Kurds turn against US after losing control over oil-rich land

[Emillereid]

Kurdish community claims it had more autonomy under Saddam


By Patrick Cockburn in Baghdad


21 January 2004



Iraqi Kurds, the one Iraqi community that has broadly supported the American occupation, are expressing growing anger at the failure of the United States and its allies to give them full control of their own affairs and allow the Kurds to expel Arabs placed in Kurdistan by Saddam Hussein.




Massoud Barzani, the leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, told The Independent in an interview that the Kurds had been offered less autonomy "than we had agreed in 1974 with the regime of Saddam Hussein".




The Kurds, the main Iraqi victors of the war last year, want, in effect, to keep the mini-state in northern Iraq they ruled after Saddam withdrew his army in 1991. They also want the US and the Iraqi Governing Council to recognise the Kurdish identity of the oil-rich province of Kirkuk and other districts from which Kurds were forced to flee by the deposed dictator and his predecessors.

<snip>




There are the seeds here for a savage ethnic conflict. The Arabs and Turkomans in Kirkuk are frightened. Many of the Arab settlers have been there for more than a generation and it is not clear where they would go. The last year has seen a number of small-scale but bloody clashes. .....


http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=483202

More rumblings of possible civil strife in Iraq -- of course that's what some of the neo-crazies like Ledeen were hoping for before the war. He wanted Iraq fractured and fragmented and weak!

[mbperrin]

1. Autonomy? Hmmmmmm.....

let's see, we're for that, right? No wait, WE don't need a permission slip....yeah, yeah..

[54anickel]

2. What's this at the end? Direct elections before July 1!

Last night, there were reports that the British and US governments were looking at running direct elections in time for the handover of power to Iraqis by 1 July.

[Aidoneus]

3. duplicate

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=323565&mesg_id=323565

[Lithos]

4. Locking

Dupe, please continue here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=323565&mesg_id=323565