ABSTRACT

When Sir Percy Cox, as the first High Commissioner, arrived in Iraq in October 1920, the British Government’s declared policy was not to hold Iraq as a colony or protectorate but to set up the beginnings of an independent Government. Within the country the large British community were insistent that this policy must fail. In so far as such views were dictated by personal motives, careerist or commercial, they were to be discounted; but it certainly at the time seemed a leap in the dark. So far as Sir Percy himself was concerned he appeared to regard this apprenticeship to independence as the only alternative to a complete British evacuation, and, “fortifying myself with the conviction that the project had at least an even chance of success … I took heart of grace.” 1 Miss Bell and others in his administration he found to be keen supporters of London’s policy and we find, within a month, a Provisional Council of State brought into being. This Council of State, under the venerable Naqib of Baghdad, 2 was made responsible for the conduct and control of the government of the country, with the exception of foreign relation and military matters, which remained under the High Commissioner. Thus were taken the first steps to demolish A. T. Wilson’s splendid machine.