Government decides that it must help current and former staff and their dependents who would be at risk of persecution after a British withdrawal.

Pressure has been rising on Britain to take in the Iraqis after the decision earlier this year by America to open its doors to 7,000 Iraqis, including existing and former employees of the US Government in Iraq.

The Ministry of Defence currently has 91 Iraqi interpreters. Dozens more locally engaged staff are employed by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Department for International Development.

If the offer of resettlement was restricted to those currently and recently employed, the total figure would probably be no more than several hundred, slightly above the 200 Iraqis who were resettled last month when Danish forces withdrew.

But the British commitment has been longer and larger. There is a case to be made that all Iraqis employed since the invasion in 2003 — from interpreters to clerical staff and cleaners — are at risk and should be allowed to come to Britain with their families. This would not only include Iraqis in Basra, the British headquarters, but also in the three provinces that Britain has now vacated. Furthermore, a large proportion of former staff have fled Iraq and would have to be dealt with in Syria, Jordan and other countries where Iraqi refugees have settled.

An early assessment suggests that the total number could be 15,000 to 20,000. The cost of the operation could run into hundreds of millions of pounds. It would also set a precedent that staff in Afghanistan and other global troublespots could justifiably claim applies to them.

But, as many British soldiers who have served in Iraq have pointed out, the alternative could be much more costly in terms of human life and Britain’s reputation in the world. Interpreters, embassy staff and even cleaners working for coalition forces have been killed in their hundreds in Iraq. If Britain abandon those who have worked for it, it could trigger a bloodbath as militias and insurgents punish those they regard as traitors to the country.

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