Trivia quiz: who was the first to ever use chemical weapons in Iraq?

[Alexander's Horse]

To make it more interesting name the Minister who first proposed this and gas used. I have lots of links on this - so maybe post one

[Zylka]

Churchill the imperial baby killing fat man!!!

[Ted Striker]

[uh Clem]

Well, it was Churchill, wasn't it? I know I've seen a quote from him (c.1922) about how he had no problems with gassing the Arabs via airplane. He was Colonial Secretary or somesuch.

[TheStinger]

Churchill- he was a big fan of gas as a weapon( porbably after seeing its effects in WW1 were he served as an infantry commander) We bombed the **** out of the Iraqis as we couldn't afford to send in ground troops.

I think it was 1923 but they may be wrong by a year or 2

[C0ckney]

are you sure about chuchhill in ww1, i think he was in the government back then as well. i think he was last in the army in the sudan.

[TheStinger]

He was 1st lord of the admiralty until gallipole and then he went off to command a battallion on the western front. I can't remeber its name. Politicaly he was at the time finished but he wanted to contribute to the war, the fact that he chose to put himself in obvious danger says something about him.

[C0ckney]

ah ok, i didn't know that, thanks.

[Ned]

God - he used fire and brimestone.

[Sandman]

Yeah, it was Churchill.

[Tolls]

"...he went off to command a battallion on the western front."

He served about a year. Lloyd George got him back into the government in 1917, as Minister of Munitions (I think that's the title) where he was a major force for the adoption of tanks, possibly due to his stint in the trenches where it would have been obvious something other than flesh and bone would be needed.

[Spiffor]

What were the British wars in Iraq ? Was it a front against the ottoman empire in WW1 ? Was there an open war against the Iraqis after the fall of the Ottomans ?

[Tolls]

We were up against Johnny Foreigner when he didn't actually want to be occupied by us after the war...ungrateful so and so's...

[lunger75]

Winston Churchill, in 1919.
As Secretary of State at the War Office, Churchill
was asked by RAF Middle East command in Cairo
for permission to use chemical weapons "against
recalcitrant Arabs as experiment". Churchill authorized
the "experiment". He went on to say "I am strongly
in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilised
tribes.....It is not neccessary to use only the
most deadly gases; gasses can be used which cause
great inconvenience and would spread a lively terror
and yet would leave no serious permanent effects on
those affected." The "uncivilised tribes" who needed
a dose of "lively terror" at the time were mainly Kurds
and Afghans.

I can't remember what gas he was referring to, so
I'll guess it was Mustard Gas.

[Alexander's Horse]

Yes it was Churchill who advocated the use of gas and the first use was in 1920 against tribesmen - Kurds in Northern Iraq, who were very angry about being dudded out of a state of their own by the British and French, and ultimately by the Versailles Treaty.

This was part of a British policy to use airpower to keep rebellious natives in check by bombing them. The policy was applied throughout the empire after World War 1 but particularly in the frontier territories of India (now the tribal areas of Pakistan) Somaliland and Sudan.

The gas used was mustard gas dropped on villages by aircraft. AFAIK, Iraq was the only colony where gas was used but there may have been others. Here is a little history piece on it all.

Lessons from Iraq's history
By William Choong

WHEN Iraqi President Saddam Hussein gassed the Kurds of northern Iraq in 1988 to put down a rebellion, he was doing what had been done before - by the British.

According to historians, Britain used poison gas to quell a 1920 tribal uprising in the northern Kurdish town of Kirkuk.

Arguing strongly for the use of mustard gas in 1919, Winston Churchill -- then a secretary of state in Britain's War Office -- said he did not understand the 'squeamishness about the use of gas'.

'I am strongly in favour of using poison gas against uncivilised tribes,' the former British prime minister was quoted in Iraq: From Sumer To Saddam, by Iraqi expert Geoff Simons.

As another war against Iraq starts, poison gas may not be the only bit of history repeating itself.

Some historians note sobering parallels between Britain's adventure in Iraq after World War I and the United States' current campaign.

By looking into the past, Iraq's future looks anything but smooth, they warned.

Between 1914 and 1921, Britain overthrew an authoritarian regime in Baghdad that was a threat to Western powers in the Middle East. It then installed a new political order.

But after a massive Iraqi revolt in 1920, it handed over control of the country, under Western supervision, to the administrative and military elite of the old regime.

'If there is a war, the US could find itself facing choices similar to those faced by Britain between 1914 and 1921,' wrote British historian Charles Tripp in leading French monthly Le Monde Diplomatique.

The problem with Britain's Iraq is that it was an 'artificial state' with borders drawn up by foreigners, say historians who see parallels with the Iraq that the US could soon occupy.

A victorious Britain, after World War I and with a League of Nations mandate, had welded the three disparate regions of Basra, Baghdad and Mosul into a modern state.

The trouble is that the three regions put together by Britain - populated by Shi'ites, Sunnis and Kurds - hate each other.

In a nightmare scenario, Iraq's three parts could separate - spelling bad news for the region.

I think Lunger75 gets the prize for the superb Churchill quotes.