Air Power, Insurgency and the “War on Terror” - Prof. Joel Hayward's ...

Royal <strong>Air</strong> Force Operations in South-West Arabia 1917-1967
back-benchers had already levelled charges of excessive force <strong>and</strong> cruelty against <strong>the</strong>
<strong>Air</strong> Ministry for its actions in Iraq. Although <strong>the</strong> Government held firm, questions about
<strong>the</strong> morality of air control <strong>and</strong> its arbitrary nature – in view of <strong>the</strong> inherent inaccuracy
of bombing from <strong>the</strong> air <strong>and</strong> <strong>the</strong> consequent civilian casualties – would not go away.
These issues were widely aired at <strong>the</strong> Geneva Disarmament Conference of 1932 <strong>and</strong> 1933
<strong>and</strong>, although <strong>the</strong> proposal to outlaw aerial bombing eventually foundered, it did create
a growing sense of unease in Whitehall. There were also <strong>the</strong> actions of <strong>Air</strong> Commodore
Lionel Charlton (Chief Staff Officer Headquarters Iraq Comm<strong>and</strong> 1923-1924) to consider.
Writing in <strong>the</strong> third person, in what must be one of <strong>the</strong> strangest autobiographies ever
published (it veers repeatedly between <strong>the</strong> excruciatingly honest <strong>and</strong> <strong>the</strong> deeply vacuous),
Charlton describes how:
[An] air bomb in Iraq was, more or less, <strong>the</strong> equivalent of a police
truncheon at home. It was a horrible idea <strong>and</strong>, in his private opinion,
work in which no one with a moral st<strong>and</strong>ard should be asked to
engage. In declared war or in <strong>the</strong> case of open rebellion no objection
could possibly be advanced, but <strong>the</strong> indiscriminate bombing of a
populace without <strong>the</strong> power of selecting <strong>the</strong> real culprits <strong>and</strong> with
<strong>the</strong> liability of killing women <strong>and</strong> children, was <strong>the</strong> nearest thing to
wanton slaughter which he had come across – but he was careful not
to express himself too forcefully on <strong>the</strong> subject. 96
Charlton’s silence was not to last for long. The bombing of Suleimaniya in May 1924
caused him to write to Trenchard stating that, on <strong>the</strong> grounds of conscience, he could no
longer subscribe to <strong>the</strong> bombing policy employed in Iraq <strong>and</strong> asking to be relieved of his
duties. Trenchard duly obliged.
Despite <strong>the</strong> criticism at home <strong>and</strong> abroad, <strong>the</strong>re was no evidence that air bombing had been
brutal or caused significant casualties. As Sir John Salmond (<strong>the</strong> first RAF Comm<strong>and</strong>er
in Iraq) wrote at <strong>the</strong> time “It is a commonplace here that aircraft achieve <strong>the</strong>ir results by
<strong>the</strong> effect on morale, <strong>and</strong> by <strong>the</strong> material damage <strong>the</strong>y do <strong>and</strong> by <strong>the</strong> interference <strong>the</strong>y
cause to <strong>the</strong> daily routine of life <strong>and</strong> not through <strong>the</strong> infliction of casualties. The casualties
inflicted have been most remarkably small.” 97
Some historians have taken <strong>the</strong> view that air control was pursued more for cultural or
political reasons, 98 <strong>and</strong> that it was enthusiastically embraced by a RAF in desperate need
of a role to justify its continued existence. This ignores <strong>the</strong> evident utility of air power in
governing an area that would o<strong>the</strong>rwise have dem<strong>and</strong>ed a substantial garrison to subdue.
General Sir Aylmer Haldane, in describing <strong>the</strong> Arab Rising in Mesopotamia in 1920, 99
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<strong>Air</strong> <strong>Power</strong>, <strong>Insurgency</strong> <strong>and</strong> <strong>the</strong> “War on Terror”