Kurdish ploy brought early end to looting and violence

The Times ^ | April 12, 2003 | Anthony Loyd

[MadIvan]

I disagree with one aspect of this - I doubt sincerely that Rumsfeld and President Bush were "duped" - nothing is happening that they did not authorise. Still, clever of the Kurds, very clever indeed.

Regards, Ivan

[MadIvan]

Bump!

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[goldstategop]

Yes.... and the Kurds are now players in Iraq by virtue of sitting on those oil fields nearby.

[spokeshave]

Let them run the rest of the country

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Good for the Kurds!

OFFICIAL BUMP(TOPIC)LIST

[Argus]

You beat me to it.

The Kurds have shown themselves to be more politically mature and trustworthy than anybody else in the Mideast, including our state "allies".

[giotto]

Fortune favors the one with a plan. But you're right--Bush and Rummy have been planning, too, for a long time. Something tells me we've seen only a small part of what they hope to accomplish.

[spokeshave]

The start of a major re-alignment....hold onto your seats folks....this only happens once a lifetime.....courtesy of the Red White and Blue

[Trailerpark Badass]

More mature than the Turks, apparently.

[Starstruck]

I think the U.S. allowed that turkey to be basted just enough to get its attention.

[Turk2]

puke puke puke

[ambrose]

Turkey knifing us in the back... best thing that ever happened... saved billions in cash, and we didn't have to sell out our Kurdish friends either...

[Trailerpark Badass]

“As I fell a crowd of Kurdish men swarmed around me, most with guns,” he recalled. “But they didn’t beat me. Instead they slapped and insulted the man who had shot me.

“Two of them then took me in a car to the hospital with my friends. They gave me new clothes and were very good to us.”

A striking contrast to the normal behavior for the region. Maybe there is some hope.

[Trailerpark Badass]

puke puke puke

Interesting how the Turks started whining when Kurds went into Kirkuk, bitching about the US not stopping them.

Maybe not letting us in through the north wasn't such a great idea after all.

[ambrose]

Nice to see that everyone who attempted to f' with us prior tot he war is now getting their just deserts...

[Mr.Clark]

Saw on French TV that the Kurdish areas are very well run, with little looting or disturbance. They even had police officials from the north moving in, taking charge. Here's a side note, where do you think all those weapons are going that the Iraqi 5th Corps dropped? I think the Kurdish arsenal just saw a dramatic power upgrade...

[WOSG]

If I were Bush, I'd be secretly pleased how that worked out. The kurds are our friends, after all.
It's good to have smart and sensible people on your side.

[Trailerpark Badass]

Yep, looks like the Turks get to choke on their own cleverness. I bet the Kurds are loving it.

[xm177e2]

“We made a plan for the taking of Kirkuk over two months ago,” said Colonel Khatab Omar, head of a 400 PUK police unit. “We knew we had to step in quickly behind the Iraqi Army or else the situation would degenerate and we would lose the city infrastructure to looters. The courts should be back up and running here in three days. By next week the situation should have returned to normal.”

Colonel Khatab has good reason to sound smug. In contrast to other urban areas in Iraq, which have collapsed into anarchy, Kirkuk yesterday shone as a solitary example of fast postwar recovery. Though a few incidents of arson and looting continued and shops have yet to open, the hospitals functioned, electricity and water supplies were intact and traffic police controlled the roads.

His political masters have even greater reason for self-congratulation. In a takeover worthy of a Hollywood script, the PUK duped the Americans, played off the Turks and walked over the Iraqis.

And the situation in Kirkuk was supposed to be the biggest disaster waiting to happen--instead, it's calmer than Basra or Baghdad! The PUK are very good friends of the US. I don't think it's accidental that we are using their troops here and not the KDP's.