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October 31st, 2006 - Kurdish
Commander Wants Permanent U.S. Base in Northern Iraq |
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Kurdish
Commander Wants Permanent U.S. Base in Northern Iraq By Elaine M. Grossman WorldPoliticsWatch 31 Oct 2006 The commander of a major
faction of Kurdish troops in Iraq says he would welcome the establishment of
a permanent American military facility in northern Iraq, where Kurds are the
dominant ethnic group. "We highly support
building a U.S. military base in Kurdistan," says Mustafa Said Qadir,
deputy commander of "peshmerga" militia forces in northern Iraq and
a senior member of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) political party.
"We [Kurds] all agree on that and we think it's very important." His comments, offered early
this month via e-mail in response to questions from Inside the Pentagon, came
after Congress moved in late September to ban any such permanent U.S.
facilities in the Persian Gulf nation. The fiscal year 2007 Defense
Appropriations Act, which President Bush signed into law Sept. 29, includes a
provision that prohibits spending "to establish any military
installation or base for the purpose of providing for the permanent
stationing of United States armed forces in Iraq." Critics have called on the
administration to address Iraqi insurgent and population concerns about a
long-term occupation by clearly disavowing any interest in permanent basing. But at a press conference
Oct. 25, Bush would not rule out the possibility. "Any decisions about
permanency in Iraq will be made by the Iraqi government," the president
told reporters. "Remember, when you're talking about bases and troops,
we're dealing with a sovereign government. Now, we entered into an agreement
with the Karzai government [in Afghanistan]. They weren't called permanent
bases, but they were called arrangements that will help this government
understand that there will be a U.S. presence so long as they want them
there. "And at the appropriate
time," Bush continued, "I'm confident we'll be willing to sit down
and discuss, you know, the long-term security of Iraq." Despite White House
protests, there are growing bipartisan calls in Washington to scale back the
U.S. troop presence in Iraq. Some opinion leaders support the establishment
of a geographic partition along ethnic and religious lines, among them: Sen.
Joseph Biden (D-Del.), ranking minority member of the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee; Leslie Gelb, president emeritus of the Council on
Foreign Relations; and Peter Galbraith, a former State Department official. Sectarian violence in Iraq
has risen sharply despite a change in strategy this summer that bolstered
U.S. forces in the Baghdad area. The United States has 141,000 troops in
Iraq. In the past, Bush
administration leaders have said there are no plans to establish permanent
bases in Iraq. But in public statements they have never clearly ruled out the
possibility. Asked about the prospect by
a Marine at a "town hall meeting" in Fallujah last December,
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said, "We have no idea, but at the
moment there are no plans for permanent bases here in this country." In March, Zalmay Khalilzad,
the Bush administration's ambassador to Baghdad, was quoted as saying on
Iraqi television that the United States had "no goal of establishing
permanent bases in Iraq." Though the United States has
turned over dozens of bases to the new Iraqi military, it has also continued
to pour hundreds of millions of dollars into construction at a handful of
installations occupied by U.S. forces, including Balad air base and logistics
center north of Baghdad, al-Asad air base in the western desert, and Tallil
air base in the southeast. The Congressional Research
Service reported last year the spending appears to suggest plans for a
long-term U.S. presence. But a Pentagon spokesman said last spring the bases
are being built for the Iraqis. In his response to
questions, Qadir also said the PUK is working with the Kurdistan Democratic
Party, with whom his group has forged a sometimes uneasy alliance, to
integrate their separate militias. The PUK dominates eastern Kurdistan while
the larger KDP is centered in the west. "We have a plan and
[have] moved towards reuniting the peshmerga forces of Kurdistan, and
establishing a force for protecting the Kurdistan region according to the
Iraqi constitution," Qadir said. "Along with the recent,
ongoing merger of the PUK and KDP ministries in general, this is yet another
sign of a stabilizing and maturing region capable of standing on its own two
legs," says one U.S. Army officer in the region, speaking on condition
of anonymity. But the idea has raised
concerns in Turkey and Iran, where some believe peshmerga integration is a
significant step toward a fully independent Kurdish state, according to
experts. The Turkish military has
long battled the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), a Kurdish militant group,
along the border with Iraq. And Turkey's leaders have expressed serious
concern about a Kurdish nationalist movement that could destabilize its
eastern region. In August, artillery shells fired from Iran hit remote
Kurdish villages, killing at least two civilians and injuring more. The Kurdish general brushed
aside worries that an integrated militia could prove destabilizing to the
region. "Providing the Kurdish
rights is the best guarantee for [stability], because Kurds have been
persecuted for a long time and we never tyrannized anyone," Qadir said.
"We are peaceful and seeking ... democracy and only our rights." Merging the two militias is
"part of the integration of the two [Kurdish party] governments,"
says Henri Barkey, a State Department policy-planning official during the
Clinton administration. But the desire for a permanent U.S. base in Kurdistan
constitutes "hedging" against future violence, he says. "Anyone looking at the
situation in Iraq would say you need to prepare for that eventuality,"
Barkey told ITP in an Oct. 24 interview. "Having an American base is the
best insurance policy they can get against the neighbors doing something
against them, or the Shias or Sunnis going against them." Now chairman of the
international relations department at Lehigh University, Barkey called the
latter possibility "unlikely." But he added, "If you're a
Kurd, you have to worry about it." The thriving Kurdish
community in northern Iraq has been a boon to Turkey, even as its military
maintains a presence on both sides of the Iraqi border to counter PKK
activity, according to regional experts. "Turkey certainly is
reaping the huge economic benefits from the most stable and prosperous - by
far - region in Iraq," says the Army officer in the region. "It
would all be put at risk by [any] significant military action by Turkey against
the Kurdish villages. ... Reasonable minds on both sides of the border see
this, but not everybody is reasonable." The Turkish military
"cares little about the economic ties," he said. "The Kurds have every
right to be independent," says Najmaldin Karim, president of the
Washington Kurdish Institute. "After all, the Kurds are the largest
group in the world not to have an independent state. It is the hope of every
Kurd to have that." A Kurdish state may be in
the cards only if Iraq fractures, he told ITP in a late-August interview. "Circumstances do not
currently permit" an independent Kurdish nation, Karim said. "But
if the circumstances permit, sure, I think it will happen," he said. External link: http://www.worldpoliticswatch.com/article.aspx?id=309# |