region under League of Nations mandate in the 1920s that first used chemical weapons in the region to quell Arab uprisings. Many scholars went so far as to root Arab distrust of the West in Britain's brutal chemical attacks.

Douglas, however, finds that these claims -- oft repeated in books, newspapers and political speeches -- rest on very shaky foundations.

The first blunt assertion of British chemical weapons use in Iraq comes from a 1986 essay by historian Charles Townshend. In his essay Townshend refers to a 1921 letter penned by J.A. Webster, an official at the British Air Ministry. In Townshend's description, Webster wrote to the British Colonial Office, the overseer of the Mesopotamian occupation, that tear gas shells had been used against Arab rebels with "excellent moral effect."

Douglas'sBritish chemical use. From there the story mutated and spread.

"In some versions, the Royal Air Force is alleged to have dropped gas bombs from aeroplanes against rebellious Iraqis, in the course of what was euphemistically known as 'air policing,'" Dr. Douglas writes. "In others, the British Army is held to be the responsible party, employing gas-filled artillery shells."

Though the specifics differed, each allegation treated the incident as a matter of unassailable fact. Douglas's research suggests it is anything but.

The Will, But Not the Way

Perhaps lending a measure of credence to allegations of British chemical use in Iraq is the fact that there were high-profile British ministers who very much wanted to use them.

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But wanting to use them does not mean they did.

"[T]here had been two brief periods in