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In Iraq, Kurdish militia has the run of
oil-rich Kirkuk 17.2.2007
By Tom Lasseter |
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February 17, 2007
KIRKUK, Iraq-Kurdistan border, - Lt. Hiwa Raouf
Abdul is not supposed to be in Kirkuk. The oil-rich
city, which many fear is teetering on
the brink of civil war, is off-limits to Kurdish
Peshmerga militia members.
And yet, on Tuesday, the slender, 26-year-old
Peshmerga officer breezed through one checkpoint
after the next on his way into Kirkuk, exchanging
waves and salutes with Iraqi army soldiers and
policemen as he rode with a truckload of Peshmerga
gunmen.
Abdul is stationed in the nearby Kurdish city of
Sulaimaniyah, where the Peshmerga enforce strict
security through a series of checkpoints, and his
visit to Kirkuk came only because his commanders
asked him to escort a reporter there.
But the ease with which a pickup truck carrying
seven Peshmerga members, most of them wielding
AK-47s, passed into Kirkuk says volumes about the
challenge of pacifying flashpoint towns like Kirkuk
and, ultimately, Iraq.
When he passed by the Iraqi army checkpoint on the
edge of Kirkuk, Abdul looked at the soldiers
saluting him and said, "They get their orders from
the Iraqi army, but their loyalty is to the Kurds,
to us."
As with Shiite militias in Baghdad, the line between
militia members and Iraqi security troops in Kirkuk
is so thin that it at times doesn't exist. And U.S.
plans to build Iraq's security forces - a process
that has cost more than $15 billion nationwide -
seem to have strengthened militias instead of
discouraging them.
The issue of loyalty with Iraqi security forces is
proving to be the Achilles' heel of American plans
to stabilize the war-torn nation. Without neutral
Iraqi soldiers and police, an American withdrawal
would almost certainly lead to greater sectarian
bloodshed than Iraq is currently experiencing.
In June 2004, the American Coalition Provisional
Authority issued an order outlawing militias and
calling for their members to integrate into Iraq's
security forces. An exemption was made for the
Peshmerga, provided that they remained in Kurdistan,
a semi-autonomous state in northern Iraq, and not
move to outside areas like Kirkuk.
Armed groups across Iraq reacted to the 2004 measure
by enlisting in the army and police and maintaining
large contingents of stand-alone militia groups,
making them significantly more powerful.
Kirkuk is a tinderbox of sects vying for control of
an area with billions of dollars worth of oil, but
the Iraqi army isn't a neutral presence, and many of
its soldiers make no secret that their loyalty is to
the Kurdish nation.
"I joined to defend my city and my people, who are
Peshmerga," said Iraqi Army Pvt. Kamaran Ahmed, a
31-year-old Kurd from Kirkuk. "From the time of the
first prophet God sent to Earth, Kirkuk has been a
part of Kurdistan and it will return to Kurdistan."
Ahmed continued: "If it is not returned to
Kurdistan, things will get very bad."
To make his point clear, Ahmed jutted his arm into
the air and said, "For instance, I have this watch
on my wrist. If you take it from me, I will do
whatever is necessary to take it back."
American and Iraqi officials are adamant that Iraqi
troops are heading in the right direction.
Asked by e-mail whether there were concerns about
the Peshmerga influence on Iraqi troops around
Kirkuk, U.S. Lt. Col. Michael Donnelly answered:
"No. Our relationship with the IA (Iraqi Army)
division is well established since our arrival here
six months ago."
Donnelly, a spokesman for the 25th Infantry
Division, which is responsible for Kirkuk,
continued: "When the soldiers join the IA, they are
taught in training and in day-to-day regimen of
being a soldier that sectarian lines are not for the
army. They are an army of one, if you will, for one
nation."
Requests for comment from four senior U.S. military
public affairs officers in Baghdad were
unsuccessful.
The dispute over who will ultimately control Kirkuk,
which has oil fields with reserves of at least 8.7
billion barrels, is a contentious and potentially
catastrophic one, with the city's Arab, Kurd and
Turkmen communities all claiming rightful ownership.
"The Kurds who surround Kirkuk claim to be Iraqi
army, but their extensive presence on the outskirts
of Kirkuk is designed to affect the ethnic balance
of the city," said Ali Mahdi, a senior Turkmen
political leader in Kirkuk and a member of the
provincial council. "They are protecting their sect
and working for the benefit of the Kurds in the city
and not the others. This is dangerous for the future
of the city."
The situation has serious geo-political
implications: Neighboring Turkey, a crucial U.S.
ally, fears that the Kurds will eventually declare
independence if they gain Kirkuk, a move that could
lead the large Kurdish population in Turkey to
agitate for secession.
Former dictator Saddam Hussein displaced tens of
thousands of Kurdish families from Kirkuk, replacing
them with Arabs, mainly from the Shiite south.
Iraq's constitution provides for a referendum to
decide the matter of who will control Kirkuk by the
end of this year; meanwhile, tens of thousands of
Kurds have moved into the city since 2003, urged by
Kurdish political parties to set up homes there.
And the Peshmerga have continued to have deep ties
with the Iraqi security forces.
"If the heavy presence of Peshmerga in Kirkuk and
its outskirts continues as it is now, it will lead
to a civil war in Kirkuk," said Abdullah al Obeidi,
a Sunni Arab tribal leader and a member of the
Kirkuk provincial council.
After bringing a McClatchy reporter into Kirkuk, the
Peshmerga - literally, "those who face death" -
troops next stopped at an Iraqi army base there.
Iraqi army Maj. Shawqi Mohammed, a former Peshmerga
commander, was at the base, and he greeted the
Peshmerga members warmly.
"Kirkuk is Kurdistan; that is the only point worth
making. We have given thousands of lives for Kirkuk,"
Mohammed said.
Asked whether Kurdish troops would break ranks if
fighting broke out between Kirkuk's sects, Mohammed
said, "It's true that we are Iraqi army, but we are
also Kurds. ... We will do whatever the Kurdish
leadership tells us to."
A McClatchy reporter interviewing Kurdish troops in
the Iraqi army during late 2005 heard similar
remarks. The Iraqi defense ministry issued a press
release at the time saying there was no substance to
the issue of Peshmerga infiltration of army units in
Kirkuk.
Senior Kurdish leaders have said in public that
they'll pursue only peaceful means to wrest control
of the city.
That same leadership has intentionally stocked Iraqi
security forces with Peshmerga, said Fadil Haider, a
senior member of the Kurdistan Islamic Union, a
small but powerful political party, and a former
member of the Iraqi national parliament.
The two main Kurdish parties - the Patriotic Union
of Kurdistan (PUK) and the Kurdistan Democratic
Party (KDP) - have done so as an insurance policy,
he said.
"I can give you two scenarios: If Iraq is in an
all-out civil war, then the PUK and KDP have put
themselves in a position to protect Kurdistan by
very quickly taking Kirkuk and making it a part of
an independent Kurdistan," Haider said. "Or, if we
exhaust the peaceful, political means of gaining
Kirkuk for Kurdistan, we will take it by force."
Kurdish officials are confident that when Kirkuk
becomes a part of the Kurdish regional government,
its security will be maintained by Peshmerga, a
process that presumably would be made easier by the
fact that so many Iraqi police and army there are
former members, said Suzanne Shahab Nouri, a member
of the regional Kurdish parliament.
"The Kurdish Peshmerga forces are the strongest
(Iraqi) military force in Iraq," said Jafar Mustafa
Ali, the minister state for Peshmerga affairs -
essentially a defense minister - in Sulaimaniyah.
"If they (Kurdish opponents in Kirkuk) don't respect
the democratic process, we could take over Kirkuk
and they could do nothing."
thestate com
The former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein forced
about 250,000 Kurdish residents to give up their
homes to Arabs in the 1970s, to "Arabize" the city
and the region's oil industry.
Kirkuk city is a Kurdistani city and it lies just
south border of the Kurdistan autonomous region and
it is not under the full control of Kurdistan
Regional Government administration, its population
is a mix of majority Kurds and minority of Arabs,
Turkmen.
Based on Iraq's Constitution a referendum is to be
held in late 2007 to decide whether the oil-rich
Kurdish province should be
annexed to the safe semiautonomous Kurdistan region
in Iraq's north.
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