U.S.
scrambles to keep Kirkuk from igniting
By Rick Jervis, USA TODAY
KIRKUK, Iraq — When a bomb goes off
here, Lt. Col. Michael Browder's job is
to make it seem like the attack never
happened.
Minutes after a truck
exploded near a police station last month,
Browder and his unit immediately went to
work removing the bodies of the 13 victims,
among them a U.S. soldier. By nightfall,
wrecked buildings were bulldozed, charred
cars towed away, and water and power
restored.
By making an
extraordinary effort to repair damage after
such explosions, the U.S. military hopes to
soothe public anger and keep Kirkuk from
becoming Iraq's next big flash point for
violence. Otherwise, Browder says, revenge
killings could quickly overwhelm a city that
has been called "Iraq's Jerusalem" because
of its patchwork of rival sects, competing
claims over who should control it, and its
importance to the nation's future.
Tensions already are
so high in Kirkuk that Browder says just one
bomb with mass casualties might be enough to
unleash a massive bloodletting. "Everybody's
right on the envelope," he says.
Such a scenario would
significantly worsen problems throughout
Iraq and beyond. The Kurds, the largest
ethnic group in Kirkuk, could clash with
already-warring Sunni and Shiite Arabs,
essentially turning Iraq's sectarian
conflict into a three-way affair.
Neighboring Turkey could invade to protect
its ethnic kin. Turmoil in a region that
accounts for about 40% of Iraq's oil
production could damage the economy for
years to come.
So the U.S. military
again finds itself in a peacekeeping role it
never envisioned when it invaded Iraq four
years ago. Eager to avoid mistakes made in
Baghdad, commanders are leading negotiations
between an overlapping, often confounding
mix of Kurds, Arabs, Turkmen and
Assyrian-Christians. The groups speak
different languages, have different customs
and have been battling each other for
control of Kirkuk practically since the city
was first settled.
"It's a long-term,
1,000-year distrust of each other," says
Maj. Gen. Benjamin Mixon, commander of U.S.
forces in northern Iraq. "We have to try to
build some bridges (as) best we can. But at
the end of the day, it's going to be up to
(them) to figure out how to make it work."
The main source of
tension is the desire of the city's Kurds to
break from the control of Baghdad and join
the largely autonomous region of Kurdistan
just to the north. The city's other ethnic
groups fear such a move would make them
second-class citizens.
Meanwhile, insurgent
groups such as al-Qaeda are seeking to
create further violence they hope ultimately
would bring down Iraq's government.
The police station
bombing on April 2 was just the type of
incident the U.S. military fears could
ignite a broader conflict. The bomb exploded
near an all-girls school, injuring some
students, Browder says. TV images that night
showed crying, blood-splattered little girls
at the hospital.
At first word of the
blast, Browder ordered 300 Iraqi police to
cordon off a six-block radius from the blast
site. He also called the police chief and
other Kurdish leaders in for a meeting. He
told them a group tied to al-Qaeda was
believed responsible for the attack.
"I brought them all
in and told them, 'This is what happened,
this is why it went down, these are the
people responsible, and we're going to get
this fixed,' " he says.
Browder's unit then
tried to anticipate what groups might try to
retaliate, and how to stop them. "That's how
we keep the lid on it," Browder says.
Oil at the heart
of struggle
At first glance, it
is difficult to see why so many groups covet
Kirkuk.
Piles of garbage mix
with sewer sludge in abandoned lots, while
butchers hang skinned sheep carcasses from
crumbling storefronts. The Kurdish
neighborhoods to the north of the city are
visibly cleaner, but the garbage piles grow
further south, in the Arab districts.
The reason for
Kirkuk's importance lies deep beneath the
ground. Iraq's first major oil find was just
outside the city in 1927, and oil has been
at the heart of the struggle for Kirkuk ever
since.
In the 1970s, Saddam
Hussein began forcibly removing about
250,000 Kurds from Kirkuk and surrounding
villages. He replaced them with Arab
families, mostly Shiites from Iraq's south,
in an effort to "Arabize" the city and
control its oil.
After the U.S.-led
invasion, as Kurdish leaders sent thousands
of Kurdish families back to the city, Kurds
quickly took control of key government
posts. Today the provincial governor,
provincial council chairman and chief of
provincial police are Kurds.
Iraq's constitution
says Kirkuk's residents must vote by the end
of 2007 on whether to join Kurdistan or
remain under control of the government in
Baghdad.
However, Prime
Minister Nouri al-Maliki has refused to set
a date for the vote, angering Kurds who
believe they form a majority in Kirkuk and
would win the referendum.
"National
reconciliation can never be reached unless
the status of Kirkuk is resolved," Qubad
Talabani, Kurdistan's representative to the
USA, told the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee in February.
A delay "will only
raise the risk of a situation erupting out
of control," Talabani said.
"The grim reality is
that whether we tackle this issue now, or 10
years from now, the final outcome will still
be messy," he said. "The longer we delay the
process, the greater the tensions will
become and the uglier the fallout will be."
Kurds have longed for
their own territory for decades, a desire
that intensified after Saddam Hussein
ordered chemical weapons used against them
in the 1980s, killing thousands.
Baghdad has little
control in the Kurdish north, where daily
life seems entirely different — and more
peaceful.
Foreign investment
has streamed into Kurdistan, and direct
flights ferry businessmen between Irbil, its
capital, and western Europe. Before a truck
bomb last week, Irbil had gone nearly three
years without a major attack.
Kirkuk's Kurds say
joining Kurdistan would mean a better, safer
life for everyone. Non-Kurdish groups worry
they would become targets for
discrimination, unwelcome in their own
homes.
Sheik Hussein Ali
Salih, a Sunni Arab leader from the western
part of Kirkuk province, says a referendum
would result in "apartheid."
"We will never accept
it," he says. "We will stand very strongly
against it with all the means we have."
Heading off a
broader war
The Turkmen, a
Turkish-speaking minority with ethnic ties
to Turkey, consider Kirkuk to be their
ancestral capital and cultural center.
"We are still not
living in harmony in Kirkuk," says Tahsin
Kahya, a Turkmen council member. "We've been
marginalized here."
Daniel Serwer, an
Iraq expert at the U.S. Institute of Peace,
says, "The issue is clear: The Kurds want
Kirkuk, and not just for the oil. They say
it's their capital. Unfortunately, the
(Turkmen) feel the same way."
U.S. soldiers are
left to somehow resolve these competing
claims. Army Lt. Col. Sam Whitehurst, deputy
commander of the 3rd Brigade, 25th Infantry
Division, which oversees the Kirkuk area,
says he spends the bulk of his time at the
downtown government building meeting with
Turkmen, Arab and Kurdish leaders.
Whitehurst says he
often wonders whether the talking will stop
and warfare will begin.
Are tensions "going
to continue to mount? Is this discussion
going to turn into something more open?"
Whitehurst asks. "I really don't know.
That's a question we ask ourselves every
day."
Meanwhile,
Sunni-based insurgent groups want to exploit
the tension and ignite a broader war,
Browder says. The groups operate from nearby
Arab villages and often target police
patrols or offices of the two main Kurdish
parties, he says.
Browder's biggest
concern is a large-scale bomb attack on a
civilian Kurdish area, such as a market, he
says.
That likely would
trigger Kurdish leaders to send battalions
of the well-armed Kurdish militia, the
peshmerga ("those who do not fear
death"), into Arab areas of Kirkuk. A
sectarian battle similar to the Shiite vs.
Sunni violence in Baghdad then could erupt,
further complicating efforts to stabilize
the country.
Sunni insurgents have
been hesitant to cross that line, Browder
says. The reason is a mystery, but he says
they might be scared of peshmerga
reprisals.
"The terrorist
organizations know what buttons to push," he
says. "They understand what the
no-penetration line is."
To avoid a bloodbath,
Whitehurst says, one of his duties is also
making sure all sides are working toward
agreement and preventing retaliatory attacks
after the kidnappings, killings and bombings
that continue to plague the city.
Late last month,
after a Kurdish family of four, including
two girls, ages 8 and 18, were killed in
their home, Whitehurst called a meeting with
Abdullah Rahman Fatah, the Kurd who is the
provincial governor, to assure him his
troops were helping with the investigation
and head off any Kurdish retaliation.
The Kurds have been
restrained so far, Whitehurst says. For the
most part, Kurdish leaders understand that
Kirkuk is a very rich prize.
Any large-scale
retaliatory kidnappings and killings, such
as those seen in Baghdad, would turn the
international community against the Kurds
and hinder their ability to claim control of
Kirkuk as part of Kurdistan, Whitehurst
says.
"For us, the worst
thing that can happen is if that restraint
would go away," he says.
Conflicting stakes
in Kirkuk
Every country in the
region has a stake in Kirkuk.
If violence breaks
out, Turkey could intervene militarily to
protect the Turkmen minority, said Mark
Parris, a former U.S. ambassador to Turkey
now at the Brookings Institution.
Turkey also fears
that Kirkuk's oil wealth could put Kurdistan
closer to breaking away from Iraq entirely
and becoming an independent nation.
Turkey has been
battling a Kurdish insurgency within its own
borders for years and worries that its own
Kurds might be tempted to join a sovereign
Kurdistan.
Saudi Arabia, Egypt
and Jordan have urged Iraq's government to
protect the country's Arab Sunnis. For now,
the government in Baghdad seems content to
delay the issue.
Al-Maliki probably
will not set the referendum this year,
despite what the constitution says,
according to Sami Alaskary, a Shiite
lawmaker close to the prime minister.
"In principle, he's
committed to the constitution and to this
referendum," Alaskary says. "But the reality
on the ground is we can't do it in the short
time we have left. It's impossible."
A delay carries its
own risks. Some Kurdish leaders have
threatened to withdraw from the federal
government in Baghdad if the referendum is
not conducted on time. Al-Maliki's coalition
depends on Kurdish support to keep its
majority in parliament and could collapse if
the Kurds leave.
Mahmoud Othman, a
leading Kurdish member of parliament, says
any delay is unacceptable. "We're not
flexible. It has been four years," Othman
says.
In the meantime,
Iraq's government is trying to avoid
violence in Kirkuk by compensating Arabs who
choose to leave the city.
Last month, al-Maliki's
government agreed to pay $15,000 and a plot
of land to each relocated Arab family.
Thousands of families have applied for the
compensation package but none has received
payments, according to the U.S. military.
Some Kurds believe that such efforts will
guarantee their victory in an eventual
referendum — and that Kirkuk finally will be
theirs.
Col. Katab Omer is
the commander of a 600-member anti-terrorism
squad of the Iraqi police trained by U.S.
special forces. His force includes Arabs and
Turkmen, though most of the commanders are
Kurds.
"Look at the cities
inside Kurdistan: They're safe, the streets
are clean, services are good," says Omer, a
smile stretching across his bushy mustache.
"When this city
becomes part of Kurdistan," he says, "it
will improve as well."
Contributing:
Barbara Slavin in Washington
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http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2007-05-14-kirkuk_N.htm
