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for his reports.^57 Having lived for many years in northern Iraq, ‘Craig’ was
in close touch with certain British officials and with some of the local
Kurdish tribes. Consequently, his information about the Kurds was inti-
mate and useful, though Cairo feared that it suffered perhaps from an
excess of sympathy and prejudice. ‘Craig’s’ interest in and enthusiasm for
intelligence work meant that he applied himself to his active espionage
with a great deal of natural vigour. Though apparently reputed by some of
his IPC associates to be excessively pro-British in his outlook, his reports,
once edited of expletives (!), presented an amazingly well-rounded picture
of local conditions. Like Tom Allen’s, his was a dangerous assignment, so
he went everywhere armed with a Mauser and plenty of ammunition.^58
‘Craig’ was also said to possess unrivalled experience in the geography of
northern Iraq and had provided OSS with a ‘magnificent’ report on the
roads of the area, together with detailed maps which had not hitherto
been available in the United States. Altogether, he was considered a likely
candidate for continued postwar activity; the only problem was that
‘Robert Craig’ was transferred by IPC to the United States in March
- Though OSS expected him to return eventually to Iraq, there is no
further record of his active service in the files beyond that date.^59
This operational narrative of four brave and resourceful Americans,
who appear to have cooperated well with British intelligence in Iraq, is at
odds with the way in which some historians have interpreted Anglo-
American diplomatic and intelligence relations in the Middle East as being
increasingly divergent and at times even openly hostile.^60 The truth is that
at the regional level the relationship between ‘cousins’ remained special,
though a certain wariness crept into routine transactions as the war
approached its end. What were described as growing ‘US commercial
interests,’ which mostly meant oil, seem to have been the main concern
for British intelligence. On the other hand, the absence of OSS-SO (spe-
cial operations) from the PAIFORCE theatre definitely eased the situa-
tion; liaison between OSS-SI (secret intelligence) and the British secret
services was comparatively benign.^61 As Alex Kellar of MI5 B Branch wrote
after touring the region between 26 November 1944 and 2 February
1945, ‘The Middle East is no less interesting or important because Axis
espionage in the area is now on the decline. Quite apart from Arab and
Zionist questions, there will be much to do in countering the designs of
countries which are today our allies but who are already giving signs that
they are to be our opponents of tomorrow in the field of intelligence. The
problems arising out of this new situation are already becoming complex
OH SO SOCIAL