130
records section was placed completely at the disposal of OSS, and OSS
were careful to have their reports checked by DSO before despatching
them to Cairo or Washington. Later, however, when OSS had consoli-
dated their position in Iraq and had acquired sufficient experience to stand
on their own feet, it became clear that they were carrying on certain activi-
ties about which they preferred DSO to remain ignorant. These activities
seemed to DSO to be mostly about America’s postwar commercial ambi-
tions. Otherwise, especially in the fight against Nazism, cooperation
between the two services left little to be desired and was of mutual benefit
to both.^37
It was never possible for CICI to cooperate with the Free Poles in the
same manner as with the Americans, as they were not only intensely anti-
Russian but were themselves divided into opposing political parties. CICI
found that Polish security belonged to one party and their military police
to the other. Representatives of both factions often visited Hanbury
Dawson-Shepherd, who soon found that Polish security were mainly
interested in covering Russian activities, seizing every opportunity to
spread anti-Soviet propaganda among British military personnel and local
civilians. The Polish military police, on the other hand, were more temper-
ate in outlook but were always urging Dawson-Shepherd not to confide in
Polish security. Consequently, to avoid being caught in the crossfire,
Dawson-Shepherd wisely took neither organization into his confidence.
One of the more distressing things about the Poles was their reluctance to
retain Jewish soldiers within their ranks. They were discarded on trumped-
up grounds that they were either Russian or German agents. Many of
these unfortunates were found wandering around Iraq, destitute and
without any means of identification. After submitting them to interroga-
tion, purely as a precaution, for there was a slim chance that a few might
indeed have been enemy agents, CICI forced the Poles to take their Jewish
soldiers back—which they did reluctantly.
For obvious reasons, not so much is known about the relationships
between CICI and other British clandestine formations, especially MI6,
known in the Middle East as the Inter-Services Liaison Department
(ISLD), an ironic choice of cover name since liaison among the services
was arguably the least of MI6’s concerns. Owing to the precarious position
in which the British found themselves in May 1941, ISLD took the pre-
caution of burning most of their records. Consequently, they were com-
pelled after the Anglo-Iraqi armistice to rely on the CICI records section
for information about local personalities. Fortunately, Dawson- Shepherd