Churchill offered Auchinleck command of the newly created Persia and Iraq Command (this having been separated from Alexander's command), but Auchinleck declined this post, as he believed that separating the area from the Middle East Command was not good policy and the new arrangements would not be workable. He set his reasons out in his letter to the Chief of the Imperial General Staff dated 14 August 1942. Instead he returned to India, where he spent almost a year "unemployed" before in June 1943 being again appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Indian Army,