Publication - 17 February, 2003
The first use of weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East was by British forces in 1917, at a time when Britain occupied territory that was later to become Iraq. Chemical weapons were used in the process of welding the Kurdish north, the Shia south and the Sunni tribes around Baghdad, into an invented Iraqi ‘kingdom’ to control the region’s oil. Winston Churchill, then Colonial Secretary, found "turbulent tribes" of Arabs were fighting this imperialism with some success and encouraged the use of chemical weapons. There was some opposition to this in Whitehall but Churchill wrote: "I do not understand this squeamishness about the use of gas. I am strongly in favour of using poison gas against uncivilised tribes."