Annex 1 |
Iraq – 1583 to 1960
70.
On 14 July
1958, an army officer, Brigadier Abdel Karim Kassem, seized
power
in Baghdad.
That day, King Feisal II and many of his family were killed. The
British
Embassy in
Baghdad was ransacked and set on fire. The Ambassador, Sir
Michael
Wright and
his wife were held captive at the Embassy until late in the
afternoon, when
they were
released.15
On the
following day Nuri Said was murdered in the street.
71.
The monarchy,
established by Britain thirty-seven years earlier, was
abolished.
Kassem, who
was half Sunni, half Kurdish Shia, became Prime Minister, Minister
of
Defence and
Commander-in-Chief. In 1961, in a blow to British commercial
activity and
investment
in Iraq, Kassem nationalised the Iraq Petroleum
Company.
72.
In 1961,
Kuwait gained independence from Britain; Iraq immediately
claimed
sovereignty.
General Kassem mobilised Iraq troops along the Kuwait border.
Britain,
which had
only recently ended its military presence in Kuwait, sent an
expeditionary
force to
Kuwait, and persuaded the Arab League to recognise Kuwait as an
independent
country.
British troops were then replaced by troops of the United Arab
Republic (Egypt
and Syria).
Britain had honoured its historic commitment to
Kuwait.
15
D.M.H.
Riches, ‘Events in Iraq’, 14 July 1958: Foreign Office papers, FO
371/132502.
233