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issued a bulletin numbered thirty-nine in which it congratulated its followers

claiming ‘a crushing victory’. 467

In 1956 the Bahraini Administration prepared to strengthen its Police Force

in light of the previous unrest. A proposal was adopted to recruit skilled and

experienced Iraqi officers to enlist locally. In Belgrave’s diary the earliest mention

of recruiting Iraqis to the Police Force was between himself and Sheikh Khalifa bin

Mohammed bin Isa Al-Khalifa, the Public Security Chief in Bahrain, when they

discussed the matter on 30 October 1955. In a later diary entry on 2 November

Belgrave claimed that the idea to get recruits from Iraq was originally Sheikh

Khalifa’s. No further information was provided by Belgrave on the matter until 15

January 1956, when he said he had held discussions on a possible location to

accommodate the new Iraqi recruits. 468

The Residency’s Annual Report for 1956 on the Gulf region confirmed that

the Administration had adopted the idea of recruiting Iraqis in November 1955.

However when news of this spread locally in 1956 the nationalists made clear their

opposition to the idea. According to Burrows the nationalists based their opposition

on two grounds. Firstly was the fear that the development of the local Police Force

would result in unfavourable consequences to the opposition itself allowing for

greater government control of the streets. Secondly, the resentment generated by

the Baghdad Pact had fallen onto Iraqis who were seen as an integral part of that

467 TNA, FO 1016/465, The Higher Executive Committee, Bulletin No. 39, 11 February 1956.
468 Sir Charles Dalrymple Belgrave’s Personal Diaries, 30 October, 2 November 1955, and 15 January
1956.

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