- When it emerged that the Kurds had captured the Iraqi
dictator, the US celebrations evaporated. David Pratt asks whether a secret
political trade-off has been engineered
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- For a story that three weeks ago gripped the world's
imagination, it has now all but dropped off the radar.
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- Peculiar really, for if one thing might have been expected
in the aftermath of Saddam Hussein's capture, it was the endless political
and media mileage that the Bush administration would get out of it.
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- After all, for 249 days Saddam's elusiveness had been
a symbol of America's ineptitude in Iraq, and, at last, with his capture
came the long-awaited chance to return some flak to the Pentagon's critics.
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- It also afforded the opportunity to demonstrate the effectiveness
of America's elite covert and intelligence units such as Task Force 20
and Greyfox.
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- And it was a terrific chance for the perfect photo-op
showing the American soldier, and Time magazine's "Person of the Year",
hauling "High Value Target Number One" out of his filthy spiderhole
in the village of al-Dwar.
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- Then along came that story: the one about the Kurds beating
the US Army in the race to find Saddam first, and details of Operation
Red Dawn suddenly began to evaporate.
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- US Army spokesmen ñ so effusive in the immediate
wake of Saddam's capture ñ no longer seemed willing to comment,
or simply went to ground.
-
- But rumours of the crucial Kurdish role persisted, even
though it now seems their previously euphoric spokesmen have now, similarly,
been afflicted by an inexplicable bout of reticence.
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- It was two weeks ago that the Sunday Herald revealed
how a Kurdish special forces unit belonging to the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan
(PUK) had spearheaded and tracked down Saddam, sealing off the al-Dwar
farmhouse long "before the arrival of the US forces".
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- PUK leader Jalal Talabani had chosen to leak the news
and details of the operation's commander, Qusrut Rasul Ali, to the Iranian
media long before Saddam's capture was reported by the mainstream Western
press or confirmed by the US military.
-
- By the time Western press agencies were running the same
story, the entire emphasis had changed however, and the ousted Iraqi president
had been "captured in a raid by US forces backed by Kurdish fighters".
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- In the intervening few weeks that troublesome Kurdish
story has gone around the globe, picked up by newspapers from The Sydney
Morning Herald to the US Christian Science Monitor, as well as the Kurdish
press.
-
- While Washington and the PUK remain schtum, further confirmation
that the Kurds were way ahead in Saddam's capture continues to leak out.
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- According to one Israeli source who was in the company
of Kurds at a meeting in Athens early on December 14, one of the Kurdish
representatives burst into the conference room in tears and demanded an
immediate halt to the discussions.
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- "Saddam Hussein has been captured," he said,
adding that he had received word from Kurdistan ñ before any television
reports.
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- According to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, the delegate
also confirmed that most of the information leading to the deposed dictator's
arrest had come from the Kurds and ñ as our earlier Sunday Herald
report revealed ñ who had organised their own intelligence network
which had been trying to uncover Saddam's tracks for months.
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- The delegate further claimed that six months earlier
the Kurds had discovered that Saddam's wife was in the Tikrit area. This
intelligence, most likely obtained by Qusrut Rasul Ali and his PUK special
forces unit, was transferred to the Americans. The Kurds, however, are
said to have never received any follow-up from the coalition forces on
this vital tip-off and were furious.
-
- Whatever the full extent of their undoubted involvement
in providing intelligence or actively participating on the ground in Saddam's
capture, the Kurds, and the PUK in particular, would benefit handsomely.
-
- Apart from a trifling $25 million bounty, their status
would have been substantially boosted in Washington, which may in part
explain the recent vociferous Kurdish reassertion of their long-term political
ambitions in the "new Iraq".
-
- For their own part the Kurds have already launched a
political arrangement designed to secure their aspirations with respect
to autonomy, if not nationalist or separatist aspirations.
-
- To show how serious they are, the two main Kurdish groups,
the PUK and the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), have decided to close
ranks and set up a joint Kurdish administration, with jobs being divided
between the two camps. They have made it clear to the Americans that their
leadership has a responsibility to their constituency.
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- Last week Massoud Barzani, leader of the KDP, called
for a revision of the power-transfer agreement signed between the US-led
coalition and Iraq's interim governing council to recognise "Kurdish
rights".
-
- The November 15 agreement calls for the creation of a
national assembly by the end of May 2004 which will put in place a caretaker
government by June, which in turn will draft a new constitution and hold
national elections
-
- "The November 15 accord must be revised and ëKurdish
rights' within an Iraqi federation must be mentioned," Barzani told
a meeting of his supporters.
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- "The Kurds are today in a powerful position but
must continue the struggle to guard their unity," he added.
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- This renewed determination to fulfil their political
objectives is shaking up other ethnic residents in northern Iraq, who fear
at best being marginalised; at worst victimised. Over the last week there
have been increasingly violent clashes between Kurdish and Arab students,
and between Kurds and Turkemens, in the oil rich city of Kirkuk.
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- Such ethnic confrontations point to another dangerous
phase in Iraq's power-brokering. If the Kurds did indeed capture Saddam
first, and a deal was struck about his handover to the US, then it's not
inconceivable that the terms might have included strong political and strategic
advantages that could ultimately determine the emerging power structure
in Iraq.
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- ©2003 newsquest (sunday herald) limited. all rights
reserved
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- http://www.sundayherald.com/39096
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