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Favoring use of poison gas |
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Excerpt from pages 179-181 of Simons, Geoff. “Iraq: From Sumer to Saddam”. [emphapsis added] London: St. Martins Press, 1994:
Winston Churchill, as colonial secretary, was sensitive to the cost of
policing the Empire; and was in consequence keen to exploit the potential
of modern technology. This strategy had particular relevance to operations
in Iraq. On 19 February, 1920, before the start of the Arab uprising,
Churchill (then Secretary for War and Air) wrote to Sir Hugh Trenchard,
the pioneer of air warfare. Would it be possible for Trenchard to take
control of Iraq? This would entail “the provision of some kind of
asphyxiating bombs calculated to cause disablement of some kind but not
death...for use in preliminary operations against turbulent tribes.”
Churchill was in no doubt that gas could be profitably employed against
the Kurds and Iraqis (as well as against other peoples in the Empire): “I
do not understand this sqeamishness about the use of gas. I am strongly in
favour of using poison gas against uncivilised tribes.” Henry Wilson
shared Churchills enthusiasm for gas as an instrument of colonial control
but the British cabinet was reluctant to sanction the use of a weapon that
had caused such misery and revulsion in the First World War. Churchill
himself was keen to argue that gas, fired from ground-based guns or
dropped from aircraft, would cause “only discomfort or illness, but not
death” to dissident tribespeople; but his optimistic view of the effects
of gas were mistaken. It was likely that the suggested gas would
permanently damage eyesight and “kill children and sickly persons, more
especially as the people against whom we intend to use it have no medical
knowledge with which to supply antidotes.” Churchill remained unimpressed
by such considerations, arguing that the use of gas, a “scientific
expedient,” should not be prevented “by the prejudices of those who do not
think clearly”. In the event, gas was used against the Iraqi rebels with
excellent moral effect” though gas shells were not dropped from aircraft
because of practical difficulties [.....]Today in 1993 there are still
Iraqis and Kurds who remember being bombed and machine-gunned by the RAF
in the 1920s. A Kurd from the Korak mountains commented, seventy years
after the event: “They were bombing here in the Kaniya Khoran...Sometimes
they raided three times a day.” Wing Commander Lewis, then of 30 Squadron
(RAF), Iraq, recalls how quite often “one would get a signal that a
certain Kurdish village would have to be bombed...”, the RAF pilots being
ordered to bomb any Kurd who looked hostile. In the same vein,
Squadron-Leader Kendal of 30 Squadron recalls that if the tribespeople
were doing something they ought not be doing then you shot them.”
Similarly, Wing-Commander Gale, also of 30 Squadron: “If the Kurds hadn't
learned by our example to behave themselves in a civilised way then we had
to spank their bottoms. This was done by bombs and guns.
Wing-Commander Arthur Harris (later Bomber Harris, head of wartime Bomber
Command) was happy to emphasise that “The Arab and Kurd now know what real
bombing means in casualties and damage. Within forty-five minutes a
full-size village can be practically wiped out and a third of its
inhabitants killed or injured.” It was an easy matter to bomb and
machine-gun the tribespeople because they had no means of defence or
retalitation. Iraq and Kurdistan were also useful laboratories for new
weapons; devices specifically developed by the Air Ministry for use
against tribal villages. The ministry drew up a list of possible weapons,
some of them the forerunners of napalm and air-to-ground missiles:
Phosphorus bombs, war rockets, metal crowsfeet [to maim livestock]
man-killing shrapnel, liquid fire, delay-action bombs. Many of these
weapons were first used in Kurdistan.
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http://zfacts.com/p/255.html | 01/18/12 07:29 GMT
Modified: Mon, 17 Apr 2006 05:43:53 GMT
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