مجموعة ١٠/١٧(٣) "شؤون داخلية: الوضع السياسي؛ العلاقات مع الحكومة البريطانية" [و‎‎١‎٩‎٠] (٥١٣/٣٧٩)

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DISTRIBUTION 3
From: IRAQ
1940 J
^ Decypher. Sir B. Newton, (Bagdad)
4th December, 1940.
4th December, 1940.
6th December, 1940.
D. 11.10 p.m
R. 9.20 a.m
No. 742
gggggggg
I am grateful for Your Lordship's support.
2. Regent who is young and inexperienced seems, as Nuri
Pasha has himself observed to me, to have been rather weak in his
interviews with Rashid Ali. By consenting to the Prime
Minister's proposal to see me with the object of putting the
matter right the Regent transferred to me perhaps"[? unwittingly]
^< 0 ^ responsibility for the plain speaking in my telegram No. 714 .
I felt such language was fully_justified by your instFuctions" T
and that in the circumstances i should let the Regent down if I
refrained from repeating to Rashid direct the sense of what I
had already said to His Royal Highness. I hope th t my
statement may have helped to overcome hesitations to which Iraqis
are so prone and I believe it has done good by making it clear
to a wider circle that the patience of His Majesty's Government
was becoming exhausted.
3^ Since then Rashid has been making conciliatory overtures
and trying to put the blame for the attitude of the press on to
Taha. At the" same time he has been conveying threat that if his
overtures are not accepted he will mobilise the nation in
resisting British interference. In this latter atcempt he is
having little success so far as I can at present judge, though
no doubt he will greatly intensify his efforts when he realises
that he personally cannot conciliate His Majesty's Government.
I fancy however that the more the Iraqis reflect upon the danger
and consequences of falling foul of Great Britain the less they
will want to sacrifice themselves for the benefit of Rashid.
~li Jaudat (recent Minister for Foreign affairs) made a point
of telling me yesterday that he knew it to be quite untrue that
Jamil Madrai would support Rashid any more than he would himself.
(See first part of paragraph 3 of my telegram No. 754) .
Today I have pointed out to Nuri Pasha (who is still
functioning as Minister for Foreign Affairs) that I had never
said that Iraq must choose between the Prime Minister and its
relations with Great Britain. He replied that he knew this and
gave the explanation that this statement had been inserted by
some of his colleagues in order to make such Iraqi [? dependence]
more pointed. I have also spoken to the Minister for Foreign
Affairs in the sense of paragraph 3 of your telegram No. 622 and
read certain passages from your telegram No. 615 including one
showing that you had no desire to interfere with internal affairs
or do anything inconsistent with the dignity of the Iraqi State
and the whole of paragraph 7. Paragraph 8 was too corrupt for me
to use but the correction has since Seen decyphered.
Tomorrow I will make the attitude of His Majesty's Government
clear to the Regent and will report on steps which he may have
in mind for the elimination of Rashid.
Repeated to Cairo telegram No. 225.