Sunday, May 5, 2002; Page B03 
IRBIL, Northern Iraq

As the Bush administration weighs the prospects and logistics of war against Iraq, invasion advocates look to Iraqi Kurds in the north as potential allies. But the Kurds themselves view this talk with more apprehension than appetite.

From here in Irbil, the heart of the Kurdish region of Iraq, it's easy to see why. The air is scented by orange blossoms. In the shops, you can buy everything from Turkish yogurt to German vacuum cleaners, designer Italian shoes to frozen chickens from the United States. Work has begun on converting the bullet-ridden former local headquarters of the Kurdistan Democracy Party into a luxury hotel.

Unaffected by the rampant inflation that has plagued the rest of Iraq, the Kurdish currency is a hundred times stronger than the Iraqi dinar. "In Baghdad, they call us Kuwaitis," says one young Kurd who has family in the south. Sami Abdulrahman, whom everyone here refers to as the deputy prime minister of Iraqi Kurdistan, explains, "We Kurds have never had it so good, and we've never had more to lose."

There is surprisingly little evidence here of the traumas suffered by Iraq's Kurds -- the repeated invasions, countless disappearances, chemical attacks and millions of refugees forced to flee across the Turkish and Iranian borders. True, a lot of men carry guns and official buildings are heavily guarded. This is, after all, still part of Iraq; Iraqi Kurdistan is more a state of mind than a state with borders. But under the protection of U.S. and British fighter squadrons since 1991, the northeastern corner of Iraq has transformed itself into a place of peace, relative prosperity and de facto autonomy.

The new vigor of the Kurdistan Regional Parliament is a symbol of this progress. Once, it rubber-stamped directives sent from Baghdad. Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein built an army base opposite the parliament, as a warning to any local politicians with delusions of grandeur. Now, however, the parliament passes laws of its own and the base has been turned into a public park. Political parties, TV stations and newspapers cater to the region's ethnic and religious minorities. 

The thought of risking all this for a new war led by the United States is disquieting. Kurdish leaders remember the catastrophic effects, in the 1970s and 1991, of naive faith in U.S. promises, when the United States encouraged Kurds to rebel and then failed to protect them. "Let's be frank," says Abdulrahman. "The U.S. has let us down badly in the past. We must be sure the same will not happen again." Another senior parliamentary official says, "I think every Kurd would be glad to see Saddam gone." But, he adds, "we must have solid guarantees that our future will not be a carbon copy of our past."

The Kurds also fear that a U.S. attack on Saddam would uproot U.N. Resolution 986, the real seed of the Kurdish spring. Adopted in 1995 to ease the worst effects of the international embargo on Iraq, this oil-for-food program provides money to Iraq in exchange for petroleum exports. The Kurds receive 13 percent of the funds, which account for 60 percent of their $1.5 billion annual economy, according to the speaker of the regional parliament. "For the first time, we have had money to spend on humanitarian purposes, health, education, housing and basic foodstuffs for all," says Jamal Abdulhameed, health minister in Irbil. Seventy percent of villages now have a clean water supply, according to Kurdish government statistics. Cases of cholera and typhoid have all but disappeared. A joint UNICEF-Ministry of Health survey last year showed that cases of infant malnutrition to have dropped from 28 percent in 1994 to 10 percent in 2001. Infant mortality rates are half those in the rest of Iraq.

If war broke out, however, it would interrupt food and oil supplies, which travel to Kurdistan by way of storage places in Mosul and Kirkuk, both under Hussein's control. 

In addition, Kurds worry that a new, U.S.-supported regime installed in Baghdad would end the oil revenue-sharing arrangement. Kurds fear a new Iraqi ruler would be cast in the mold of Saddam, perhaps one of his Sunni ex-generals, Nizar Kharaji or Fawze Shamari, both of whom have defected to the West. "A terrible idea," says Abdulrahman. "The only difference between these men and Saddam is that he has his hands tied behind his back."

There is also criticism for Ahmed Chalabi, leader of the U.S.-financed Iraqi National Congress based in London. "A hotel lobby opposition, with no popular support," snorts Ahmet Sherwari, secretary general of the Irbil Communist Party Committee. "There are two groups in Iraq popular enough to form a government after Saddam, the Shiites and the communists, but the Americans refuse both on ideological grounds."

Senior officials of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, one of the two major Iraqi Kurdish factions, accept that an uprising supported by American airpower could topple Hussein. They point out that in the aftermath of the Persian Gulf War, many Iraqi provinces rose up against the regime.

But how much help could the United States rely on from the Kurds in a new campaign? The Kurds have improved their forces over the last 10 years. With a $16 million share of this year's $110 million budget, defense is the Kurdish government's second priority after education. Gen. Babekir Zebari, commander of forces in the westernmost of the three semi-autonomous Kurdish provinces, presides in a marble-clad, neo-classical pile that local cynics call "the White House." 

Still, there are shortcomings. "Defense budget is a misnomer," says Abdulrahman, "None of our neighbors would ever sell us weapons." Though the Iraqi army is weaker than it was a decade ago, Zebari is not confident his men can stop it. "We have no heavy artillery," he says. "Our rocket-propelled grenades can be effective against tanks at close range, but they are no good at all against Iraqi T-72 [tanks]."

Gerard Chaliand, who studies guerrilla warfare and is the author of several books on the Kurds, agrees. "Without support in the air, the Kurds can do nothing against Saddam's troops in open ground," he says. "Everything will depend on the rapidity of the U.S. attack. If the Iraqi army is pushed onto the defensive, the Kurds could provide very useful reinforcements."

Mountains, ideal territory for the peshmerga or Kurdish guerrillas, cover much of the region. But at least 65 percent of the population lives on the plain abutting the area under Baghdad's control. The three largest cities of the region, Dohuk, Irbil and Sulaymaniyah, are just three to 12 miles from Iraqi front lines. "If the Americans miscalculate at all, the cities will be in Iraqi hands within hours," says Chaliand. "It could be a repeat of 1991." 

And for the Kurds, another chapter of American betrayal.

Nicholas Birch is an Istanbul-based freelance journalist who visited the Kurdish area of Iraq from April 8 until April 19.