>> 1930: As foreign secretary, Churchill orders the use of mustard gas
>> against Kurdish Villages, "I do not understand this squeamishness
>> about the use of gas. I am strongly in favour of using gases against
>> uncivilised tribes."
We need to be careful here: this quote's not from 1930; Churchill was never Foreign Secretary, and certainly not in 1930, when there was a Labour Government in power; although Churchill was keen to use mustard gas against the Kurds during the RAF bombing campaign in the 1920s, the gas was never used (for technical reasons); and although the quote is genuine, but from 12 May 1919, it elides some relevant material:
*** I do not understand this squeamishness about the use of gas. We have definitely adopted the position at the Peace Conference of arguing in favour of the retention of gas as a permanent method of warfare. It is sheer affectation to lacerate a man with the poisonous fragment of a bursting shell and to boggle at making his eyes water by means of lachrymatory gas. I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilized tribes. The moral effect should be so good that the loss of life should be reduced to a minimum. It is not necessary to use only the most deadly gasses: gasses can be used which cause great inconvenience and would spread a lively terror and yet would leave no serious permanent effects on most of those affected. ***
For more on Churchill, mustard gas and the Iraqi Kurds in the 1920s, when he was Colonial Secretary, see here, in a piece by David Omissi, first published in the Guardian in 1991 (and which also exists somewhere, I think, in the lbo-talk archives):
http://www.cambridgeclarion.org/e/omissi_graun_19jan1991.html
Chris