Am I correct in thinking the Northern part of IRAQ run by the Kurds

[Gin]

was not ruled by Saddam? If so, when we hear how well things are going there..saying 2/3 of the country is going well...that should not be part of the equation. I know the Turks and Kurds fight....but who was in charge while Saddam was in power?

[Sal316]

1. Good point.

Since the no-fly zones essentially cut the country into thirds, with 2/3 of the country not in SH's control (in all practicality)... then why should we be excited about those 2/3?

OH... I know... it's spin!

[sistersofmercy]

2. Yes you are correct, N Iraq has been in Kurdish control since no-fly

zone. Iraqi National Congress (Chalabi and his fellow snakes) set up a base camp there. INC have tried a few failed coups, one in 96 literally got thousands of ppl executed. Also, the al-ansem (Spelling) supposedly al qaeda linked terror group operated in N Iraq. We bombed the camp and arrested some of the operatives only to have them say they were anti-saddam. In addition, I think it was in 97 the two kurdish parties began waring with each other, one pleaded with saddam to bail them out and he gladly did so. I could go on and on.

[LoneStarLiberal]

3. You Are Correct

While the no-fly zone kept the Iraqi Air Force and Iraqi Army's helicopters from attacking Kurdish concentrations in the north, Saddam's ground forces did occasionally camp out in northern Iraq for years on end. If memory serves me right after we royally screwed the Kurds and the Iraqi Arab opposition in the mid-1990s the central government still maintained control of the oil hubs of Kirkuk and Mosul in the north but outside of those areas the whole area was pretty much nothing more than local government collected into some loose kind regional government.

But don't forget how factionalized the Kurds in Iraq were...and continue to be. Most Kurdish political parties are aligned along lines of national support...as in a pro-Turkish faction, a pro-Iranian faction, a pro-Iraqi faction, all to go along with those parties which want an independent "Kurdistan."

Your assessment is spot-on. Of course the north is doing better.

[TreasonousBastard]

4. Kurdistan, such as it is...

runs mostly through northern Iraq and western Turkey. The Kurds have had running battles with both Iraq and Turkey over independance, but after Gulf I a semi-autonomous Kurdish zone was set up in Iraq, and Hussein had little ability or interest in sticking his nose in there.

Turkey has, however, been sticking a toe in Iraqi Kurdistan for a while now, and fears greatly that real Kurdish independance in Iraq will encourage its own Kurds to open revolt. That would knock out maybe a quarter to a third of its territory, and that's the part that makes a lot of money with oil pipelines.

[Bandit]

5. It was in the Kurdish controlled areas that terrorist camps were supposedl

found to exist also. If you can believe anything on the tube.

[NNN0LHI]

6. What they never mention is that the 1/3rd of the country...

...that is in total chaos known as the "Sunni Triangle" contains 60% of the Iraqi population.

Don

[sistersofmercy]

7. Very good point!!! Didn't think of it that way!

[Brian Sweat]

8. Any reports that things are going well in the Kurdish controlled

part of Iraq are meaningless. First, we didn't bomb the fuck out of that region. Second, the Kurdish controlled part was doing better than the rest of Iraq before we bombed the fuck out of the rest of Iraq.

The sanctions that all but crippled the non-Kurdish part of Iraq were all but ignored in the Kurdish controlled region. As a result, the economy in the Kurdish controlled region was doing much better than the rest of Iraq. Since we did not bomb the fuck out of the Kurds, it is only natural to expect that they would still be doing well.