A serious allegation: Any Comments?

[Nistiman]

Kurdish Officials Sanction Abductions in Kirkuk
U.S. Memo Says Arabs, Turkmens Secretly Sent to the North

By Steve Fainaru and Anthony Shadid
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, June 15, 2005; Page A01

KIRKUK, Iraq -- Police and security units, forces led by Kurdish political parties and backed by the U.S. military, have abducted hundreds of minority Arabs and Turkmens in this intensely volatile city and spirited them to prisons in Kurdish-held northern Iraq, according to U.S. and Iraqi officials, government documents and families of the victims.

Seized off the streets of Kirkuk or in joint U.S.-Iraqi raids, the men have been transferred secretly and in violation of Iraqi law to prisons in the Kurdish cities of Irbil and Sulaymaniyah, sometimes with the knowledge of U.S. forces. The detainees, including merchants, members of tribal families and soldiers, have often remained missing for months; some have been tortured, according to released prisoners and the Kirkuk police chief.


A confidential State Department cable, obtained by The Washington Post and addressed to the White House, Pentagon and U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, said the "extra-judicial detentions" were part of a "concerted and widespread initiative" by Kurdish political parties "to exercise authority in Kirkuk in an increasingly provocative manner."

The abductions have "greatly exacerbated tensions along purely ethnic lines" and endangered U.S. credibility, the nine-page cable, dated June 5, stated. "Turkmen in Kirkuk tell us they perceive a U.S. tolerance for the practice while Arabs in Kirkuk believe Coalition Forces are directly responsible."

The cable said the 116th Brigade Combat Team, which oversees security in Kirkuk, had urged Kurdish officials to end the practice. "I can tell you that the coalition forces absolutely do not condone it," Brig. Gen. Alan Gayhart, the brigade commander, said in an interview.

Kirkuk, a city of almost 1 million, is home to Iraq's most combustible mix of politics and economic power. Kurds, who are just shy of a majority in the city and are growing in number, hope to make Kirkuk and the vast oil reserves beneath it part of an autonomous Kurdistan. Arabs and Turkmens compose most of the rest of the population. They have struck an alliance to curb the ambitions of the Kurds, who have wielded increasing authority in a long-standing collaboration with their U.S. allies.

Some abductions occurred more than a year ago. But according to U.S. officials, Kirkuk police and Arab leaders, the campaign surged after the Jan. 30 elections consolidated the two main Kurdish parties' control over the Kirkuk provincial government. The two parties are the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and the Kurdistan Democratic Party. The U.S. military said it had logged 180 cases; Arab and Turkmen politicians put the number at more than 600 and said many families fear retribution for coming forward.

U.S. and Iraqi officials, along with the State Department cable, said the campaign was being orchestrated and carried out by the Kurdish intelligence agency, known as Asayesh, and the Kurdish-led Emergency Services Unit, a 500-member anti-terrorism squad within the Kirkuk police force. Both are closely allied with the U.S. military. The intelligence agency is made up of Kurds, and the emergency unit is composed of a mixture of Kurds, Arabs and Turkmens.

The cable indicated that the problem extended to Mosul, Iraq's third-largest city and the main city in the north, and regions near the Kurdish-controlled border with Turkey.

The transfers occurred "without authority of local courts or the knowledge of Ministries of Interior or Defense in Baghdad," the State Department cable stated. U.S. military officials said judges they consulted in Kirkuk declared the practice illegal under Iraqi law.

Early on, the campaign targeted former Baath Party officials and suspected insurgents, but it has since broadened. Among those seized and secretly transferred north were car merchants, businessmen, members of tribal families, Arab soldiers and, in one case, an 87-year-old farmer with diabetes. A former fighter pilot said his interrogation in Irbil focused in part on whether he participated in the chemical weapons attack on the Kurdish city of Halabja in March 1988 in which an estimated 5,000 people died.

"I think it's about revenge," said the man, who identified himself as Abu Abdullah Jabbouri and was released last week from the prison in Irbil.

For the rest of the article visit:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 01828.html

[Nistiman]

I hope this is not going to be the next Abu gharib fiasco. That would be horrible.

The fact that this is being released during Barzani's election as President makes me suspicious that this is being used to undermine the developments made by the Kurds.

I have little sympathy for the Arabs and Turcomens of Kerkuk. For years the law of the land was that might makes right. No Turcomen or Arab complained when the law was in their favour. So, I am finding it very difficult to feel sorry for them. They should just suck it up.

I look at this from a Machiavellian perspective. Machiavelli wrote that the foundation of justice is injustice. In other words, in order to bring about a just regime sometimes injustice needs to occur. The foundation of states is rarely a pretty picture. I don't think the Kurds should be held to any different standard than all the other nation states previously formed. (Obviously, the above statement is not an unqualified endorsement of violence).

However, America is there and their image is important. I would not like their image to be blemished because of some wrongdoing by the Kurds.

[kassem]

w

[Vladimir]

They killed no one yet. I am not going to post this anywhere it's probably propaganda.

Really the Arabs do way more bad things then the Kurds could ever accomplish, off course this doesn't mean Kurds don't abuse human rights.

[Diri]

You are right Welatêmîr - Arabs, Persian, and especially Turks can not be outdone in ways of crime... But Kurds have also done their share of shit... But the difference is that the times Kurds did shit - it was for either Arab, Persian and especially for Turks

[arcan_dohuk]

the people being arrested deserve it. its not if kurds stop they will suddely gain arab love and support. kirkuk is not their home. they should not have been there in the first place.

[Diri]

Kurdistan in Iraq was MUCH larger for about 70 years ago - EVEN TIKRIT WAS KURDISTAN...

Salaheddin was from Tikrit... The Arabs/Persian/Turks who hate Kurds have just deserved their pain... let them be punished by God for their oppression and unjust abuse of Kurdistan!

[Emmunah]

I read the whole article. It appears the Kurdish intelligence agency, comprised of Kurds is working in concert with the emergency units which are composed of Kurds, Turkomen and Arabs. It seems we are talking about 200 people. Read the whole article, and it does not look like more than a dozen are "the wrong guy". I agree that this kind of thing doesn't help with relationships, but there is the possibility that these are really guilty people, people who participated in Anfal, and/or insurgents.

[dyaoko]

where was this mother fucker washington post , when they killed handreds of thousands of the kurds ?

and now they question the Kurds for kicking some terrorists?
I am sure if they been captured or something, they done something...

and if if if , they have dome something....it is not compareable to what they did to us .... why mother fucker washington post just covers that ?

and you know ,vladimri says , washington post already published lie news.
like they published "Barzani was wounded" that news was just in Turkish and Arabic sources and it was lie...


for sure a Turk has sponsored this mother fucekrs...
one of the reasons that I hate Capital systems and I support Left systems is that...you can sponsor somewhere and fuck everybody in the ass ...

if you have money you really can do what you want...
they sell a nation by money....FUCK captial systems.

[Diri]

IT's not about capitalist or socialist - ITS ABOUT TURKS PERSIAN AND ARAB... THEY HAVE A COUNTRY - WE DON*T!

WE SHOUDL START A KURDISH EFTA! BOMB THOSE DAMN SHIT HEADS!

****Deleted****
(YES AND BE MORAL AND NOT HURT ANYBODY)

[kassem]

w

[dyaoko]

Kassem is so right,
I liked Kassem's reply , but washington pos lied then must kick its ass
washington post already lied about kurds...

but if it is true, then we must send those who did the crime to trial...

even americans do mistake, like abu ghurayb...but the punished those who did it .

and these mistakes are noraml when you are in war on terrorist...sometimes you capture innoncent ppl

[doopaman]

For years the law of the land was that might makes right. No Turcomen or Arab complained when the law was in their favour. So, I am finding it very difficult to feel sorry for them. They should just suck it up.

I look at this from a Machiavellian perspective. Machiavelli wrote that the foundation of justice is injustice. In other words, in order to bring about a just regime sometimes injustice needs to occur. The foundation of states is rarely a pretty picture. I don't think the Kurds should be held to any different standard than all the other nation states previously formed. (Obviously, the above statement is not an unqualified endorsement of violence).

However, America is there and their image is important. I would not like their image to be blemished because of some wrongdoing by the Kurds.

Your right the more rights you wont the more opposition your going have.no thing comes for FREE.the BRITS promise the jews a home land but when the going got tugh they betrayed them.So without self-determination and loodshed your never going be intependent.

[Emmunah]

Freedom of the press is very important okay! Every opinion gets heard, and some facts check out.

There is nothing more infuriating than being accused of harming the people who tried to commit genocide against you. Every European article I read critical of Israel, my first instinct is to scream "What Nerve you holocaust creating, murderers that killed 6 million of my people. Can't you wait until the concentration camp survivors are in their grave before you start harping on Jews or on Israel!" I say the very same thing when I hear crap like this about Kurds and what they may, or may NOT have done, with a couple dozen innocent people and a couple hundred terrorists. It makes my blood furious!!

But you have to look at this from a western perpective. No one is going to change their minds about Kurds based on one article in one paper. the Brits and the Americans, at the very least, are so used to this sort of thing and they KNOW what the newspaper's bias is I promise you they do. Westerners hear 100's of different opinions and somehow they manage to stay sane....you could probably search the Washington Post and find favorable articles about Kurds too. Their agenda is "against the war" and they print stuff like this all the time. When the worst criticism of your own government is printed in your biggest newspapers...that's when you know you are free....however sick it may sound...it's true.

[cheryl]

Nistiman, i don't think america's image will be tarnished because of one article. america has been too favorable to arabs for far too long. the state department is notoriously arabist and there have been incidents since liberation that show this favoritism being carried out in areas that had been arabized. last year around this time, kurds, with approval of their local authorities, began conducting their own reverse arabization and i believe that maxmur, which was one time 80% arabized has been reversed so that it is now 80% kurd as it used to be.

there has been a bunch of activity in kerkuk in recent days. the arab iraqi interior minister has called for the dismissal of 2400 kurdish security forces in kerkuk as kurds arrested a ring of al-qaeda linked terrorists in kerkuk (i'm betting that these were ansarîs, and may have been arrested as a result of the arrests of those ansarîs involved with the may 4 hewlêr bombing). a woman kurdish rights activist was kidnapped the other day, the usual suspects are braying about how no "iraqis" (i.e. arabs) can be removed from kerkuk because kerkuk is a miniature "iraq."

then, as you mention, there is the swearing in of massud barzanî as the kurdistan president. i'm sure the ansarî and all the usual iraqi arab suspects don't like that too much.

then we have known turkish instigation of trouble in kerkuk, which started almost immediately after the war ended and they continually bray their concerns about the city, so i will include them in the list of usual suspects too. they would love to see too much trouble in kerkuk.

on top of it all, we have the most dirty of all the usual suspects, the us state department clearly involved in a disinformation campaign. "A confidential State Department cable. . . said the "extra-judicial detentions" were part of a "concerted and widespread initiative" by Kurdish political parties "to exercise authority in Kirkuk in an increasingly provocative manner."

where does the state department get its information? from the cia, and the two have enjoyed a symbiotic relationship for many decades. i have suspected the cia of furnishing the wrong information, probably obtained from their arab lackeys, that led to the attack by the us on salahuddin university in hewlêr on 5 january, 2005. there was a public apology for this attack, but no american source has ever offered a reason for the attack. . . hence my belief that it was a typical cia-inspired operation, and means that the state department knew about it.

i would add that it has been in an extremely provocative manner that all the usual suspects have continued to support the arabization of kerkuk instead of justly and quickly working to settle the rightful claims of evicted kurds regarding their homes and properties. instead, all they do is bray about "injustices" allegedly done to those who continue to enjoy their ill-gotten gains. meanwhile, kerkukî kurds sit in squalid camps outside kerkuk waiting for what is rightfully theirs.