Leading article: Iraq's scholars - we can help

All credit to the Council for Assisting Refugee Academics (Cara) for taking action to support Iraqi students and scholars. We hope that the Prime Minister and the International Development Secretary, Hilary Benn, will respond to their request for a meeting and help to establish a fund along the lines of that being set up in the USA. Universities should heed the call of Cara's president John Ashworth that they "adopt an Iraqi", just as universities and student unions adopted Jews who had fled Germany in the Thirties and Forties. Steps need to be taken to protect educated Iraqis, and to ensure that one day they may return to their country and rebuild what was once a fine university system.