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Kurds:RemodelageEthnique duProche-Orient

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Shlama all, Please see in this context also my earlier posting: "Saddam's capture / Kurds' bargain" - Andreas - 12/22 05:28 http://www.insideassyria.com/rkvsf/wwwboard/msgs/Saddam_s_capture_Kurds_bargain-36Sv.html Best Andreas ------------- www.réseauvoltaire.com Remodelage ethnique du Proche-Orient Modèle yougoslave pour le Kurdistan La création d'un Kurdistan indépendant commence à être évoquée officiellement. Opprimés depuis un siècle, les Kurdes y voient un espoir de liberté. Mais il s'agit en réalité d'un nouvel épisode de leur utilisation par les grandes puissances pour affaiblir les États du Proche-Orient. L'État indépendant qui serait offert aux Kurdes aurait une souveraineté limitée puisqu'il serait placée sous la tutelle de la Coalition. Sa définition monoethnique ouvrirait la voie non seulement à l'éclatement de l'Irak, mais à celui des autres États de la région qui ne manqueront pas de réagir face à cette menace. ----------------- Des officiels irakiens et états-uniens ont annoncé qu'en application de l'accord du 15 novembre 2003, le Kurdistan conserverait son statut semi-autonome, puis accéderait, le 30 juin 2004, à une autonomie complète dans le cadre d'un Irak fédéral, rapporte le New York Times [1]. Cette déclaration soulève de nombreuses questions. En premier lieu, contrairement à ce qui est dit aujourd'hui, l'accord du 15 novembre ne prévoyait pas d'autonomie complète du Kurdistan irakien, mais la simple prolongation du status quo. Cependant depuis l'arrestation de Saddam Hussein, les exigences des partis kurdes ont augmenté et ils viennent d'obtenir gain de cause. En second lieu, malgré l'évocation rassurante d'un État fédéral irakien, chacun a bien compris que ce qui est en jeu, c'est l'indépendance du Kurdistan et le démantèlement de l'Irak. À l'issue de la guerre du Golfe, en 1991, George H. Bush (le père) encouragea les Kurdes et les Chiites à se révolter de sorte que Saddam Hussein soit renversé par son propre peuple. Mais, craignant que la Russie s'oppose à un régime pro-US et que le changement à Bagdad ne libère les ambitions saoudiennes, les États-Unis firent volte-face et aidèrent Saddam Hussein à réprimer le soulèvement qu'ils avaient eux-mêmes suscité. Ne souhaitant pas non plus que le dictateur recouvre sa puissance d'antan, ils l'empêchèrent d'anéantir complètement son opposition. Pour protéger les Kurdes autant que pour l'affaiblir, une zone d'interdiction aérienne fut proclamée par les Anglo-États-uniens au nord du 36e parallèle. Deux régions distinctes se formèrent, l'une contrôlée par le Parti démocratique du Kurdistan (PDK) de Massoud Barzani et l'autre par l'Union patriotique du Kurdistan (UPK) de Jalal Talabani. Elles élirent une assemblée commune et désignèrent un gouvernement paritaire. Les douze années qui suivirent marquent une ère de paix et de prospérité pour les Kurdes telle qu'ils n'en avaient pas connue depuis des générations. Échaudés par les voltes-faces états-uniennes, les Kurdes craignirent d'être sacrifiés à l'occasion de la nouvelle guerre contre l'Irak. En effet, Sabahattin Cakmakoglu, ministre de la Défense turc, excipant un accord conclu entre les britanniques et l'Empire ottoman en 1926, revendiqua les droits territoriaux de la Turquie sur le Kurdistan irakien. Mais, par une décision inattendue, l'Assemblée nationale turque négligeant les divers avantages matériels et territoriaux que lui promettaient les États-Unis refusa de participer à la guerre. Les élus turcs, revenant sur les engagements de l'état-major, interdirent même à la Coalition d'utiliser les bases de l'OTAN et de survoler le pays, une décision d'une extrême fermeté que l'Allemagne par exemple n'a pas prise. Ce revirement contraignit le Pentagone à repenser l'ensemble de ses plans et à déplacer ses forces. A contrario, cette situation profita aux Kurdes qui se présentèrent comme les seuls alliés de la Coalition dans la région. Le Kurdistan accueillit la 4e division d'infanterie US et ouvrit un front nord contre les armées de Bagdad. Il fournit de nombreux combattants (les peshmergas) et connut les pertes les plus importantes de la Coalition. À la chute de Saddam Hussein, les Kurdes exigèrent la rétribution de leur engagement. Dans le contexte international, il paraissait impossible à Washington de dépecer l'Irak et de leur accorder l'indépendance. Ils ne furent pas pour autant rattachés au pouvoir central. Ils conservèrent leur législation propre tandis que le Conseil de gouvernement provisoire à Bagdad dotait le reste du pays de nouvelles lois. Il existe donc une autonomie du Kurdistan sous la tutelle de la Coalition et une indépendance de fait par rapport au Conseil de gouvernement provisoire. Pourtant, les Anglo-États-uniens ont choisi de maintenir la fiction de l'unité irakienne en plaçant cinq personnalités kurdes au Conseil de gouvernement provisoire. Les enjeux propres au peuple kurde ne doivent pas masquer ceux des autres populations. Le Kurdistan n'a aucune frontière définie. Sa population n'est pas homogène : une majorité kurde cohabite avec une forte minorité turkmène et des groupes arabes. La zone pétrolière de Kirkouk peut être historiquement revendiquée par les uns et les autres et n'est plus aujourd'hui peuplée majoritairement par des Kurdes. L'indépendance du Kurdistan irakien ouvrirait la voie à un rattachement des populations kurdes de Turquie, de Syrie voire d'Iran, c'est-à-dire à un remodelage complet de la région, mais ne résoudrait aucun problème : ainsi aujourd'hui la plus grande ville kurde, n'est pas au Kurdistan… c'est Bagdad. La séparation d'avec l'Irak placerait les Arabes chiites et sunnites en tête-à-tête et ouvrirait la voie à la dislocation du pays. Ce scénario à la Yougoslave, qui serait catastrophique pour les populations, servirait les intérêts des forces d'occupation et d'Israël. Les États-Unis pourraient se retirer partiellement, comme ils le firent en Yougoslavie, et laisser les populations s'affronter entre elles. Tandis qu'Israël pourrait réaliser le projet de Biltmore et créer un État palestinien où déporter les populations de Gaza et de Cisjordanie. Il semble que l'événement nouveau qui fait aujourd'hui envisager l'indépendance soit l'arrestation de Saddam Hussein. Selon le Sunday Herald, ce serait en réalité les commandos de Qusut Rasul Ali de l'Union patriotique du Kurdistan qui aurait procédé à la capture [2]. Ils auraient conservé leur prisonnier au secret le temps de négocier l'indépendance du Kurdistan et, accessoirement, de récupérer les 25 millions de dollars de prime [3]. Voici un siècle que les grandes puissances jouent avec le peuple kurde, l'utilisent comme supplétif dans leurs guerres et le laissent massacrer lorsqu'il réclame salaire. L'indépendance qui leur est aujourd'hui promise n'est pas une gratification, mais un épisode de plus dans ce jeu qui consiste à diviser pour régner. Elle est préparée par des personnalités comme le professeur du National War College, Peter Galbraith, ancien ambassadeur en Croatie, qui organisa le dépeçage de la Yougoslavie. Des Balkans au Rwanda, il n'est de pire mode de domination moderne que l'on ait inventé que d'offrir aux peuples de se diviser en États mono-ethniques. -------------------------- [1] « Kurdish Region in Northern Iraq Get to Keep Special Status », par Steven R. Weisman, The New York Times, 4 janvier 2004. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/05/international/middleeast/05KURD.html?ei=1&en=9612a68c82a56692&ex=1074272304&pagewanted=print&position= [2] « Revealed : Who Really Found Saddam ? », par David Pratt, Sunday Herald, 21 décembre 2003. http://www.sundayherald.com/38816 [3] « Saddam's Capture : .Was A Deal Brokered Behind the Scenes ? », par David Pratt, Sunday Herald, 4 janvier 2004. http://www.sundayherald.com/39096 ------------------------ ------------------------ [1] « Kurdish Region in Northern Iraq Get to Keep Special Status », par Steven R. Weisman, The New York Times, 4 janvier 2004. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/05/international/middleeast/05KURD.html?ei=1&en=9612a68c82a56692&ex=1074272304&pagewanted=print&position= January 5, 2004 NORTHERN REGION Kurdish Region in Northern Iraq Will Get to Keep Special Status By STEVEN R. WEISMAN ASHINGTON, Jan. 4 — The Bush administration has decided to let the Kurdish region remain semi-autonomous as part of a newly sovereign Iraq despite warnings from Iraq's neighbors and many Iraqis not to divide the country into ethnic states, American and Iraqi officials say. The officials said their new position on the Kurdish area was effectively dictated by the Nov. 15 accord with Iraqi leaders that established June 30 as the target date for Iraqi self-rule. Such a rapid timetable, they said, has left no time to change the autonomy and unity of the Kurdish stronghold of the north, as many had originally wanted. "Once we struck the Nov. 15 agreement, there was a realization that it was best not to touch too heavily on the status quo," said an administration official. "The big issue of federalism in the Kurdish context will have to wait for the Iraqis to resolve. For us to try to resolve it in a month or two is simply too much to attempt." The issue of whether Iraq is to be divided into ethnic states in a federation-style government is of great significance both inside the country and throughout the Middle East, where fears are widespread that dividing Iraq along ethnic or sectarian lines could eventually break the country up and spread turmoil in the region. Administration and Iraq officials insist that leaving the Kurdish autonomous region intact does not preclude Iraq's consolidating itself without ethnic states in the future when Iraq writes its own constitution. Indeed, the Bush administration plans to continue to press Iraq not to divide itself permanently along ethnic lines, officials say. But after June 30, if all goes according to plan, the United States will be exerting such pressure not as an occupier but as a friendly outside power that happens to have 100,000 troops on the ground. Many experts fear that once a Kurdish government is formalized even temporarily, it will be hard to dislodge. The original timetable for the transfer of sovereignty to Iraq called for self-rule to start in late 2004 or 2005 — after a constitution was written under American guidance. Under that timetable, American officials say, it would have been easier to influence a future government's makeup, not just on its federal structure but also on such matters as the role of Islamic law. The new, earlier deadline, intended to ease Iraqi hostility to the occupation and to undermine support for continuing attacks on American troops, has forced the United States to scrap many of its other earlier plans for the future of Iraq. Originally, for example, the United States had hoped to proceed with the privatization of state-owned businesses established by Saddam Hussein. That hope is now gone as well, American officials concede, in part because of security dangers and possible future legal challenges to any sell-off carried out by an occupying power. Last summer, L. Paul Bremer III, the American administrator in Iraq, told an economic forum in Jordan that Iraq would soon start privatizing more than 40 government-owned companies making packaged foods, steel and other items. "Everybody knows we cannot wait until there is an elected government here to start economic reform," he said. Now Mr. Bremer says repeatedly that such decisions must await Iraqi self-rule. The precise terms of the future status of the Kurdish region in the transitional government, which is expected to last until the end of 2005, remain a matter of sharp dispute among members of the Iraqi Governing Council, the group handpicked by the American-led occupation that helps guide Iraq's future. The five Kurdish members of the council are pressing their own draft of a planned temporary constitution — known as the "transitional law" — that would give the Kurdish area wide authority over security, taxation and especially revenues from its own oil fields, according to Iraqi and American officials. Their draft would call for the Kurdish area to be a part of Iraq, and cede at least some powers to Baghdad, most likely in areas like currency and security forces. The Kurdish region has enjoyed basic autonomy since 1991, when the United States followed the first Persian Gulf war by establishing a no-flight zone there to prevent Mr. Hussein's military from attacking. "The status quo, with substantial Kurdish autonomy, will to a certain degree remain in place in the transitional period," said an administration official. "That is the view across-the-board of the Iraqi Governing Council. But clearly the Kurds are trying to get more than that." The Bush administration has many times stated its opposition to a permanent arrangement of ethnic states in Iraq, fearing that the country might eventually become another Lebanon, where power is parceled out according to religion. While visiting the Kurdish region in September, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said that while he sympathized with Kurdish aspirations and understood that their leaders did not want to break away from Iraq, he was opposed to a separate Kurdish province or state as such. "We would not wish to see a political system that is organized on ethnic lines," Mr. Powell said. "There are other ways to do it that would not essentially bring into the future the ethnic problems that have been there all along. They understand that, and we'll have different models to show them." In Baghdad, a 10-member subcommittee of the Iraqi Governing Council is now wrestling with its own "models" of how to define the Kurdish area's powers. The committee is trying to meld its own draft with one put forward by the Kurds, officials said. The subcommittee chairman is Adnan Pachachi, a former Iraqi foreign minister who is a Sunni Muslim. "There is a substantial agreement that the status quo in the Kurdish region would be maintained during the transitional period, with an important caveat," said Feisel Istrabadi, a law professor at DePauw University and senior legal adviser to Dr. Pachachi. "No one is conceding any ethnic or confessional grounds as the basis for any future federal state." Mr. Istrabadi, who is in Baghdad helping Dr. Pachachi's committee draft the transitional law to take effect after June 30, said most Iraqis would oppose the establishment of ethnic states. He said such an arrangement would be inappropriate given that Iraq does not have the history of ethnic or sectarian strife that has led to partition of states in other parts of the world. Some experts have suggested that Iraq should be divided into a Kurdish enclave in the north, a Sunni one in the center and a Shiite one in the south. But this idea has little support at the Iraqi Governing Council and none with the United States. "You know what the largest Kurdish city in Iraq is?" asked Mr. Istrabadi. "It's Baghdad. It isn't like you could draw a line in Iraq and say the Kurds live here or the Assyrians, the Chaldeans, or the Turkomans or the Shiites or the Sunnis live there. In the supposedly Shiite south, there are a million Sunnis in Basra." The Kurdish region is dominated by two feuding political parties that have been struggling to form a unified government in order to strengthen their hand in pushing for a federalist system that would give them broad autonomy into the future. At present, Iraq is divided into 18 states, known as governorates, of which three are Kurdish in the mountainous area of the north. A permanently unified Kurdish state stirs worries especially in Turkey and Iran, where there are large and restive Kurdish minorities. ----------------------- [2] « Revealed : Who Really Found Saddam ? », par David Pratt, Sunday Herald, 21 décembre 2003. http://www.sundayherald.com/38816 Revealed: who really found Saddam? Saddam’s capture was the best present George Bush could have hoped for, and then Gaddafi handed a propaganda gift to Blair. But nothing’s ever that simple By Foreign Editor David Pratt It was exactly one week ago at 3.15pm Baghdad time, when a beaming Paul Bremer made that now-famous announce ment: “Ladies and gentlemen, we got him!” Saddam Hussein: High Value Target Number One. The Glorious Leader. The Lion of Babylon had been snared. Iraq’s most wanted – the ace of spades – had become little more than an ace in the hole. In Baghdad’s streets, Kalashnikov bullets rained down in celebration. In the billets of US soldiers, there were high fives, toasts and cigars. In the Jordanian capital Amman, an elderly woman overcome by grief broke down in tears and died. Inside a snow-blanketed White House, George W Bush prepared to address the nation. “There’s an end to everything,” said a sombre Safa Saber al-Douri, a former Iraqi air force pilot, now a grocer in al-Dwar, the town where only hours earlier one of the greatest manhunts in history had ended under a polystyrene hatch in a six foot deep “spider hole.” But just how did that endgame come about? Indeed, who exactly were the key players in what until then had been a frustrating and sometimes embarrassing hunt for a former dictator with a $25 million (£14m) bounty on his head? For 249 days there was no shortage of US expertise devoted to the hunt. But the Pentagon has always remained tight-lipped about those individuals and groups involved, such as Task Force 20, said to be America’s most elite covert unit, or another super-secret team known as Greyfox, which specialises in radio and telephone surveillance. Saddam, of course, was never likely to use the phone, and the best chance of locating him would always be as a result of informers or home-grown Iraqi intelligence. On this and their collaboration with anti-Saddam groups the Americans have also remained reticent. Enter one Qusrat Rasul Ali, otherwise known as the lion of Kurdistan. A leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), Rasul Ali was once tortured by Saddam’s henchmen, but today is chief of a special forces unit dedicated to hunting down former Ba’athist regime leaders. Rasul Ali’s unit had an impressive track record. It was they who last August, working alone, arrested Iraqi vice-president Taha Yassin Ramadan in Mosul, northern Iraq. Barely a month earlier in the al-Falah district of the same town, the PUK is believed to have played a crucial role in the pinpointing and storming of a villa that culminated in the deaths of Saddam’s sons Uday and Qusay. In that mixed district of Mosul where Arabs, Kurds and Turkemen live side by side, PUK informers went running to their leader Jalal Talabani’s nearest military headquarters to bring him news on the exact location of the villa where both Uday and Qusay had taken shelter. Armed with the information, Talabani made a beeline for US administration offices in Baghdad, where deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz was based for a week’s stay in Iraq at the time. The Kurdish leader and US military chiefs conferred and decided that PUK intelligence would go ahead and secretly surround the Zeidan villa and install sensors and eavesdropping devices. The Kurdish agents were instructed to prepare the site for the US special forces operation to storm the building on July 22. American officials later said they expected that the $30m bounty promised by their government for the capture or death of the Hussein sons would be paid. Given their direct involvement in providing the exact location and intelligence necessary, no doubt Talabani’s PUK operatives could lay claim to the sum, but no confirmation of any delivery or receipt of the cash has ever been made. The PUK and Rasul Ali’s special “Ba’athist hunters” have, it seems, been doing what the Americans have consistently failed to do. In an interview with the PUK’s al-Hurriyah radio station last Wednesday, Adil Murad, a member of the PUK’s political bureau, confirmed that the Kurdish unit had been pursuing fugitive Ba’athists for the past months in Mosul, Samarra, Tikrit and areas to the south including al-Dwar where Saddam was eventually cornered. Murad even says that the day before Saddam’s capture he was tipped off by PUK General Thamir al-Sultan, that Saddam would be arrested within the next 72 hours. Clearly the Kurdish net was closing on Saddam, and PUK head Jalal Talabani and Rasul Ali were once again in the running for US bounty – should any be going. It was at about 10.50am Baghdad time on last Saturday when US intel ligence says it got the tip it was looking for. But it was not until 8pm, with the launch of Operation Red Dawn, that they finally began to close in on the prize. The US media reported that the tip-off came from an Iraqi man who was arrested during a raid in Tikrit, and even speculated that he could get part of the bounty. “It was intelligence, actionable intelligence,” claimed Lt General Ricardo Sanchez, commander of coalition ground forces in Iraq. “It was great analytical work.” But the widely held view that Kurdish intelligence was the key to the operation was supported in a statement released last Sunday by the Iraqi Governing Council. Ahmed Chalabi, leader of the Iraqi National Congress, said that Rasul Ali and his PUK special forces unit had provided vital information and more. Last Saturday, as the US operation picked up speed, the Fourth Infantry Division moved into the area surrounding two farms codenamed Wolverine 1 and Wolverine 2 near al-Dwar, the heart of the Saddam heartland – a military town where practically every man is a military officer past or present. It is said to have a special place in Saddam’s sentiments because it was from here that he swam across the Tigris River when he was a dissident fleeing arrest in the 1960s. Every year on August 28, the town marks Saddam’s escape with a swimming contest . In 1992, Saddam himself attended the race. It was won by a man called Qais al-Nameq. It was al-Nameq’s farmhouse – Wolverine 2 – that about 600 troops, including engineers, artillery and special forces, surrounded, cutting off all roads for about four or five miles around. Next to a sheep pen was a ramshackle orange and white taxi, which US officials say was probably used to ferry Saddam around while he was on the run, sometimes moving every three or four hours. Inside the premises was a walled compound with a mud hut and small lean-to. There US soldiers found the camouflaged hole in which Saddam was hiding. It was 3.15pm Washington time when Donald Rumsfeld called George W Bush at Camp David. “Mr President, first reports are not always accurate,” he began. “But we think we may have him.” First reports – indeed the very first report of Saddam’s capture – were also coming out elsewhere. Jalal Talabani chose to leak the news and details of Rasul Ali’s role in the deployment to the Iranian media and to be interviewed by them. By early Sunday – way before Saddam’s capture was being reported by the mainstream Western press – the Kurdish media ran the following news wire: “Saddam Hussein, the former President of the Iraqi regime, was captured by the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. A special intelligence unit led by Qusrat Rasul Ali, a high-ranking member of the PUK, found Saddam Hussein in the city of Tikrit, his birthplace. Qusrat’s team was accompanied by a group of US soldiers. Further details of the capture will emerge during the day; but the global Kurdish party is about to begin!” By the time Western press agencies were running the same story, the emphasis had changed, and the ousted Iraqi president had been “captured in a raid by US forces backed by Kurdish fighters.” Rasul Ali himself, meanwhile, had already been on air at the Iranian satellite station al-Alam insisting that his “PUK fighters sealed the area off before the arrival of the US forces”. By late Sunday as the story went global, the Kurdish role was reduced to a supportive one in what was described by the Pentagon and US military officials as a “joint operation”. The Americans now somewhat reluctantly were admitting that PUK fighters were on the ground alongside them , while PUK sources were making more considered statements and playing down their precise role. So just who did get to Saddam first, the Kurds or the Americans? And if indeed it was a joint operation would it have been possible at all without the intelligence and on-the-ground participation of Rasul Ali and his special forces? If the PUK themselves pulled off Saddam’s capture, there would be much to gain from taking the $25m bounty and any political guarantees the Americans might reward them with to keep schtum. What’s more, Jalal Talabani’s links to Tehran have always worried Washington, and having his party grab the grand prize from beneath their noses would be awkward to say the least. “It’s mutually worth it to us and the Americans. We need assurances for the future and they need the kudos of getting Saddam,” admitted a Kurdish source on condition of anonymity. It would be all to easy to dismiss the questions surrounding the PUK role as conspiracy theory. After all, almost every major event that affects the Arab world prompts tales that are quickly woven into intricate shapes and patterns, to demonstrate innocence, seek credit or apportion blame. Saddam’s capture is no exception. Of the numerous and more exotic theories surrounding events leading to Saddam’s arrest, one originates on a website many believe edited by former Israeli intelligence agents, but which often turns up inside information about the Middle East that proves to be accurate. According to Debka.com, there is a possibility that Saddam was held for up to three weeks in al-Dwar by a Kurdish splinter group while they negotiated a handover to the Americans in return for the $25m reward. This, the writers say would explain his dishevelled and disorientated appearance. But perhaps the mother of all conspiracy theories, is the one about the pictures distributed by the Americans showing the hideout with a palm tree behind the soldier who uncov ered the hole where Saddam was hiding. The palm carried a cluster of pre-ripened yellow dates, which might suggest that Saddam was arrested at least three months earlier, because dates ripen in the summer when they turn into their black or brown colour. Those who buy into such an explanation conclude that Saddam’s capture was stage-managed and his place of arrest probably elsewhere. All fanciful stuff. But as is so often the case, the real chain of events is likely to be far more mundane. In the end serious questions remain about the Kurdish role and whether at last Sunday’s Baghdad press conference, Paul Bremer was telling the whole truth . Or is it a case of “ladies and gentlemen we got him,” – with a little more help from our Kurdish friends than might be politically expedient to admit? 21 December 2003 ------------------- [3] « Saddam's Capture : .Was A Deal Brokered Behind the Scenes ? », par David Pratt, Sunday Herald, 4 janvier 2004. http://www.sundayherald.com/39096 Saddam’s capture: was a deal brokered behind the scenes? When it emerged that the Kurds had captured the Iraqi dictator, the US celebrations evaporated. David Pratt asks whether a secret political trade-off has been engineered For a story that three weeks ago gripped the world’s imagination, it has now all but dropped off the radar. Peculiar really, for if one thing might have been expected in the aftermath of Saddam Hussein’s capture, it was the endless political and media mileage that the Bush administration would get out of it . After all, for 249 days Saddam’s elusiveness had been a symbol of America’s ineptitude in Iraq, and, at last, with his capture came the long-awaited chance to return some flak to the Pentagon’s critics. It also afforded the opportunity to demonstrate the effectiveness of America’s elite covert and intelligence units such as Task Force 20 and Greyfox . And it was a terrific chance for the perfect photo-op showing the American soldier, and Time magazine’s “Person of the Year”, hauling “High Value Target Number One” out of his filthy spiderhole in the village of al-Dwar. Then along came that story: the one about the Kurds beating the US Army in the race to find Saddam first, and details of Operation Red Dawn suddenly began to evaporate. US Army spokesmen – so effusive in the immediate wake of Saddam’s capture – no longer seemed willing to comment, or simply went to ground. But rumours of the crucial Kurdish role persisted, even though it now seems their previously euphoric spokesmen have now, similarly, been afflicted by an inexplicable bout of reticence. It was two weeks ago that the Sunday Herald revealed how a Kurdish special forces unit belonging to the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) had spearheaded and tracked down Saddam, sealing off the al-Dwar farmhouse long “before the arrival of the US forces”. PUK leader Jalal Talabani had chosen to leak the news and details of the operation’s commander, Qusrut Rasul Ali, to the Iranian media long before Saddam’s capture was reported by the mainstream Western press or confirmed by the US military. By the time Western press agencies were running the same story, the entire emphasis had changed however, and the ousted Iraqi president had been “captured in a raid by US forces backed by Kurdish fighters”. In the intervening few weeks that troublesome Kurdish story has gone around the globe, picked up by newspapers from The Sydney Morning Herald to the US Christian Science Monitor, as well as the Kurdish press. While Washington and the PUK remain schtum, further confirmation that the Kurds were way ahead in Saddam’s capture continues to leak out. According to one Israeli source who was in the company of Kurds at a meeting in Athens early on December 14, one of the Kurdish representatives burst into the conference room in tears and demanded an immediate halt to the discussions. “Saddam Hussein has been captured,” he said, adding that he had received word from Kurdistan – before any television reports. According to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, the delegate also confirmed that most of the information leading to the deposed dictator’s arrest had come from the Kurds and – as our earlier Sunday Herald report revealed – who had organised their own intelligence network which had been trying to uncover Saddam’s tracks for months. The delegate further claimed that six months earlier the Kurds had discovered that Saddam’s wife was in the Tikrit area. This intelligence, most likely obtained by Qusrut Rasul Ali and his PUK special forces unit, was transferred to the Americans. The Kurds, however, are said to have never received any follow-up from the coalition forces on this vital tip-off and were furious. Whatever the full extent of their undoubted involvement in providing intelligence or actively participating on the ground in Saddam’s capture, the Kurds, and the PUK in particular, would benefit handsomely. Apart from a trifling $25 million bounty, their status would have been substantially boosted in Washington, which may in part explain the recent vociferous Kurdish reassertion of their long-term political ambitions in the “new Iraq”. For their own part the Kurds have already launched a political arrangement designed to secure their aspirations with respect to autonomy, if not nationalist or separatist aspirations. To show how serious they are, the two main Kurdish groups, the PUK and the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), have decided to close ranks and set up a joint Kurdish administration, with jobs being divided between the two camps. They have made it clear to the Americans that their leadership has a responsibility to their constituency. Last week Massoud Barzani, leader of the KDP, called for a revision of the power-transfer agreement signed between the US-led coalition and Iraq’s interim governing council to recognise “Kurdish rights”. The November 15 agreement calls for the creation of a national assembly by the end of May 2004 which will put in place a caretaker government by June, which in turn will draft a new constitution and hold national elections “The November 15 accord must be revised and ‘Kurdish rights’ within an Iraqi federation must be mentioned,” Barzani told a meeting of his supporters. “The Kurds are today in a powerful position but must continue the struggle to guard their unity,” he added. This renewed determination to fulfil their political objectives is shaking up other ethnic residents in northern Iraq, who fear at best being marginalised; at worst victimised. Over the last week there have been increasingly violent clashes between Kurdish and Arab students, and between Kurds and Turkemens, in the oil rich city of Kirkuk. Such ethnic confrontations point to another dangerous phase in Iraq’s power-brokering. If the Kurds did indeed capture Saddam first, and a deal was struck about his handover to the US, then it’s not inconceivable that the terms might have included strong political and strategic advantages that could ultimately determine the emerging power structure in Iraq. 04 January 2004 --------------------- - BACK TO INDEX - REPLY - QUOTE - EDIT - DELETE -

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