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Iraq of persons whose records would require them to be kept under obser-
vation. To meet this request, it was arranged with the British consulates in
Baghdad, Basra, and Mosul that all visa applications for India were to be
submitted to the DSO (or the ALOs) for vetting. When India’s request
was soon followed by a similar one from Syria, it was decided to establish
a permanent CICI vetting section. In future, all visa applications for India
and the Levant states submitted to British consulates in Iraq were imme-
diately forwarded to CICI visa control for screening. To cover remaining
loopholes, visa control was subsequently extended to include the neigh-
bouring countries of Persia, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey, using a slightly
different system. It was arranged with the Iraqi CID that any application
for an Iraqi exit visa for those countries could be refused at CICI’s request.
In the case of Turkey, CICI declared entry via Syria to be the only legal
route, thereby forcing applicants to apply for Syrian transit visas, which
had to be obtained from a British consul, who would automatically pass all
such applications to CICI visa control. Overall, business was brisk: the
peak monthly volume soon reached over 1000 applications. As far as the
entry of suspects to Iraq was concerned, reciprocal agreements were
reached with all other DSOs throughout SIME and with the security
authorities in India. As usual, accommodation had to be made for the
FO’s special interests: when high-level political considerations were
involved in a visa refusal, the embassy reserved the right to overrule
CICI. In such rare cases, Chokra Wood had to notify the DSO or DSOs
affected, so that adequate security precautions could be taken.
The frontier of Iraq measured some 4500 km and was of such varied
topography that total control was impossible. Land, air, and sea travel was
channelled through a limited number of frontier posts, at most of which
passport and customs controls were in place. Special permission had to be
obtained to travel by any other routes. As a sovereign country, Iraq was
jealous of its independence. However, acknowledging the Allies’ need to
supervise their own military movements, it had exempted Allied military
traffic from control and allowed joint Anglo-Iraqi controls at frontier
posts. Of course, the Iraqis also recognized that CICI and the field secu-
rity sections (FSS) of the Intelligence Corps, who manned the border
posts, had fuller knowledge of enemy activities and were therefore well
placed to advise the Iraqi authorities about civilian suspects. The Iraqi
authorities also agreed to the institution throughout the country of a sys-
tem of joint Anglo-Iraqi ‘snap checks’ to prevent hostile agents from
crossing the frontier by clandestine routes. They also allowed the searching