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RESPONSE: The Iraqi
government, responding to a Knight Ridder story,
asserts that Kurdish troops follow orders from the
central government, not from Kurdish regional
leaders.
Iraq - The Iraqi defense ministry, reacting
to a Knight Ridder report this week, said Thursday
that Kurdish troops in the Iraqi army take their
orders from the central government in Baghdad, not
from Kurdish militia leaders.
Knight Ridder this week reported on interviews with
Iraqi soldiers and officers in northern Iraq who
said that they were ready, if necessary, to follow
the commands of Kurdish militia leaders to secure
the borders of an independent Kurdistan.
On Wednesday, staff members of the Iraqi army's
chief of staff, Gen. Babaker al-Zebari, asked a
Knight Ridder reporter for the names of every Iraqi
soldier and Kurdish political official who was
interviewed for the story or facilitated the
reporter's visits to Iraqi military bases. The
reporter refused.
On Thursday, Zebari's office released a statement
saying that the quotes in the story weren't
representative of the defense ministry and charging
that they "are false and created by followers of the
ex-regime to frustrate the Iraqi brave army's will."
It wasn't clear whether the ministry was accusing
Kurdish soldiers -- almost all staunch opponents of
the former regime of Saddam Hussein -- or the Knight
Ridder reporter of ties to the former regime.
Such accusations are serious in a nation where
militia death squads have been accused of murdering
former regime officials and sympathizers.
"Al-Zebari expressed astonishment for such
statements at a time the elected Iraqi government
has achieved important steps in building up a united
Iraqi Army working under the leadership of both
ministries of Defense and the Central Iraqi
Government," the statement said.
The challenge of creating a national army in a
country torn by sectarian divisions is a serious
obstacle to hopes of reducing the number of U.S.
troops in Iraq.
The nation's Shiite Muslim and Kurdish political
parties have large militias and have pursued a
two-pronged strategy of sending some of their
fighters to join the Iraqi security forces while
maintaining armed militias in their provinces.
Both the Shiites, some60 percent of the population,
and the Kurds, about 20 percent, have spoken
frequently of splitting Iraq into semi-autonomous
regions that would report to the government in
Baghdad but run many of their own day-to-day
governmental affairs.
Kurdish leaders have made it clear that they would
like the oil-rich city of Kirkuk to be a part of
their region and at some point would like to break
away from Iraq and claim independence.
In October, a Knight Ridder reporter embedded with a
Shiite Muslim-dominated Iraqi army brigade in
Baghdad in which members spoke openly of wanting to
kill members of the nation's minority Sunni Muslim
sect.
The commander of the U.S. Army's 3rd Infantry
Division, which controls Baghdad, later said that
"the most zealous" of those soldiers had been fired.
Knight Ridder Newspaper
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