Coll 17/17 'FO Annual Reports, 1932-1938, 1947. Annual review of events 1939-1942. Political Review 1943-1944' [‎63v] (126/483)

quiet and amicable if only he could give him all the guns, tanks, aeroplanes and
other material which he was demanding for the army. Unhappily, owing to
rearmament in Great Britain, military stores were hard to obtain for Iraq, and
the Prime Minister’s efforts to satisfy Bekr Sidqi from other sources involved
him in serious trouble with His Majesty’s Government. The Prime Minister also
found that, as the man morally, if not actually, responsible for the murder of
Jafar Pasha An Ottoman title used after the names of certain provincial governors, high-ranking officials and military commanders. , Bekr Sidqi was the focus of a bitter hatred from many quarters in
which he himself became involved. Furthermore, Bekr’s use of a gang of lawless
army officers to intimidate all those in public life who criticised his activities
added considerably to the Prime Minister’s embarrassments.
18. Two incidents illustrated Bekr Sidqi’s methods. On the 20th January
a well-known notable of Mosul named Dhia Tunis, who had held the important
post of Secretary to the Cabinet during the latter part of Yasin-al-Hashimi’s
term of office, was assassinated in the street, close to his house, in one of the new
suburbs of Bagdad. The available evidence suggested that the murderers were
probably Iraqi officers, but no arrests were made. It seems that Dhia Tunis had
been in correspondence with Yasin-al-Hashimi (then living in the Lebanon), and
that he paid for this indiscretion with his life.
19. Three weeks later an attempt was made to murder Maulad Mukhlis, a
Senator and former leader of the Arab revolt against the Turks, who had been
openly criticising the attitude of Hikmat Sulaiman’s Government towards the
pan-Arab movement and had dubbed Bekr Sidqi a Kurdish upstart. The attempt
happily failed, but Maulud Mukhlis thought it safer to leave the country. He
withdrew to Syria, and did not return until after the fall of Hikmat Sulaiman’s
Government in the autumn.
20. These incidents shocked the better elements of public opinion and
strengthened the reaction against the Government to which other events gave
further force as time passed.
21. While Bekr Sidqi was in this way following his own methods of
suppressing opposition, the left wing group in the Cabinet were trying to
organise a party of active supporters for their programme of land and social
reform. The leaders of this movement were Jafar Abu Timman, Minister for
Finance, Kamil Ghadirji, Minister for Economics and Communications, and
Yusuf Iz-al-Din, Minister for Education. They called their party the People’s
Reform League, but in spite of a vigorous propaganda in a daily newspaper the
party received very little public support. In January the committee appealed to
the Prime Minister to give his patronage to the league, but he refused, and
proposed its absorption in a new Government partv with a less radical creed
The league was thereupon dissolved, but the scheme of organising a party to
support the Government was soon dropped on account of the discussions to which
it gave rise among those to whom the task of organisation was entrusted.
22. Meanwhile, fate seemed to be helping the Government to dispose of their
enemies. On the 21st January Yasin-al-Hashimi died in exile at Beirut. He
had been suffering from heart trouble for some weeks, and rumour had it that
the shock of the news of the murder of Dhia Yunis was fatal. The Government
gave permission for the body to be brought to Iraq for burial, but, fearing
disorders, they refused to allow it to be accompanied by the large delegation of
Syrian Nationalists who wished to attend the funeral. In Bagdad several
prominent politicians, including Sadiq Bassam, Yasin’s Minister °for Finance
who were suspected of planning demonstrations for the day of the funeral were
placed under preventive arrest. In view of these difficulties, the familv gave ud
the idea of a funeral m Bagdad, and Yasin was buried with full honours in
Damascus by the side of Saladm.
.. . 2a „ A days afterwards Muhammad Zaki, the President of the Chamber
died in Bagdad. 1 he coincidence of his death with that of Yasin-al-Hashimi
of whom he was an old and close political friend, gave birth to the sinister ofo
that Azrael (the Islamic Angel of Death) was a member of Hikmat SulaimU
Cabinet I his jest was revived towards the end of March, when one of thT latf
Jafar Pasha An Ottoman title used after the names of certain provincial governors, high-ranking officials and military commanders. s brothers was found dead in his house. Everything pointed t
been murd^red^ 1101 reaS ° nS ’ St ° rieS ^ natUrally P Ut ^ ^at he hac