We are fast approaching the three year anniversary of George Bush standing in front of the “Mission Accomplished” banner and declaring:
Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed.
But in a post-prevailed Iraq, more than 2000 U.S. servicemen and women, along with untold thousands of Iraqi citizens, have died and the country is gripped in an undeclared civil war.
And while the media has been focusing on the struggle to form a new Iraqi government against a backdrop of surging violence, a disturbing exchange during a Defense Department press briefing regarding the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, seems to have flown under the radar.
Col. David R. Gray, the Commander of the 1st Brigade of the 101st Airborne Division was asked:
Q: Colonel, Tom Bowman with National Public Radio. You mentioned reports of Shi’a moving into Kirkuk area. Can you give us a sense of the numbers moving in? You know, are these militias, are these residents? What’s your sense of it?
The Colonel responded:
COL. GRAY: Okay, in terms of numbers of Shi’as, I would tell you we only have a general sense. That general sense comes from reports from the population itself, it comes from observations of the Iraqi army and Iraqi police patrols in the area, and our own patrols. We have seen some movement, as I mentioned, of the Badr Corps setting up additional offices in Kirkuk, and some indication of the Jaysh al-Mahdi coming to Kirkuk. How many the numbers are, I can’t really say. They’re coming in bits and pieces. I don’t think it’s in huge numbers right now. It’s probably in maybe a hundred or so, couple hundreds. It’s something we’re going to monitor. It adds to, of course, a already ethnically diverse population.
Kirkuk is a city that is the oil center in the Kurdish region of Iraq, accounting for nearly one half of all Iraqi oil exports (pre-war). And the fight for the control of Kirkuk, and by extension the oil, may be the flashpoint for all-out civil war in Iraq.
Starting in the mid 1970’s, Saddam Hussein began the “Arabization” of Kirkuk. Although the numbers are in dispute, upwards of 250,000 Sunni Kurds and Turkmen were forced from their homes while Arab tribes from the south were moved in. And now that Hussein is gone, the Kurds are returning to reclaim their homes and businesses.
And now the Badr Corps and the Jaysh al-Mahdi, the militia controlled by Muqtada al-Sadr, are moving into Kirkuk in “bits and pieces”? Is the fight for Kirkuk beginning? Consider this:
Kurdish leaders have inserted more than 10,000 of their militia members into Iraqi army divisions in northern Iraq…
The soldiers said that while they wore Iraqi army uniforms they still considered themselves members of the Peshmerga – the Kurdish militia – and were awaiting orders from Kurdish leaders to break ranks. Many said they wouldn’t hesitate to kill their Iraqi army comrades, especially Arabs, if a fight for an independent Kurdistan erupted.
What will happen when the “bits and pieces” clash with the Kurds of Kirkuk? If the Iraqi Army is called in to maintain the peace, will 10,000 members break ranks and fight against the army?
Could the violence that has rocked Iraq in the wake of the bombing of the Askariya shrine on February 22nd merely be the precursor to what civil war in Iraq will look like?
The Iraqi government and the United States would be wise to remember the words of two soldiers of the Iraq Army. Says one:
“There is no other choice. If Kirkuk does not become part of Kurdistan peacefully we will fight for 100 years to take it.”
Says the other:
“If the Kurds want to separate from Iraq it’s OK…But there can be no conversation about them taking Kirkuk. … If it becomes a matter of fighting, then we will join any force that fights to keep Kirkuk. We will die to keep it.”
When talking of Kirkuk and its oil-riches, there is no middle ground. And if the two sides clash, it might well be that Iraq has finally, irrevocably, turned towards the abyss.
