Hisham Aldiwan 
The Daily Star - Mar 13, 2002

LONDON: Iraq’s Kurds are unlikely to gain from a US military operation aimed at overthrowing President Saddam Hussein, says a Kurdish leader critical of the two big Kurdish parties that share control of northern Iraq. 

Neither are they likely to play a “real role” in such an endeavor, in the view of Hussein Khader al-Sourchi, London representative of the Association of Kurdish Tribes. 

Discussing the prospect of the US initiating a war aimed at changing the regime in Baghdad, Sourchi said that while the Kurds have no interest in such an offensive, they would also have no say in whether Washington opts to launch one. 

“The Kurds’ priority at present is not war or confronting the Baghdad regime, but to enjoy full rights under a law that treats all as equals in the context of a democratic regime” in Iraq, he told The Daily Star. 

US military action “will not bring any good to the Kurds,” Sourchi remarked. “We are only part of America’s game in the region, nothing more.” 

He indicated that the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) shared that view, suggesting that the KDP’s opposition to war on Iraq might explain what he claimed was a recent attempt to assassinate its leader, Masoud Barzani. 

But Sourchi was fiercely critical of both the KDP and its rival Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), which between them control the three northern provinces of Iraq that have been off-limits to the central government in Baghdad since the end of the 1991 Gulf War. 

He charged that the two parties’ misrule and rivalries had shattered the high expectations that Iraqi Kurds had when the “safe haven” was set up in the north by the US and Britain, and were profiting at the expense of the population. 

Sourchi pointed as evidence to the high rate of emigration from the Kurdish-controlled enclave. He said there was an “on going exodus” of educated and professional people, in particular to Europe, despite the considerable external aid that flows into the area via NGOs. 

The large numbers of people desperate to leave Iraqi Kurdistan reflect both the “lack of confidence in the safe haven” felt by ordinary Kurds, and the mismanagement of the local economy by “the two regional governments.” 

Sourchi charged that the KDP and PUK use the bulk of the “huge income which they generate from smuggling and taxing crossborder trade” for their own purposes as parties, adding that rivalry over such spoils is the main cause of the fighting that has periodically broken out between them over the years. 

Only some 10 percent of the estimated $3 million which the KDP earns per day is spent on funding public services and the activities of the regional government based in Arbil, he claimed, adding that “most of it” is deposited in offshore bank accounts held by party leaders or invested on their behalf abroad. 

“The main objective of most Kurdish party leaders is to accumulate as much wealth as possible, because they know this safe haven is not going to last. They stash these enormous sums to retain as assets which they may one day use to revert to guerrilla warfare against the central government,” he said. 

Sourchi said most Iraqi Kurds were aware that secession is “not an option” for Kurds in any of the four countries between which their homeland has been partitioned, and are convinced that it would be “sufficient” for them to enjoy “adequate national and cultural rights” within Iraq. 

“Our real problem is the Kurdish political parties that are on the ground and the political leaders who were imposed on the Kurdish people.” Although new non-partisan potential leaders have emerged who are critical of the status quo, “the possibility of change remains non-existent.” 

Sourchi dismissed reports that Baghdad is building up its forces on the fringes of the Kurdish enclave as an apparent prelude to retaking it, saying such claims were “propaganda.” 

“The Iraqi leadership can regain control of all the towns and villages in 24 hours. Despite the Kurdish parties’ claims to be prepared for such an eventuality, they cannot on their own stop or resist an offensive by the Iraqi army.” 

But according to Sourchi, Baghdad won’t retake Kurdistan while the US is policing the enclave’s airspace out of Incirlik base in Turkey and preparing to mount an attack on Iraq. “I do not think the Baghdad government has an interest in opening a second front at present,” he said. 

Sourchi said Baghdad had another reason for not reimposing its control over the Kurdish north. “Just as the safe haven serves the interests of the US, it serves the interests of the Iraqi government. It has become a lung for Iraq to breathe through ­ by smuggling goods that are difficult to get via the UN oil-for-food program, mainly through Turkey and Iran. “ 

But “if such a move were to be considered necessary, the Iraqi government will have no problem retaking the north.”