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about which accounts have been transmitted repeatedly, showing great discernment and extreme caution. It then appeared that Taha Pasha had been persuaded by what I said. A few months later, he brought me the good news that he had managed to allocate one or two thousand dinars in the Ministry of Defense budget to establish an intelligence service.. When I heard this paltry sum, I became certain that he had not grasped the importance of the matter or how much was at stake!

But other Iraqi officials understood the importance of intelligence and were thereby able to uncover some of the enemies’ plans and secrets. One example is the following curious incident:

On the evening of Thursday, May 1, 1941, Iraqi intelligence intercepted a telephone conversation between the British camp at Habbaniya and the British embassy in Baghdad, in which it was said: “Mr. Bailey will marry Miss Cornwallis tomorrow.” This Bailey was a British inspector in the postal and telegraph service, and Miss Cornwallis was the daughter of the British ambassador appointed during the recent events. The intercepted phrase was: Will Engage. Its apparent meaning was to contract a marriage, but it had another meaning in military terminology: “to engage in combat or attack.” The Iraqi command recognized what the phrase meant, took precautions and was not caught unawares. Indeed, the English launched a surprise attack on the Iraqi army at five o’clock the following morning, Friday, May 2, without any warning.

It is only right to say that neglect of the importance of intelligence was widespread in most Arab countries. On an earlier occasion, I mentioned some of Domville’s activities and that he had served as director of air intelligence in the Egyptian army under the previous regime. I shall now mention something more appalling. On November 24, 1951, during the intensifying crisis between Egypt and the English in the Suez Canal following the abrogation of the treaty of 1936, I met Egypt’s acting Minister of War. I conveyed the Palestinians’ readiness to fulfill their duty toward beloved Egypt in that situation. During the meeting we discussed foreign intelligence and the fifth column. The minister confided something that astonished me: until the previous week, the Director-General of Egyptian army intelligence had been an Englishman, and the minister had removed him only a week earlier.

The fifth column, some of whose dangerous activities I have mentioned above, managed to inflict great harm on Iraq. It was joined by traitors who had tied themselves to the wheel of British policy and worked for colonialism. They managed to entice some self-seekers and opportunists and those who rallied around them, thereby rendering the greatest assistance to the British army, which had in Iraq