Word: gailani
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Premier until last February was Ultra-Nationalist Seyid Rashid Ali El-Gailani. Because he refused to break off relations with Italy (which Iraq was bound by treaty to do when Italy declared...
Britain), had allowed many an Italian troublemaker to slip from Iraq into Syria, El-Gailani was finally ousted by the Iraqi Parliament. When his Cabinet fell, Rome newspapers freely predicted trouble for the British in Iraq. Into the Premiership went Lieut. General Taha El-Hashimi, in as Foreign Minister was Britain's great & good friend General Seyid Nuri Es-Said...
First came the resignation of Premier El-Hashimi. He charged that the Regent was fostering "indiscriminate favoritism and pompousness" at the Iraqi court. Before the ink was dry on the resignation, into the Government offices at Bagdad strutted the deus ex machina, El-Gailani, declaiming "I am Premier. I will save the beloved country from the poison of favoritism." Just to make sure, civil servants called the Army, had the coup okayed...
Fulminating in Basra, Prince Abdul IIlah's first thought was to appeal to the benevolently watchful British Government. To all Iraq, and most particularly London and Cairo, the Regent broadcast word that El-Gailani and a small group of Army officers had been seduced by Axis fifth columnists,* were trying to separate Britain from 4,000,000 tons of oil per annum and the all-important friendship of the Arab world...