Letter to UK Sunday Times: Baghdad 'far worse than we were told'

[muriel_volestrangler]

"The people have been led into a trap from which it will be hard to escape with dignity and honour. They have been tricked into it by a steady withholding of information. The Baghdad communiques are belated, insincere, incomplete. Things have been far worse than we have been told, our administration more bloody and inefficient than the public knows. It is a disgrace to our record, and may soon be too inflamed for any ordinary cure. We are to-day not far from a disaster.

The sins of commission are those of the civil authorities who were given a free hand. They are controlled from no Department of State. They availed themselves of the necessary discretion of war-time to carry over their dangerous independence into times of peace. They contest every suggestion of real self- government sent them from home. A recent proclamation about autonomy circulated with unction from Baghdad was drafted and published out there in a hurry, to forestall a more liberal statement in preparation.

The Cabinet cannot disclaim all responsibility. They receive little more news than the public: they should have insisted on more, and better. They have sent draft after draft of reinforcements, without enquiry. When conditions became too bad to endure longer, they decided to send out the original author of the present system, with a conciliatory message to the Arabs that his heart and policy have completely changed.
...
We have not reached the limit of our military commitments. Four weeks ago the staff there drew up a memorandum asking for four more divisions. I believe it was forwarded to the Pentagon, which has now sent three brigades. If Afghanistan cannot be further denuded, where is the balance to come from? Meanwhile, our unfortunate troops, under hard conditions of climate and supply, are policing an immense area, paying dearly every day in lives for the wilfully wrong policy of the civil administration in Baghdad."

http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/history/1920arabia.htm

T.E. Lawrence, August 22nd, 1920

OK, I changed, or left out, the odd word here and there (eg 'War Office'->Pentagon), but there is no change of meaning.

[MallRat]

1. Santayana was right.

:-(