Kurdistan Observer

WASHINGTON — Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein has stepped up efforts to persuade Kurdish rebels to remain neutral if the United States attacks his regime, a move that is complicating U.S. planning for a possible invasion, U.S. intelligence officials say.

In the latest sign that he is taking President Bush's threat to oust him seriously, Saddam has used intermediaries in northern Iraq in recent weeks to appeal to the rebels he terrorized for decades.

The Kurds, who are 15%-20% of Iraq's population, seek independence and have cooperated with the United States. But now they are enjoying an unusual degree of autonomy and revenue from Iraqi oil with Saddam's tacit blessing.

Saddam has signaled the Kurds that they will continue to be able to govern themselves, teach their children the Kurdish language, collect taxes on commerce passing through the region and get a share of Iraq's oil revenue only if they do not support U.S. efforts to remove him, two U.S. intelligence officials say.

Since those signals, operatives of the Central Intelligence Agency and Defense Intelligence Agency in northern Iraq have reported that they are having increasing difficulty securing commitments from Kurdish leaders to support U.S. action, the officials say.

The development adds to war planners' doubts that the Kurds would join any effort to overthrow the Saddam regime. Although few expect the Kurds to back Saddam instead, the growing expectation that they would sit out a U.S.-Iraq conflict is one factor driving draft Pentagon plans that call for as many as 300,000 troops for the mission, the officials said.

The Kurds hate Saddam, but they have been burned by past U.S. promises of assistance against Iraqi oppression. The most recent example was in 1996, when Iraqi forces moved north and shattered a CIA covert operation to generate internal opposition to Saddam, then executed scores of Kurds who were helping the spy agency.

Neighboring Turkey, a NATO ally and one possible launching pad for a U.S. assault on Iraq, has demanded and received assurance from Washington that a post-Saddam Iraq would not be broken up into multiple states. The Turks fear that Kurdish independence in Iraq would inflame their own Kurdish minority.

Vincent Cannistraro, a former CIA counterterrorism chief, says that for the Kurds, "there's nothing yet to be gained and a lot to be risked" in backing the United States. "They're being very, very cautious. They have long memories."

Saddam's forces crushed Kurdish bids for independence in 1975, again in the 1980s by killing thousands with poison gas and also in 1991 after the Persian Gulf War. In each case, Kurds accused Washington of ignoring their plight. Since the episode in 1991, the United States and Britain have patrolled the skies of the northern and southern thirds of Iraq to protect minority populations from Saddam's forces.