مجموعة ١٠/١٧(٣) "شؤون داخلية: الوضع السياسي؛ العلاقات مع الحكومة البريطانية" [و‎‎١‎٥‎٢] (٥١٣/٣٠٣)

* A]\MDED COPY*
DISTRIBUTION B,
From: IRAQ .
Decypher. Sir B. Newton (Bagdad)
2na January, 1941.
D. 12.50 a.m. 3rd Januar 1941.
R. 8.20 a^m, 5th January, 1941,
No. 3
WWW
My telegrams Nos„ 1 and 803^
Regent told me today that before he had taken any
action on the lines -discussed at our last meeting on
December 24th, Taha had approached him with proposals for
change in the Government."
2. First was for Naji Showkat, Naji Suwaidi and
Nuri Pasha to resign and be replaced, in Suwaidi’s case,
by his brother *Taufiq* presumably as Foreign Minister.
Rashid Ali would remain P.M. Second proposal was that (
Naji Suwaidi should become P.M. *Taha* : had indicated his
preference for the first alternative. The Regent had
thought it wiser to refrain from making the obvious
objection that it would not remove originating cause
of the whole trouble so far as His Majesty's Government
were concerned, because he did not wish to make the British
attitude more of an issue than could be helped. After, therefore,
taking time for reflection, he had intimated his own preference
for the second alternative, pointing out that he could not work
satisfactorily with Rashid Ali as P.M. The Regent had then
sounded Naji Suwaidi who was thinking the matter over.
first plan might be useful to eliminate Rashid All since
there were already two vacancies in the Cabinet and if the
three resignations now took place, the number remaining would
be insufficient to form a constitutional Government. I
pointed out that others had doubtless realisea this also, an
that it might be dangerous to rely on tricky methods xor
getting rid of a man who is himself a skilled and unscrupulous
trickster,
4 Nuri Pasha, whose relations with ^Taha^have always
been obscure, had told me something of the foregoing yesterday
but he did not then reveal the leading part played by -‘iaha*
nor in particular*Taha's*preforence for a plan which would
leave Rashid Ali in power. Nuri Pasha remarked yesterday that
if *Naii* Suwaidi formed a Government, it would only be
transitional and that he himself might prefer to be oat of
the country during the transition.
Repeated to Cairo telegram No. 2.