This just keeps getting worse: The Times reports that the Government has rejected 300 out of 700 Iraqi employees who applied for resettlement, mostly under the 12 month rule. That’s a rejection rate of just under half. Curiously, the Foreign Office’s own scheme has turned down 38 out of 180; this seems to suggest that the MOD employees are suffering because they have worked for many different organisations and units on six-month tours. People are being killed; one man went missing after going to the base to apply on the 23rd of December, and Basra was the scene of a major firefight between the Iraqi army and the Sadrists over Christmas.