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A statement on my activities in Kurdistan:
Peter W. Galbraith
18.12.2009
By Peter W. Galbraith
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December 18, 2009
Recent reports on my activities in Kurdistan call
for a response. I have been both a writer on Iraq
and an active participant in events there. After
being an eyewitness to Saddam Hussein’s genocide
against the Kurds in the 1980s, I came to the view
that the Iraqi Kurdish aspiration for independence
was morally justified and the only sure means of
protecting the Kurdish people. In late 2003 and
early 2004, I helped Kurdistan’s leaders draft a
proposal for a self-governing Kurdistan that was
submitted to the Coalition Provisional Authority on
February 11, 2004, for inclusion in Iraq’s interim
constitution. Under the proposal, Kurdistan had its
own government and military, Kurdistan law prevailed
over Iraqi law, and Kurdistan controlled its own
natural resources, including oil.
As Kurdistan’s leaders recognized, legal control
over oil meant nothing unless there was a Kurdistan
oil industry. In June 2004, I helped bring DNO, a
Norwegian oil company, into Kurdistan.
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Peter Galbraith, former State Department Official and
former U.S. ambassador to Croatia |
I was paid by DNO
and entered into a financial arrangement with the
company through a Delaware partnership, Porcupine
LP. That year DNO discovered oil in Kurdistan and
its pioneering efforts have attracted more than
thirty other companies, creating a robust Kurdistan
oil industry and giving the Kurds the financial
basis for meaningful self-government.
In the summer of 2005, Kurdistan’s leaders asked me
to advise them on the negotiations for the permanent
constitution. Their proposal was identical to the
one they made in February 2004 and they achieved
virtually all of it. In its November 12, 2009
article, The New York Times says that I “pushed
through” these constitutional provisions for my own
benefit. The Times gave no source for this
allegation and its reporter never asked me about it.
As even a superficial analysis would show, the
allegation could not possibly be true. I was a
private citizen, unconnected to any government and
with no power to push through anything. I was not
directly involved in any negotiations and was not in
the room when they took place. I simply provided
advice,www.ekurd.netunpaid
and on an informal basis, to the Kurdish leaders,
who knew of my arrangements with DNO when they asked
for my advice. The Kurds, who had been fighting for
independence or autonomy for eighty years, had set
the agenda and they pushed through their own
proposals. Although the Times asserts that my
relationship with DNO was largely undeclared, it was
also known to the US and Iraqi governments and I
represented the company on a joint committee with
the Iraqi Ministry of Oil.
A separate issue arises over what I should have
disclosed in connection with my articles in The New
York Review of Books. I discussed Kurdistan’s
autonomy proposals, including those on oil, in a
piece written in March 2004 entitled “How to Get Out
of Iraq.” At this time, I did not have any business
relationships. Subsequently, I wrote several other
articles in 2004 and 2005, some of which briefly
discussed the oil issue, and did not mention my
business arrangements. These arrangements were
covered by confidentiality agreements,www.ekurd.netbut
I should have stated that I had business interests
in Kurdistan. I regret not having done so and
apologize to the editors and readers of The New York
Review of Books. In my later articles, I did state
that I was “a principal at the Windham Resources
Group, a firm that negotiates on behalf of its
clients in post-conflict societies, including in
Iraq.”
In June 2009, I joined the United Nations as deputy
special representative of the secretary-general in
Afghanistan. At that time, I terminated all my
business activities. Neither I nor Porcupine LP has
any ongoing contractual relationship or financial
arrangement with DNO. We do not hold an interest in
any Iraqi oil field. Porcupine is the plaintiff in
an arbitration with DNO related to past disputes
from which I may or may not benefit. When I was
appointed to the UN position, I disclosed all my
financial interests, including those related to the
Porcupine-DNO arbitration.
This statement appears in the January 14, 2010 issue
of The New York Review of Books.
Copyright, respective author or news agency,
blogs.nybooks com
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