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these factors contributing to instability and insecurity was the fact that Iraq
was such a vulnerable, politically immature nation, only liberated from
400 years of Ottoman rule some 23 years earlier, and only granted full
independence in 1932. A year later, the Nazis had come to power in
Germany and had sent their subversive and highly manipulative emissary,
Fritz Grobba, to Iraq to launch an eight-year campaign of anti-British,
antisemitic propaganda whose lingering effects were still evident in the
latter half of 1941 among certain groups, mostly within the humiliated
Iraqi army and in occupied Baghdad.
Grobba had lost no time and had spared no expense in popularizing
German achievements and undermining British prestige. In every walk of
life—commercial, cultural, and political—German influence had spread. A
local Nazi party and a youth movement modelled on the Hitler-Jugend
(Hitler Youth [HJ]) had been formed; German firms had doubled their
staff; German products were extensively advertised; local newspapers were
bribed to feature pro-German articles; German had replaced French in
school curricula; young Iraqis had been given every opportunity to study
in Germany; and an Iraqi youth delegation had attended the 1938
Nuremberg Rally. And now, after invading the Soviet Union and rolling
relentlessly all summer long across the great plains of Byelorussia and the
Ukraine, the Germans still seemed to many Iraqis spectacularly successful
and the likely winners of the Russian campaign, if not this year, then the
next. Finally, after annihilating the Red Army, the triumphant Wehrmacht
would reach Iraq, pouring across the Caucasus and driving the oppressive
British occupiers out of their land forever. Thus many politically naïve
Iraqis were convinced that the overthrow of Rashid Ali was nothing more
than a temporary setback, that the Germans would restore him to power,
and that this might happen quite soon.
The security situation in Iraq could scarcely have been more delicate.
Chokra Wood was therefore faced with an onerous security-intelligence
responsibility. He immediately set about his primary task, which was to
organize and deploy CICI’s resources in such a way that the centre could
resist any German efforts to acquire information on Allied military move-
ments or to exploit the vulnerabilities of Iraq described above. To do this,
CICI was divided into a records section, four security-control sections
(visa control, frontier control, censorship, and port security), and finally
the tribal and political intelligence (T&P) section.^26
The beating heart of any secret service is its registry. At CICI Chokra
Wood ensured that the greatest care was taken over the compilation of