The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
for the
national defence”. Britain’s aim was “to build up around the
ancient capital of
Baghdad, in
a form friendly to Britain and to her Allies, an Arab State which
can revive
and embody
the old culture and glories of the Arab race …”
27.
Churchill told
the Commons how the decision to give “satisfaction to
Arab
nationality”
had led him to invite Emir Feisal, one of the leaders of the
wartime Arab
Revolt in
the Hedjaz, to “present himself to the people” of Iraq, which would
be
transformed
into an Arab kingdom with its own monarchy, guarded principally by
an
Arab Army,
and linked to Britain by treaty.
28.
Feisal was the
third son of Sherif Hussein, King of the Hedjaz (and head of
the
Sunni
Hashemite dynasty). In 1919, Feisal had come to an agreement
brokered by the
British
whereby he would become the ruler of an Arab kingdom in Syria, in
return for
recognising
Britain’s 1917 promise of a Jewish National Home in Palestine. At
first all
went
according to plan. In October 1918, Feisal set up an Arab
government in Syria,
under
British protection. Then all went awry: on 7 March 1920, Feisal was
proclaimed
King of the
Arab Kingdom of Syria, by the Syrian National Congress, but within
two
months the
San Remo Conference gave France the Mandate for Syria, and
French
forces
defeated Feisal and drove him out; he went to live in Britain. The
British, anxious
to preserve
their agreement with him, decided to place him on the throne of
Iraq (and to
give his
brother Emir Abdullah the throne of Transjordan – the western part
of Britain’s
Palestine
Mandate, stretching from the river Jordan to the Iraqi
border).
29.
With British
support, Feisal arrived in Iraq in June 1921. The Shia leaders
wanted
him to push
for immediate independence. He refused to do so, fearing to lose
British
support for
his imminent throne. During the first two weeks of August 1921 a
referendum
was held
throughout Iraq on Feisal’s kingship, and on 15 August, the British
High
Commissioner
in Baghdad, Sir Percy Cox, announced that Feisal had been chosen
as
King, by
“an overwhelming vote”.
30.
Two weeks
later, as the insurgency continued, Cox informed London that Feisal
had
agreed that
“there is no objection to the use of Gas bombs in Iraq provided
that they are
not lethal
or permanently injurious to health”.9
31.
Feisal agreed
to negotiate an Anglo-Iraqi Treaty. He was told that Britain must
retain
responsibility,
as the Mandatory power, both for the suppression of internal
disorder and
for the
maintenance of external defence until such time when an
“independent Islamic
state of
Iraq can stand alone”.
32.
As
negotiations for the treaty continued, Churchill told Lloyd George
that there
was
“scarcely a single newspaper in Britain – Tory, Liberal or Labour”,
which was not
“consistently
hostile” to Britain’s remaining in Iraq. Lloyd George replied that
Britain
9
Cox to
Churchill, 2 December 1921, Air Ministry papers,
5/490.
226