The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
15.
On 11 March
1917, as British forces approached Baghdad, and the
Turkish
Army fled,
the city was given over to mass looting by local Arabs and Kurds.
After the
American
Consul appealed to the British to intervene, British and Indian
soldiers fired
over the
heads of the looters and dispersed them.
16.
On March 12, a
British proclamation announced: “O, people of Baghdad ...
Our
armies do
not come into your cities and lands as conquerors or enemies, but
as
liberators”.
The people of Baghdad were then invited “through your Nobles and
Elders
and
Representatives, to participate in the management of your own civil
affairs in
collaboration
with the political representatives of Great Britain who accompanied
the
British
Army so that you might be united with your kinsmen in north, east,
south and
west in
realizing the aspirations of your Race”.
17.
In August 1917
the Mesopotamia Commission – the first Iraq Inquiry – set up
by
the British
Government a year earlier, published its report of the first two
years’ fighting.
Among the
Report’s criticisms were equipment that was “not up to the
standards of
modern
warfare”, a “lamentable breakdown of the care of the sick and
wounded”, the
“isolation
and ignorance” of those responsible for the care of the wounded, a
standard
of
administration based on “the routine method of normal times rather
than to the
impressment
of new ideas”, army organisation that was “backward in every
particular”,
and what it
called (with regard to some of the witnesses) “misuse of
reticence”. Neither
in the
organisation of industrial resources for the purposes of war, nor
in general
finances,
the Report asserted, “was sufficient alacrity shown during the
first year and a
half of
war.” The overarching failure: “a lack of plans and a lack of
preparations”.7
18.
On 30 October
1918, Turkey accepted an armistice. When it came into force
the
following
day, the three Ottoman provinces of Mosul, Baghdad and Basra came
under
British
military rule. The human cost of the four-year campaign had been
high: more than
31,000
British and Indian dead and at least 25,000 Turkish
dead.
19.
With the
defeat of Turkey, the British confirmed the status of Kuwait as
an
independent
sheikdom under British protectorate. A month later, under the
Anglo-French
Settlement
of 1-4 December 1918, Mesopotamia and Kurdistan – known
collectively as
Iraq –
became a British-ruled entity.
20.
Iraqis were
divided on whether Britain should lead them towards
independence
or whether
they should seek immediate independence by force. In Baghdad,
the
Sunni‑dominated
al-Ahd Society was a centre of anti-British (and anti-Kurdish)
activity.
Al-Ahd also
opposed the political aspirations of the Shia in the south. Another
Sunni
grouping,
led by Nuri Said, an officer in the Ottoman Army who had been
active in the
Arab Revolt
of 1916-18 against the Turks (a revolt that originated in the
Ottoman Red
7
Command
Paper 8610 of 1917.
224