Irish War of Independence Black and Tans Kurdish be used gas occupation of Iraq
In the Irish War of Independence, he supported the use of the paramilitary Black and Tans to combat Irish revolutionaries. After British troops in Iraq clashed with Kurdish rebels, Churchill authorised two squadrons to the area, proposing that they be equipped with "poison gas" to be used to "inflict punishment upon recalcitrant natives without inflicting grave injury upon them", although this was never implemented. There is debate as to whether this would have included mustard gas or otherwise "lacrimatory gas" (tear gas). More broadly, he saw the occupation of Iraq as a drain on Britain and proposed, unsuccessfully, that the government should hand control of central and northern Iraq back to Turkey.
