In the eyes of the Iraqi insurgents, Maissar Talib is a traitor. To the coalition forces, his colleagues for four dangerous years, the young Iraqi interpreter is a hero who risked his life to help them.

And in his own mind he is now a rootless refugee, exiled to Denmark as a member of Iraq’s most endangered minority: the people who chose, willingly, to work for the foreign forces in Iraq, but now face torture and death at the hands of a ruthless insurgent militia who see them as enemy collaborators.

Mr Talib is lucky, comparatively speaking, in being a former interpreter for the Danish Army, part of the military coalition operating in the south of Iraq. Last month, shortly before Denmark withdrew the last of its troops, Mr Talib, fellow interpreters employed by the Danes and their families –— 200 people in all — were quietly flown out of Iraq to be given asylum in Denmark.

While Danish authorities offered help to Iraqi workers, the British Government was accused this week of abandoning its interpreters, who face persecution and possible death for helping the coalition.

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

Related Links

• Prepared to stay and work to the end

The Times revealed that Britain has resisted requests to grant asylum to 91 interpreters and other workers employed by British Forces since 2003. Hundreds of interpreters and other locally engaged staff working for the coalition have been kidnapped, tortured and murdered over the past four years.

In light of the revelations, Downing Street is reviewing its policy of providing no special favours to interpreters, other employees and their families, potentially numbering several thousand people.

Mr Talib offers a bleak assessment of the fate of Britain’s Iraqi inter- preters, many of whom he knows personally, if they are left behind: “They will almost all be killed.”

Today the 29-year-old Iraqi sits in a Red Cross asylum camp in Jutland, deep in rural Denmark, a place so peaceful that Basra and Baghdad might be on another planet. As we speak of the horror and terror of the life he has left behind, I can hear a cowbell in the distance.

Mr Talib and his wife and three young children are now safe, but he is ill at ease. “I am glad to be here, and thankful to the Danish. But everyone loves his homeland. I love Iraq too much. It is my country and I do not know if I can ever return.” His eyes fill, and he turns away.

Public pressure for Mr Talib and his fellow translators to be granted asylum grew in Denmark this year after a military translator working for the Danes was kidnapped, horribly tortured and murdered. Mr Talib gave several interviews calling on Denmark to recognise the interpreters’ loyalty and give them a home. Finally, Denmark offered them a choice between asylum, an undisclosed sum of money, or help in moving to another Middle Eastern country. Almost all chose Denmark.

The issue of what to do with the Iraqis who have served the coalition mirrors the dilemma of any army contemplating withdrawal. British military tradition holds that anyone who has aided the Army is owed a moral as well as financial debt. After the fall of Saigon, in 1975, the US admitted 130,000 Vietnamese allies; as President Ford remarked: “To do less would have added moral shame to humiliation.” Even so, thousands of Vietnamese who had helped the Americans were left behind.

In many ways, the personal story of Mr Talib echoes the Iraq war itself, beginning in a burst of optimism, eroded by bloodshed and chaos, and ending in disillusionment and uncertainty.

Mr Talib, the son of an army officer injured in the Iran-Iraq War, was born in a small Shia town near Basra, and graduated in 2002 from Basra University College of Arts with a degree in English. When the coalition toppled Saddam Hussein, he celebrated.

“I was one of those who went into the streets to welcome them with flowers. It was real happiness. I began talking to two soldiers, one British and one American, and I explained many things to them.”

A few months later he signed up as interpreter, first with the British Army in Basra and then with the Danish force. His motives were mixed: to earn some good money (the Danes paid $600 a month, rather more than the British), to practise his English, and to make contacts among the newly arrived Westerners. But there was altruism and patriotism too.

“I thought I would help my country to rebuild, make a connection between the forces and our people. Let’s say 85 to 90 per cent of the people in Iraq welcomed the troops, because we saw that this will push Saddam off his throne and bring democracy. For years we had been held in a cage.”

Hundreds of English-speaking Iraqis volunteered to help, like Mr Talib, in the months after the invasion. Many had learnt the language from secretly listening to the BBC in the darkest days of Saddam.

The best interpreters did more than merely translate, by acting as cultural advisers, pitfall-avoiders and, inevit-ably, intelligence-gatherers.

“At the beginning we were very proud, and our families were proud of us working with the coalition,” he says. Back in his home village, neighbours would welcome him with congratulations.

The young Iraqi acted as a liaison between the Danes and the Iraqi police, as well as numerous reconstruction bodies working on agriculture and education. He also accompanied the patrols. During one of these, he was caught up in a gunfight between the police and Danish forces on one side, and a group of heavily armed hijackers on the other.

Mr Talib crawled, under fire, between the police and soldiers delivering messages, and tended the wounds of an injured Danish nurse. In recognition of his actions, he was awarded a certificate, and $75. In his room at the refugee centre in Thyregod, he displays, with shy pride, his diploma of commendation from the Danish Army. “They said to me, ‘You behaved not just like an interpreter, but like a soldier, one of us’.”

“One of us” was becoming a most dangerous thing to be.

Slowly at first, the situation began to deteriorate, as the insurgency accelerated and Iraqi opinion turned against the coalition forces. Interpreters were issued with body armour and helmets. Mr Talib was permitted to carry a pistol to and from work.

In December 2005 an interpreter working for the Danes was killed as he walked home. In Mosul, northern Iraq, insurgents circulated a horrific DVD showing two military inter- preters being beheaded.

“People began to call us spies and traitors,” Mr Talib recalls bitterly. The Arabic for “collaborator”, aameel, literally means “agent”. Although Mr Talib believed that he was working for both sides, he knew that he had come to represent, for many of his compatriots, the enemy: one of them.

“In my own village, the same people who had welcomed me before, now looked me in the eyes and said, ‘You will be killed’.”

Last December the horribly mutilated body of Mohammed Ismael, a senior military interpreter employed by the Danes, was found near Basra. He had been suspended by the wrists, beaten and shot in the head. “He was a talented, brave and respected man,” Mr Talib says. “When I was afraid, I went to him.”

Mr Talib was now, justifiably, very afraid. Soon afterwards, a note was pushed under his door in the middle of the night, which threatened: “Anyone co-operating with the occupation force will be killed.”

He resigned from his job, and went into hiding, lobbying the Danes to provide him, his colleagues and their families with sanctuary. Even when this was granted, he expected to be caught by the insurgents at any moment. At dawn on the day of his departure, he slipped away from his home village, escorted by a group of armed relatives. “We could not let anyone know we were going, or we might not have escaped.”

Today Mr Talib and his family live in a small but comfortable Red Cross hut, taking lessons in Danish language and culture, and wondering about the future, and what was left behind. “I just want to help my colleagues still in Iraq and encourage Britain to save them. They are in real danger.”

People such as Mr Talib — edu- cated, energetic and patriotic — are precisely those most needed to rebuild Iraq. When I point this out, a look of pure pain crosses his face. “You have no choice. You have to think of yourself. If I lose my life, my country does not benefit.”

The interpreters, drivers and other workers still aiding the coalition forces in Iraq now live in constant fear of kidnapping, torture and murder. One State Department official recently described their plight to The New Yorker: “Most of them have lived secret lives for so long that they are truly a unique ‘homeless’ population in Iraq’s warzone — dependent on us for security and not convinced we will take care of them when we leave.”

Mr Talib will make a new life in Denmark, but feels he will never be at home there. “The language is so hard. It is very strange.” He looks out over the neatly cropped wheat fields under a misty Scandinavian sky. “If it gets calm and quiet, then I’ll go back home.” It is a prayer more than a prediction.

A grim irony of this war – in which one man’s brave loyalty is another’s wicked collaboration – is that the very people who worked hardest to rebuild a new home in Iraq have ended up with no home at all.

Asylum row grows

Tuesday August 7

—The Times breaks the story that 91 Iraqi interpreters and their families will not be given asylum when British Forces withdraw, facing persecution and possible death when they are left behind

— Interpreters plead not to be abandoned. Hundreds of interpreters and other locally engaged staff working for the coalition have been kidnapped, tortured and murdered

Wednesday August 8

— The revelations provoke outrage at Whitehall and Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister, orders a review

— Des Browne, the Defence Secretary, says the question is broader than granting asylum to interpreters as the British have employed as many as 20,000 local staff

Thursday August 9

—The Times reveals that if asylum regulations were relaxed for those now working for British Forces, 600 Iraqis would be eligible to settle in Britain — not 20,000

What readers say

Throughout the week in Letters to the Editor, many readers urged the Government to help the interpreters

“All of them were risking their lives because they believed in my Government's expressed aim of improving the lives of Iraqis. They have trusted my Government's word and are still risking their lives to support that Government.”
The Rev David Cooper, Datchet, Berks

“The UK and US have squandered hundreds of billions to destroy these people’s lives. Do they not have it in their consciences to give access to a place of safety to the victims?”
Jeanne Kelly, Kingston upon Thames

“The British Government does not have any legal obligation towards Iraqi interpreters and hired help; but it does have a moral one and a pragmatic one.”
Milos Stankovic, Farnham, Surrey

Language divide

—40 per cent of contracting staff reported killed in Iraq are interpreters

—One of the largest firms supplying translators to work alongside US troops offers $750 per month remuneration to Iraqis. American translators receive $7000 a month

—Because of their local knowledge, Iraqi translators usually accompany troops off base on active patrols and missions while foreigners remain on base translating documents

—Translators can earn more by volunteering to undertake dangerous missions. Rewards of up to $1,000 are available for accompanying troops into volatile situations

—US government death benefits paid to the families of murdered translators would be $300 - $700 a month according to a formula in the Defence Base Act

—91 Iraqi translators work with the British contingent of 5,000 troops based in Basra. Gordon Brown is reviewing the decision to refuse them special asylum consideration.

—Denmark’s 450 troops employed a total of 152 Iraqi translators and aides in total since 2003

Source: Times archives; FIT (International Federation of Translators); www.icasualities.org; UK MOD; US DOD; Translation Express

Times Recommends

• Thousands of Tamils dying in 'welfare camp'
• Jackson 'rebuilt his nose before he died'
• Renewed Iran protests crushed by militia