Kurdish Leaders say US not planning democracy in post-war Iraq

I wonder what Christopher Hitchens, who likes to go on about his 'comrades' the 
Kurds, thinks...

Steven Sherman

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/story.jsp?story=379060

Kurdish leaders enraged by 'undemocratic' American plan to occupy Iraq
By Patrick Cockburn in Arbil, northern Iraq
17 February 2003


The US is abandoning plans to introduce democracy in Iraq after a war to 
overthrow Saddam Hussein, according to Kurdish leaders who recently met 
American officials. 

The Kurds say the decision resulted from pressure from US allies in the Middle 
East who fear a war will lead to radical political change in the region. 

The Kurdish leaders are enraged by an American plan to occupy Iraq but largely 
retain the government in Baghdad. The only changes would be the replacement of 
President Saddam and his lieutenants with senior US military officers. 

It undercuts the argument by George Bush and Tony Blair that war is justified 
by the evil nature of the regime in Baghdad. 

"Conquerors always call themselves liberators," said Sami Abdul-Rahman, deputy 
prime minister of the Kurdish administration, in a reference to Mr Bush's 
speech last week in which he said US troops were going to liberate Iraq. 

Mr Abdul-Rahman said the US had reneged on earlier promises to promote 
democratic change in Iraq. "It is very disappointing," he said. "In every Iraqi 
ministry they are just going to remove one or two officials and replace them 
with American military officers." 

Kurdish officials strongly believe the new US policy is the result of pressure 
from regional powers, notably Saudi Arabia and Turkey. 

The US appears to be quietly abandoning earlier declarations that it would make 
Iraq a model democracy in the Middle East. In Iraq, free elections would lead 
to revolutionary change because although the Shia Muslims and Kurds constitute 
three-quarters of the population, they are excluded from power in Baghdad by 
the Sunni Muslim establishment. 

Kurdish leaders are deeply alarmed by US intentions, which only became clear at 
a meeting in Ankara earlier in the month and from recent public declarations by 
US officials. Hoshyar Zebari, a veteran Kurdish leader, said: "If the US wants 
to impose its own government, regardless of the ethnic and religious 
composition of Iraq, there is going to be a backlash." 

Mr Abdul-Rahman accuses the US of planning cosmetic changes in Iraq. "This is 
to give the government on a platter to the second line of Ba'athists [the 
ruling party]," he said. 

The US appears to be returning to the policy it pursued at the end of the Gulf 
War in 1991. It did seek to get rid of President Saddambut wanted to avoid a 
radical change in Iraq. The US did not support the uprisings of Shia Muslims 
and Kurdsbecause it feared a transformation in Iraqi politics that might have 
destabilised its allies in the Middle East or benefited Iran. 

The two Kurdish parties ­ the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), which rules 
western Kurdistan, and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan ­ are at the heart of 
the Iraqi opposition. Together they rule four million people in an area the 
size of Switzerland that has been outside President Saddam's control since 
1991. 

The change in American policy means marginalising the Iraqi opposition which 
has been seeking to unite. In response to the US decision, the Kurds and their 
allies have accelerated moves to hold a conference of opposition parties in 
Salahudin, the headquarters of the KDP, now scheduled for tomorrow. "We want to 
know if we are partners in regime change or not," Mr Zebari said. 

He spoke scathingly of any attempt by America "to bring in an Iraqi from the 
United States who has not seen his country for years and impose him by armed 
force". 

The destabilising impact of the impending war is already being felt in the 
mountains of northern Iraq. Turkey has demanded that its troops be allowed to 
take over a swath of territory along the border inside Iraq. The ostensible 
reason is to prevent a flood of Kurdish refugees trying to flee into Turkey, 
but the Kurdish parties say they are quite capable of doing this themselves. 
They say the Turkish demand, to which they suspect the US has agreed in return 
for the use of Turkish military facilities, is the first step in a Turkish plan 
to advance into Iraqi Kurdistan. 

The Kurds fear that a US-led war against President Saddam might be the occasion 
for a Turkish effort to end the de facto independence enjoyed by Iraqi Kurds 
for more than a decade. One Kurdish leader said: "Turkey has made up its mind 
that it will intervene in northern Iraq in order to destroy us. 

• Peace activists who want to be "human shields" arrived in Baghdad 
yesterday. The activists, who had 18 Britons among them, left London on 25 
January in three double decker buses. They will deploy at likely bombing 
targets. 

Patrick Cockburn is a visiting fellow at the Centre for Strategic and 
International Studies in Washington and the co-author of 'Saddam Hussein: An 
American Obsession'. 
  18 February 2003 13:15