Crisis in Kirkuk: The Ethnopolitics of Conflict and Compromise 9780812206043

Table of contents :
Contents
Abbreviations
Introduction
Part I. Kirkuk and Its Environs
Chapter 1. Kirkuk before Iraq
Chapter 2. Kirkuk in the Twentieth Century
Part II. Three Ethnopolitical Perspectives
Chapter 3. The Post-2003 Iraqi Context
Chapter 4. The Turkmen Perspective The Demise of a Formerly Dominant Community
Chapter 5. The Kurdish Perspective Gaining ‘‘Jerusalem’’
Chapter 6. The Arab Perspective Applying the Old Rules
Part III. The Postwar Struggle for Kirkuk
Chapter 7. The Kurds Ascendant
Chapter 8. The Kurds Triumphant
Chapter 9. The Kurds Denied
Part IV. The Future of Kirkuk Dimensions of Compromise
Chapter 10. The Struggle for Kirkuk: Problems of Process
Chapter 11. The Struggle for Kirkuk Problems of Final Status
Chapter 12. The Struggle for Kirkuk Future Governance
Conclusion
Notes
People Interviewed
Index
Acknowledgments

Citation preview

Crisis in Kirkuk

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National and Ethnic Conflict in the 21st Century Brendan O’Leary, Series Editor

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Crisis in Kirkuk The Ethnopolitics of Conflict and Compromise Liam Anderson and Gareth Stansfield

University of Pennsylvania Press Philadelphia

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Copyright 䉷 2009 University of Pennsylvania Press All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations used for purposes of review or scholarly citation, none of this book may be reproduced in any form by any means without written permission from the publisher. Published by University of Pennsylvania Press Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-4112 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper 10

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Anderson, Liam D. Crisis in Kirkuk : the ethnopolitics of conflict and compromise / Liam Anderson and Gareth Stansfield. p. cm. — (National and ethnic conflict in the 21st century) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-8122-4176-1 (alk. paper) 1. Karkuk (Iraq)—Ethnic relations—Political aspects. 2. Karkuk (Iraq)—Politics and government—21st century. 3. Ethnic conflict—Iraq—Karkuk—History—21st century. 4. Compromise formation—Iraq—Karkuk—History—21st century. 5. Turkmen—Iraq— Karkuk—Social conditions—21st century. 6. Kurds—Iraq—Karkuk—Social conditions —21st century. 7. Arabs—Iraq—Karkuk—Social conditions—21st century. 8. Iraq War, 2003—Social aspects—Iraq—Karkuk. 9. Iraq War, 2003—Political aspects—Iraq— Karkuk. 10. Karkuk (Iraq)—History. I. Stansfield, Gareth R. V. II. Title. DS79.9.K37A53 2009 957.7044⬘31—dc22 2009001014

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Contents

List of Abbreviations vii Introduction 1 PA R T I

KIRKUK AND ITS ENVIRONS

1

Kirkuk before Iraq 13

2

Kirkuk in the Twentieth Century

PA R T I I

24

THREE ETHNOPOLITICAL PERSPECTIVES

3

The Post-2003 Iraqi Context 51

4

The Turkmen Perspective: The Demise of a Formerly Dominant Community 56

5

The Kurdish Perspective: Gaining ‘‘Jerusalem’’ 71

6

The Arab Perspective: Applying the Old Rules 79

PA R T I I I T H E P O S T W A R S T R U G G L E F O R K I R K U K

7

The Kurds Ascendant 91

8

The Kurds Triumphant 113

9

The Kurds Denied 139

PA R T I V

THE FUTURE OF KIRKUK: DIMENSIONS OF COMPROMISE

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The Struggle for Kirkuk: Problems of Process 167

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Contents

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The Struggle for Kirkuk: Problems of Final Status 185

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The Struggle for Kirkuk: Future Governance 204 Conclusion 234 Notes 245 List of People Interviewed 283 Index 285 Acknowledgments 297

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Abbreviations

ACC ADM AKP AMS APOC bbl/d CIA CPA DPAK DTP EIA EPSA EU FIT HEC HRW IAF ICG ICP IDP IECI IGC IHT IIG INDF ING INL IPC IPCC IRA ISCI ITC

Arab Consultative Council Assyrian Democratic Movement Justice and Development Party (Turkey) Association of Muslim Scholars Anglo-Persian Oil Company barrels per day Central Intelligence Agency Coalition Provisional Authority Democratic Patriotic Alliance of Kurdistan Democratic Socialist Party (Turkey) Energy Information Administration Exploration and Production Sharing Agreement European Union Front of Iraqi Turkmens Higher Election Commission Human Rights Watch Iraqi Accord Front International Crisis Group Iraqi Communist Party internally displaced persons Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq Iraqi Governing Council International Herald Tribune Iraqi Interim Government Iraqi National Dialogue Front Iraqi National Gathering Iraqi National List Iraqi Petroleum Company Iraq Property Claims Commission Iraqi Republican Assembly Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, formally SCIRI Islamic and Turkmen Coalition

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Abbreviations

ITF ITG IUIT KA KBL KCP KDP KEC KIU KPCC KRG MENA MGK MHP MP NA NATO NOC NRL NUP PC PKK PR PRT PUK RCC SCIRI SOFA TAL TNA TPC TRM UIA UNSCR

Iraqi Turkmen Front Iraqi Transitional Government Islamic Union of Iraqi Turkmen Kurdistan Alliance Kirkuk Brotherhood List Kurdistan Communist Party Kurdistan Democratic Party Kirkuk Election Commission Kurdistan Islamic Union Kirkuk Property Claims Commission Kurdistan Regional Government Middle East News Agency National Security Council (Turkey) National Action Party (Turkey) member of Parliament (Iraqi National Assembly) National Assembly North Atlantic Treaty Organization Northern Oil Company National Rafidain List National Understanding Project Presidency Council of Iraq Parti Karkaren Kurdistan (Kurdistan Workers’ Party) proportional representation Provincial Reconstruction Team Patriotic Union of Kurdistan Revolution’s/Revolutionary Command Council Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (later renamed ISCI) Status of Forces Agreement Transitional Administrative Law of Iraq Turkmen National Association Turkish Petroleum Company Turkmen Reform Movement United Iraqi Alliance UN Security Council Resolution

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Map 1. Iraq, 2003. Major geographical features, most populous cities, and governorate boundaries are indicated. Adapted from Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) map of Iraq available at www.cia.gov.

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Map 2. Oil infrastructure as of 2003. Indicated are the locations of supergiant fields and major related infrastructure. Adapted from CIA map available at www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/middle_east_and_asia/iraq_oil_2003.jpg.

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Map 3. Kurdistan Region of 2003 and disputed territories. Shown are oil deposits of northern Iraq, the current borders of Kurdish-controlled territory, and the ‘‘disputed’’ territory claimed as part of Iraqi Kurdistan by the KRG. Adapted by the authors from a map of northern Iraq contained in the Washington Institute for Near East Policy report ‘‘The Future of the Iraqi Kurds,’’ ed. Soner Cagaptay, available at www.washingtoninstitute.org/ templateC04.php?CID⳱296.

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Introduction

Iraq has witnessed many dates of significance in recent years. Following the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the subsequent overthrow of the Ba’th regime, events in Iraq have dominated the attention of the world’s media, and rarely a day has passed that did not experience some momentous or bloody occurrence. Compared with many previous months, however, July 2008 was quiet. Certainly, political arguments continued to rage in Baghdad among different political factions, and the security situation, while considerably better than in previous years, still remained a cause for concern. Controversial issues remained unresolved, and actions taken by the Iraqi government continued to gain as many, if not more, detractors than supporters. Such actions included the ongoing security push against rogue Sunni and Shi’i elements (namely those Sunni tribes capable of challenging the government, and the Shi’i jaish al-Mahdi militia of Muqtada al-Sadr); the tense negotiations with the US government over a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) and a wider Strategic Agreement, as well as the grueling political struggle between the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and the Iraqi government’s Ministry of Oil over the interpretation of the constitution’s provisions for the management of Iraq’s oil reserves also served to divide opinion within the government and across the country at large.1 However, compared to the rest of the period since 2003, July 2008 did not grip the attention of the world’s media. Perhaps it should have. While there were some indications of a degree of normalcy returning to Iraq following the surge of US forces over preceding months, combined with a degree of optimism in the media in general that Iraq had, at last, turned a corner, the unresolved question concerning the future of the city and province of Kirkuk took on new importance in July 2008. As a city divided among different ethnic groups—Kurds, Turkmens, and Arabs (with a smaller Christian community)—and with groups clinging to mutually incompatible visions of

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what Kirkuk’s future should be, Kirkuk had long been considered an ethnic powder keg waiting to explode. Yet finding a resolution to the complex problem of Kirkuk’s future status has proven elusive, and by July 2008 time had effectively run out. In the ‘‘new Iraq’’ the Kurds have become an important force in the politics of the state. They actively participated in the formation of the Iraqi Governing Council (IGC), hastily scrabbled together following Saddam’s removal, and were then leading members of the Iraqi Transitional Government (ITG) and eventually the first sovereign government formed after the elections of December 2005. In the December elections and, more importantly, the preceding referendum that ratified the draft constitution, the Kurds had shown that they not only possessed military power (their forces were, relatively speaking, far more capable than those of other militias and even the Iraqi army) but also enjoyed the popular support of an increasingly nationalist Kurdish populace. For the Kurds, certain issues had to be resolved in the new Iraq, and the future of Kirkuk was at the forefront of these. Yet allowing Kirkuk to join with the Kurdistan Region was not straightforward. Kirkuk is important not just to the Kurdish community. It is home to a sizable number of Turkmens who relate their presence to the status they enjoyed during the time of the Ottoman Empire. The Arab community too views its presence there as legitimate and proof that Kirkuk, far from being Kurdish or Turkmen, is in fact nothing less than Iraqi. As Kirkuk was the center of Iraq’s northern oil industry, sitting atop one of the country’s supergiant oil fields, preserving Kirkuk’s identity as an Iraqi city was a key element of state policy for all regimes in modern Iraq, and this discourse remains strong even in the post-2003 setting. Even more important than the demographic issue is the powerful symbolism of Kirkuk. Clearly, Kirkuk is important for the Kurds; it is the city they had never held and over which they have fought with the Iraqi government for the best part of fifty years. Yet, Kirkuk also holds significance for Turkmens as a residual symbol of their dominance and ‘‘greatness’’ under the Ottomans, and for Arabs, it is seen as the epitome of a multicultural Iraq. In essence, Kirkuk is evidence of Iraq’s ability to overcome communal identities and to embrace an all-encompassing notion of ‘‘Iraqiness.’’ Viewed this way, ‘‘losing’’ Kirkuk to Kurdistan would be recognition of the failure of the Iraqi national project and an acknowledgment not only of the distinctiveness of the Kurds but also of their newfound ability to project power in the post-Saddam environment. With the decision on Kirkuk’s future postponed for as long as possible, Article 140 of the constitution of 2005 required a referendum on Kirkuk’s future status to be held by the end of 2007. Following months

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of studied inaction leading up to this date, a six-month extension emerged following an intervention by the United Nations special representative of the secretary general, Staffan de Mistura.2 For Kurdish leaders, the extension exposed them to vociferous criticism from their grassroots supporters and a feisty Kurdish media. After riding a wave of popular support by promising to restore Kirkuk to Kurdistan, they now looked weak and ineffectual. From this point on, the Kurdish leadership had little choice but to move more aggressively in negotiations with Baghdad. Those who opposed Kurdish ambitions realized that the facts on the ground very much favored the Kurds. Recognizing that there was little prospect of reversing the Kurds’ increasing numerical dominance in Kirkuk, they instead sought to constrain the Kurds by obstructing, and ultimately eliminating, the possibility of a referendum. The nonKurdish blocs in the Iraqi parliament referred Article 140 to the constitutional court to seek a ruling on whether an article not implemented by an agreed date indeed remained valid.3 With the six-month extension set to expire in June 2008, the verbal exchanges between Baghdad and the Kurdish region’s capital Erbil intensified, with the Kurds believing that Baghdad was playing for time, and Baghdad chastening the Kurds for attempting to impose what was seen as a fait accompli on Kirkuk and its multiethnic population. As Kirkuk’s future was intrinsically tied to other significant issues that divided Erbil (the Kurdistan Region’s capital) and Baghdad—namely, over the draft oil law (and specifically Kurdistan’s right to sign Exploration and Production Sharing Agreements [EPSAs] independently of Baghdad) and the identification of what had become known as the ‘‘disputed internal boundary’’ between the Kurdistan Region and the rest of Iraq— the status of Kirkuk rapidly assumed a position of unparalleled prominence in the politics of Iraq. The summer months of 2008 saw this tension reach a breaking point. Following the rejection by all parties (Kurds, Arabs, and Turkmens) in June of a UN strategy aimed at resolving the status of less contentious territories contested by the KRG and the Iraqi government,4 the Arab blocs in parliament met in secret on 22 July to pass a provincial elections bill that included a specific proposal regarding Kirkuk. While the bill specified electoral procedures for the rest of Iraq, Kirkuk was in effect removed from the democratic process by Article 24 of the bill, which required power in Kirkuk to be shared equally among the major ethnic communities. The bill was passed by 127 of 142 members of parliament (MPs)—marginally a quorum but without any Kurdish representation present.5 With parliamentary Speaker Mahmoud Mashadani organizing a secret ballot to pass the bill (in contravention of parliamentary procedure), it was straightforward for President Jalal Talabani—one of the two

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principal Kurdish leaders—to use his veto power and block the progression of the bill into law.6 The situation was not resolved before parliament went into its summer recess, leaving no agreement on the provincial elections law and no agreement on the future status of Kirkuk. This incident seriously poisoned the political atmosphere. For the Kurds, the actions of Mashadani and the parliamentarians who voted in the secret ballot did little to convince them that they were being treated as full and equal partners in the governing of the country. Indeed, the KRG ominously noted that ‘‘[this action] raises much doubt on previous coalitions and political agreements which have been formed between many parties and the political leadership in Kurdistan.’’7 Similarly, Arab and Turkmen parliamentarians were quick to accuse the Kurdish leadership, especially President Talabani, of working not in the interests of Iraq but in the furtherance of parochial (Kurdish) aims. In effect, the standoff over Kirkuk not only had brought Iraqi political life to a grinding halt but also had begun to unravel the fragile political consensus that underpinned it. It is no exaggeration to assert that the future of Iraq hinges on finding a resolution to the problem of Kirkuk’s status in a way that is mutually tolerable to all parties. Any attempt by the Kurds to impose a solution by forcibly annexing Kirkuk to the Kurdistan Region risks plunging northern Iraq into an indefinite period of violent ethnic upheaval; but equally, any effort to force an unacceptable solution on the Kurds will inevitably produce a similar outcome. The obvious solution is some form of compromise that, by definition, gives all interested parties something but gives no party everything. If the issue of Kirkuk is to be resolved peacefully, then compromise is inevitable. Most would also view compromise as normatively desirable. At its core, democracy involves the peaceful resolution of contentious political debates through a willingness to cut deals and compromise. Even in so-called winner-take-all majoritarian political systems, norms of compromise and consensus are the lifeblood of democratic decision making. Compromise is, thus, both pragmatically and normatively desirable, and once this is clearly understood, then the terms of debate acquire immediate clarity. Indeed, the purpose of this book is not to advocate on behalf of one or another particular ethnic group or to offer one specific solution to the Kirkuk problem. The purpose is to clarify the terms of debate. Most of the ‘‘solutions’’ proposed by Western observers and by the involved parties themselves are neither viable nor desirable because they are not compromises.8 Further, they are disingenuous ‘‘solutions’’ because, while masquerading as compromises, their implementation will inevitably require the application of violence by one side on the other. On both

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sides of the Kirkuk debate, there may be those who welcome the prospect of a violent solution, but if Iraq is to have any future as a stable and coherent territorial entity, then the future status of Kirkuk has to be resolved in a peaceful manner, and this requires compromise.

Structure of the Book Part I of the book deals with Kirkuk’s pre-2003 history. For the sake of analytical convenience, we identify two discrete periods in Kirkuk’s historical development. The first of these begins with Kirkuk’s founding and early existence as a town or city located in the borderlands of empires, and it ends in 1918 with the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in World War I. This is, of course, a wide span of history rich in social and cultural complexity, although our treatment of the period is unfortunately but necessarily brief. The intent is to identify, however superficially, the origins of the different peoples of modern Kirkuk and how they perceive their own history and, importantly, those of their neighbors. The fact that Kirkuk, especially during the later parts of this first period (that is, from the seventeenth century on), was by all accounts a peaceful, multiethnic city no more troubled in terms of its politics or social relations than others in the region serves as a useful point of comparison for what then develops in the twentieth century. We then progress to consider Kirkuk’s traumatic twentieth-century history, charting the imperial machinations that saw the Mosul vilayet (the province in which Kirkuk lay) joined to the vilayets of Baghdad and Basra to form the modern state of Iraq, the discovery of exploitable reserves of oil, and how these reserves altered the outlook of the British and catalyzed the new Iraqi state’s drive to homogenize (Arabize) Iraq’s population in regions of strategic value. Dynamics are intertwined, making it problematic to take any particular development, such as interethnic hostility, in isolation from other events or conditions, such as the presence of oil. Yet it was in the twentieth century that ethnic identities crystallized and assumed political and social salience through a combination of deliberate state policies, dormant socioeconomic circumstances, and constructed ancient myths. Part II shifts to an examination of Kirkuk’s history from the perspective of each of its three principal communities—Arabs, Kurds, and Turkmens. The intent here is to highlight how the same shared history has come to be interpreted in radically different ways by the major communities. The so-called ‘‘massacre’’ of 1959, for example, forms the centerpiece of a distinctively Turkmen narrative of Kirkuk’s recent history and provides part of the explanation for why most Turkmen in Kirkuk strongly oppose Kurdish control. For the Kurds, meanwhile, the ruthless

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Arabization policy conducted during the years of the Ba’th regime is the defining characteristic of Kirkuk’s recent history. In turn, this helps explain why reversing the effects of this policy, and, as the Kurds see it, restoring Kirkuk to its rightful place at the heart of the Kurdistan Region, has a compelling emotional and symbolic significance that transcends material concerns about control over Kirkuk’s oil reserves. These mutually incompatible (and often antagonistic) narratives illustrate just how difficult it is to furnish a definitively objective history of Kirkuk. They also shed light on why the three communities have struggled to find common ground on even the most basic of empirical reference points, such as population numbers. At heart, the struggle for Kirkuk is a battle of ‘‘national’’ myths and narratives about identity and ownership that retain their potency even in the face of overwhelming empirical evidence to the contrary. It is precisely this struggle to establish ‘‘truths’’ that makes the study of Kirkuk both frustratingly complex and endlessly fascinating. Absent from the analysis is any detailed discussion of the Christian perspective. Often viewed as the ‘‘fourth’’ community in Kirkuk, the Chaldo-Assyrian Christian population has, tragically, dwindled to the point of political irrelevance both in Kirkuk and throughout most of northern Iraq. This absence is not intended to imply that the Christian perspective is somehow less ‘‘worthy’’ than those of other groups— indeed, of all groups, Christians have comfortably the strongest claim to being Kirkuk’s original inhabitants. Rather, it reflects the naked political reality that Christian numbers are now so low as to be irrelevant to any determination of Kirkuk’s future status. The perspectives presented in Part II necessarily simplify a complex reality. This we fully acknowledge. None of Kirkuk’s major ethnicities speaks with a single voice, and to refer to the ‘‘Kurdish view’’ or the ‘‘Arab perspective’’ implies a degree of intragroup homogeneity that is often not present. Where relevant, significant intragroup diversity is highlighted, but mostly our references to group perspectives are driven considerations of literary convenience rather than a deliberate intent to reify ethnicity. Part III presents a detailed analysis of post-2003 political developments in Kirkuk and, more broadly, throughout Iraq. Predictably, the analysis reinforces the impression that Kirkuk is an issue of staggering complexity that has sucked in actors across multiple levels of analysis— local, regional, national, and international. As an analytical chronology of post-2003 developments in Kirkuk, the analysis charts the evolving competition for political control over governorate and city as well as tracking the Kurdish campaign at the national level to resolve the status of Kirkuk through constitutional means. The struggle for control of Kir-

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kuk has taken place against a background of escalating insurgent violence, but major incidents of ethnically motivated violence among Kirkuk’s various groups have been few and far between. In this sense, the image portrayed in the news media of Kirkuk as a ‘‘powder keg’’ or ‘‘tinderbox’’ of ethnic hatreds is largely inaccurate. The real story may, in fact, be the relative absence of large-scale ethnic violence in the face of the most severe provocation. Part IV moves the analysis on from the substantive to the more conceptual. Chapter 10 provides a critical evaluation of the failure of the Article 58/140 process to yield a solution to the problem of Kirkuk and other disputed territories. The unsuccessful conclusion of the 140 process means that a new process needs to be put in place in order to determine the status of Kirkuk and to define the Kurds’ boundary with the rest of Iraq. As the Kurds can no longer obtain everything they seek through an existing process, and the consequences of denying the Kurds any satisfaction on these contentious issues are potentially disastrous, compromise is the only way forward. Accordingly, Chapter 11 begins to establish the contours of what are and what are not potentially acceptable compromises. From issues of status, the analysis in Chapter 12 moves on to consider the core issue of governance. The purpose of the chapters in this section is not to identify the perfect solution to the problem of Kirkuk but rather to attempt to move the debate forward in a productive direction. If no side is willing or able to compromise on Kirkuk, then the issue is destined to end in bloodshed. If, however, all sides are willing to trade off losses in one area for gains in another (in other words, to compromise), then a peaceful solution is possible.

Iraq at the Kirkuk Crossroads The events of July 2008 have galvanized Kurdish public opinion (as illustrated by a one-hundred-thousand-strong demonstration in Erbil on 29 July) behind the implementation of Article 140 and a referendum to determine Kirkuk’s future. No longer able to present a diplomatic face on the subject, Kurdish leaders fell in line with public sentiment with Massoud Barzani, president of the Kurdistan Region, declaring, ‘‘We will not allow the Kurdish people’s achievements to be wrecked by the Iraqi parliament. Iraq will fall apart if the Iraqi constitution is violated.’’9 Matching this clear escalation in rhetoric were Iraqi parliamentarians in Baghdad, with the influential Wael Abd al-Latif accusing President Talabani of using his veto power unconstitutionally and demanding his resignation. In Kirkuk the situation took a turn for the worse. A suicide bombing of an anti-election-law demonstration (presumably with mainly Kurdish demonstrators) in the center of Kirkuk on 28 July left at least

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twelve people dead. Worse was to come on 15 August, with a further targeting of Kurds leaving some twenty-five dead. The fact that the tragedy was followed by hundreds of Kurds storming and then burning down the headquarters of the Iraqi Turkmen Front (ITF) (even though the US military believed the attack to have been carried out by an AlQaeda–associated group) emphasized the fact that ethnic tensions in the city were at a boiling point.10 By the fall of 2008 Iraq’s future once again hung in the balance. Despite dramatic improvements in the security environment in most parts of Iraq, many core political issues remained unresolved, foremost among which was the issue of Kirkuk’s future status. Unless and until Iraqi political leaders find the will to forge a mutually acceptable compromise on this issue, Iraq’s future in its current territorial configuration will remain in doubt.

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Part I Kirkuk and Its Environs

Few, if any, contested territories can match the complexity of the town of Kirkuk and the muhafadhat (province) around it.1 Kirkuk is a classic divided city, defined as a place in which groups are rivals for power and resources and where there is a fundamental conflict over the cultural identity and state location of the city.2 Kirkuk is clearly not unique as a divided city over which people are prepared to fight and die, but the scale of the problems there—the numbers of actors involved, resource dimensions, and international involvement—adds layers of complexity that are matched by few other disputes over territorial ‘‘ownership.’’ Kirkuk is the divided city par excellence. Kirkuk is an ancient city in an ancient land. It is common to refer to Iraq as a cradle of civilization without really doing justice to what this phrase actually means. Particularly with reference to the north of the country, it would not be inaccurate to refer to Iraq as the cradle of civilization. Located in the fertile crescent of land stretching from the Persian Gulf to the shores of the Mediterranean, the environs of Kirkuk include towns and settlements that lay strong claim to being among the earliest sites where organized agricultural activity occurred—and therefore where the roots of modern civilization are to be found. With a history of settlement, agricultural activities, and civilization reaching back several millennia, the region of northern Iraq is a palimpsest of humankind’s development perhaps unrivaled in the world. Ancient empires rose and fell; great battles took place that shaped the course of history; peoples migrated to the region and from it created complex social structures; and old and new faiths existed side by side—sometimes with tensions and strains but often at peace with each other. It is this long history of demographic layering and multifaceted social interactions that in many ways makes the resolution of Kirkuk’s ethnopolitical tensions so difficult to achieve, and particularly when this

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complex picture is colored by the presence of a strategic commodity— oil—existing in immense quantities in the rock strata that underlie the region. While Kirkuk and its environs have existed on the borderlands of empire for millennia, the historical record clearly shows the emergence, by the medieval period, of a cosmopolitan city with a population seemingly at ease with its social, ethnic, and religious complexities. The problems now apparent in Kirkuk do not therefore have ancient roots. Rather, they became manifest in the twentieth century, when the ideology of nationalism began to take hold across the region in the aftermath of World War I, and oil changed Kirkuk from being part of a larger prize in the imperial competition conducted in the post–World War I environment to being, in many ways, the prize itself. Each group’s own distinctive historical narratives became increasingly politicized and antagonistic during the twentieth century. They were driven to a considerable degree by the state itself, as successive Iraqi governments embarked on aggressive and extensive social engineering strategies designed to manage potential political and security threats to the northern petroleum industry that had been established in Kirkuk. To present an objective, uncontested history of Kirkuk is an impossible task. It is also an unnecessary one as no one historical account of the city’s development would be accepted by all of the groups involved in the current dispute. Instead, the rival nationalist narratives of Turkmens, Kurds, and Arabs will be uncovered and investigated in forthcoming chapters.3 However, this does not make it impossible to establish some hard facts about Kirkuk and its environs that are pertinent to understanding the contemporary situation. Kirkuk’s geography and physical layout are, of course, crucial to understanding why it is contested by three communal groups—in effect existing in the spatial overlap of the spheres of influence of Kurds, Arabs, and Turkmens. Kirkuk also has a political history, as dictated by its relationship with imperial powers (whether Ottoman or British) and its administrative location within the state. More recent events continue to have a profound impact on the situation today, and these can be discussed with a high degree of accuracy and objectivity. The competition between the Kurdish rebels under the leadership of Mulla Mustafa Barzani and the Iraqi government dominated, and then headed, by Saddam Hussein in the 1970s is, of course, a critical dynamic that formed the basis of many of the problems that now exist. Similarly, the movements of peoples, the growth of the population, and the changes applied to Kirkuk’s governorate boundaries can all be discussed factually. Indeed, many common assumptions regarding Kirkuk’s demography can be challenged persuasively by considering the figures publicly available in Iraq’s regular censuses. In addition, the impact of oil on Kirkuk’s development and its future is relatively

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straightforward to present and understand. Before embarking on a presentation of the rival nationalist narratives of the communities of Kirkuk, it is first necessary to provide context by reconstructing the history of Kirkuk from ancient times to the present, addressing the origins of the city, its development within successive empires, and the trials and tribulations of its twentieth-century existence.

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Chapter 1 Kirkuk before Iraq

Kirkuk is a city and region in many ways defined by its physical and, in the twentieth century, political/economic geography. Existing on the Mesopotamian plain with the Zagros mountains to the northeast, the northwestern limit of Kirkuk’s sphere of influence is marked by the Little Zab River, with the Diyala River performing a similar role to the southeast. To the southwest the low mountain range of Jabal Hamrin— considered by Kurds to be the southernmost limit of Kurdistan— presents a natural barrier between Kirkuk and more arid areas to the south.1 This region—in effect what was to become the province of Kirkuk in the twentieth century—benefited from a water supply from the tributaries of the Tigris and land suitable for agricultural production. While it is difficult to identify categorically which people founded the settlement that would endure and ultimately develop into the modern city of Kirkuk, there seems to be a reasonable consensus in the literature that an early settlement was founded by the Hurrians, a people who migrated southward from the Caucasus region around 2400 b.c. and established a succession of kingdoms and states in the Zagros mountains and Mesopotamian plains. One of the most important of these was the city of Arrapha, established around 2000 b.c., which sat on the ruins of a town of even greater, presumably Assyrian, antiquity.2 The founding of Kirkuk—nearly five millennia ago—is a subject that gives rise to major intellectual disputes between modern-day Kurds and Assyrian Christians. For the Kurds, the Hurrians are presented as the antecedents of the Kurds—irrespective of the fact that their language was of a different family to that of the Indo-European Kurds. Kamal Mudhir, for example, notes in the opening to his book Kirkuk and Its Dependencies how ‘‘it is historically proven that the Lolobians or the Hurrians built the city of Kirkuk [a]nd they are two peoples who had a principal role in forming the current Kurdish people.’’3 Similar statements,

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indicating that the Kurds are the direct descendants of ancient peoples and civilizations, pepper the literature written by Kurds about themselves. Mehrdad Izady, for example, presents Kurdish origins within a framework of analysis that reached not only to the Hurrians but even further back in the mists of time to the Halaf culture of some eight millennia ago.4 For Assyrians, keen to associate themselves with their eponymous empire, the original Kirkuk—Arrapha—was an Assyrian town first and foremost, and any other peoples who came later may indeed have dominated the city, but they could not claim to have founded it. Of course, the problem with this argument is proving the link between today’s modern peoples/nations to the people of empires of millennia past. Even if the link could be proved, developing this into something that had tangible political weight several thousands of years later would be a challenging task. More acceptable, perhaps, than the idea of Kurds being the descendants of the Hurrians is the notion that they are in fact the progeny of other peoples mentioned in the writings and records of the Mesopotamian empires. Often described as the earliest mention of the Kurds, the name ‘‘Quti’’ appears in reference to one of the many peoples who lived in the mountains of the Zagros on the borderlands of the Mesopotamian plains, with Arrapha being mentioned as the capital of the ‘‘Gutium’’ from about 2400 b.c.5 The historical progression then sees the Gutians defeated by the Assyrians in the second millennium b.c., and it is under their rule that Arrapha grew into a city of considerable size and importance. However, a new challenge had emerged in the form of Indo-European tribes migrating from the east into the Zagros. From these tribes emerged the Medes—considered by the Kurds to be their direct ancestors—who defeated the Assyrians in 615 b.c.6 Kirkuk then passed from the Medes to the Parthians and thereafter to the Sasanids from a.d. 226 to 651. Located in a region known as Garmakan to the Sasanids (which correlates interestingly to the modern Kurdish name for the region of Garmian—literally meaning ‘‘warm place’’), Kirkuk’s Christian heritage originated under the rule of the Sasanids from a.d. 226 to 651, during which time the town became an important center for the Nestorians7 in addition to being a major administrative center.8 Interestingly, Assyrian and Kurdish histories of Kirkuk make little or no reference to an Arab presence until the Sasanid period; similarly Turkmens are never mentioned due to the fact that their immigration to Kirkuk had not yet occurred on any meaningful scale. Following the demise of the Sasanids, Kirkuk (at this time known by a range of names including Karkha d’Beth S’lokh and Karkhina)9 fell briefly under the control of the Begteginid dynasty based in Erbil, before being brought into the Muslim Abbasid empire.

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The presence of Arabs becomes readily apparent with the march north of the Islamic conquest of Mesopotamia and the Zagros mountains. Indeed, Mudhir claims that ‘‘[the Islamic conquest was] the first direct and extensive contact for the Kurds and Kurdistan, including Kirkuk and its dependencies, with the Arabs.’’10 However, Mudhir is also keen to stress that Islam did not readily alter the Kurds’ social or cultural outlook; nor did it challenge their political authority within their territories. Rather, he points to the Kurds’ acceptance of Arabic and the Quran, and, in turn, Arab commentators recognized the Kurdish identity of Kirkuk.11 This is somewhat difficult to accept, as there is no evidence of the name ‘‘Kurd’’ being applied to the rather disparate tribes of the Zagros, by themselves or by others; yet it would certainly have been the case that these Kurdish antecedents would have attained a favorable status by converting to Islam. In common with the Kurds and Assyrians, the Turkmens describe their presence in Iraq as being not only ancient but also associated with noble missions and powerful civilizations. Unlike the Kurds and Assyrians, however, the Turkmens’ view of their own presence in Iraq has a more recent starting date, recognizing their origin as being from Turkic tribes of central Asia that migrated to the Anatolian peninsula and Iraq in several waves over many centuries—a movement that reached its zenith under the Abbasid empire. The earliest mention of Turkmens in Iraq worthy of note is in the seventh century, as soldiers recruited into the invading Muslim armies, with al-Tabari noting that some one thousand Turkmen soldiers were brought to Iraq by Ubeidallah Ziad, an Ummayed wali (governor) of Iraq.12 While likely to be true, such linkage is also an attempt to give a certain amount of legitimacy to their presence, particularly as both the Kurds and Assyrians claim a longer historical association with the region. The numbers of Turkic Muslim soldiers, however, would have been quite limited, and it was not until the wider migration of central Asian tribes, principally the Oghuz, to the Middle East and Anatolia took place toward the end of the ninth century that a substantial Turkmen presence became established.13 The linkage between the Turkmens and Islam was further strengthened during the reign of the Abbasid caliphs who relied heavily on Turkmens serving in the military. However, the identifying of Turkmens more directly with governing institutions in Iraq occurred during the rule of the Seljuks in the eleventh century. The Turkmens associate their large-scale arrival in Iraq with the invasion of Togru¨l, the second ruler of the Seljuk dynasty, at the head of an army largely recruited from Oghuz Turkmens in 1055. The Seljuk Empire was a military state that depended heavily on Oghuz Turkmens in the military forces and later within the

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government. Indeed, to protect the empire, the Seljuks placed largely Turkmen communities along the most valuable trading routes and especially along the Tal Afar-Erbil-Kirkuk-Mandali axis, which is now identified by modern Turkmens as Turkmeneli—the land of the Turkmens. These Turkmens, largely originating from the steppes of central Asia, gave an ethnic solidarity to the military corps of the Seljuk Muslims and were largely responsible for the continued vitality of Muslim society.14 Kirkuk remained under Seljuk rule for the remainder of the eleventh century, with control later being vested in the Turkic dynasty of Zengi centered on Mosul.15 It was a short-lived period, however, as a new force arrived from the east that would transform Iraq and the wider region for centuries to come. The Mongol invasions of the Islamic heartland saw large numbers of migrants move from central Asia into Iran, Iraq, Syria, Anatolia, and the Caucasus region. Included among these migrants were the Mongols themselves, people of eastern Turkic stock, and, not least, Turkmens displaced by the campaigns of the Mongols.16 One of the many effects of the Mongol invasions was the destabilizing and weakening of the once-strong Abbasid Caliphate centered on Baghdad. In a political and social environment characterized by the existence of what Woods refers to as a ‘‘dual society’’ of nomadic (Turkic) overlords and conquered sedentary populations, the Turkmens emerged as the ruling grouping in northern Iraq and regions further north in the aftermath of the immense demographic changes brought about by the Mongol invasions.17 Once subjugated by the Mongol political system, Turkmen tribal confederations including the Qara-Quyunlu (Black Sheep) and Aq-Quyunlu (White Sheep) were well placed to fill the political vacuum left behind as their Mongol overlords’ authority weakened. These Turkmen confederacies ruled the territory of contemporary Iran, Turkey, Syria, and Iraq over the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and were responsible for a further in-migration of Turkic peoples from central Asia into Iraq. Turkmen military prowess had also been recognized by other powers, and Turkmen tribes were readily recruited into the military machine of the Safavid empire. Affiliated strongly with the Shi’i sect of Islam that underpinned the Safavi state, these ‘‘sectarian Turkman warriors’’ became the feared shock-troops of the Safavids and were known as the Qizilbash (Redhead) tribes because of their scarlet headwear. Recognizing the importance of Iraq to the empire, and particularly the fertile foothills of the Zagros mountains and the plains adjacent to them, Shah Ismail I settled large numbers of loyal Qizilbash Turkmens in areas surrounding Kirkuk and Tuz Khurmato, endowing tribal chiefs with lifetime governorships of large tracts of land.18 For some, the sectarian cleavage within the Turkmen community—between Sunni and Shi’i followers—can be traced directly to the region being

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settled by heterodox Qizilbash tribes by the Safavids, with the Ottomans later consolidating the presence and numbers of Sunni Turkmens. This may explain why, in the centers of administration of Kirkuk (principally in the city and in the major towns), the majority of the Turkmen population is Sunni, with the Shi’i elements being mainly in the more provincial areas of the governorate.

The Ottoman Empire Northern Iraq remained a chaotic place in the period following the demise of the Mongols, and the references made by modern Turkmens to these times are often nothing more than romanticized visions of bygone empires. It is with the expansion of the Ottoman Empire in the sixteenth century, however, that the Turkmens’ relative position in modern Iraqi society can be traced. Following the conquest of Iraq by Suleiman the Magnificent in a.d.1535, Kirkuk came firmly under Ottoman control and was referred to as ‘‘Go¨kyurt’’ (Blue Homeland) in the Ottoman records, perhaps indicating that Kirkuk was identified as a particularly Turkic town by that time.19 Under the Ottomans, further migrations occurred into northern Iraq, and it is largely from this period that modern Turkmens claim association with Anatolia and the Turkish state. Indeed, it is a claim that is clearly and forcefully made, and with some reason. Ethnicity clearly played an important role in the formation of what Hanna Batatu refers to as the ‘‘aristocracy’’ of officials in late Ottoman Iraq.20 In nineteenthcentury Iraq a plausible claim to Turkic origin was the key to social and political advancement, with the result that Turkic families occupied the highest socioeconomic strata and held the most important bureaucratic jobs. Some of these families had arrived in Iraq with the army of Sultan Murad in 1638; others came later with other notable Ottoman figures. For these families, Kirkuk was clearly of prime importance, with Turkic families holding high positions there throughout the centuries.21 Yet there remained a strong Kurdish flavor to the region. With its close proximity to the border with the Persian Empire, the Ottomans by necessity relied on powerful local Kurdish notables, or emirs, to secure the sensitive eastern border region. Whether these emirs were ‘‘Kurdish’’ in their outlook or rather focused more on their socioeconomic status is, of course, a pertinent question to ask. The Kurdish narrative of the situation clearly favors the former perspective, with Soran, Bitlis, Ardalan, and Baban, among other places, described largely in terms denoting them as being at the forefront of a protonationalist movement keen to defend Kurdish territories from encroaching Safavids. Kirkuk assumes a position of prominence quickly in these writings with Shara-

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zur province—comprising thirty-two districts—having as its capital Kirkuk.22 One of the sources favored by Kurdish advocates and often called on to support this notion of a ‘‘Kurdish’’ Kirkuk was written by the Ottoman chronicler Shamsaddin Sami. In his Qamus al-A’lam, published in 1897, Sami’s description of the city of Kirkuk states that three-quarters of the inhabitants were Kurdish, with the remaining quarter being Arab, Turkmen, or ‘‘others.’’ While this is seized upon by Kurds as clear evidence of their numerical preponderance not only in the rural areas but also in the city, it is not clear on what basis Sami identifies the demographic structure of Kirkuk. His position is clearly at odds with other, slightly later observers and has been categorically rejected by Turkmen scholars.23 Irrespective of the accuracy of the Qamus al-A’lam, it is clear that the ethnography of Kirkuk during the Ottoman period was not clearly defined. The picture of elites is already confusing enough, with Ottoman governors and Kurdish emirs, and it becomes more so when one considers the day-to-day life of an Ottoman town. Kurdish, Arab, and Turkmen communities did not live in isolation from those others around, and it seems clear that Arabic and Kurdish were at least as popular, particularly in the more rural areas or as a medium of nonofficial communication, as Ottoman Turkish was. It is also the case that the term ‘‘Turkmen,’’ particularly in the later Ottoman Empire, did not necessarily have to require that an individual be ethnically Turkic, and ‘‘Kurdish’’ was as much a label denoting geographic locality as one defining an ethnic group. Rather, a process of Ottomanization quickly saw those non-Turkmens working in the Ottoman bureaucracy effectively ‘‘Turkified’’ by the process of working in the institutions of state and by having to learn Ottoman Turkish and adopt Ottoman customary practices. A similar dynamic would have been apparent among the business and mercantile communities, as interaction with the governing bodies of the major towns, including Kirkuk, would have required their inherent ‘‘Turkification.’’24 A pertinent question to ask, then, is just how many of today’s Turkmens are descended from those people of pre-nineteenthcentury Turkic origin or before, and how many are Arabs or Kurds who simply learned Turkish in order to climb the socioeconomic ladder of the day? In reality, it is not a particularly useful question for finding a solution to the current problem of territorial ownership of the disputed territories of northern Iraq, but it emphasises the complexity of the demographic situation that exists there. It is important to note that the debate on the lingua franca of Kirkuk, or the ethnic identity of its peoples, was not common to the nineteenth century. Rather, it has relatively recent origins from the mid-twentieth

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century on and is tied largely to the heightening of identity politics in the modern Iraqi state. Kirkuk in particular, with its long history of multiethnic settlement, was particularly vulnerable to being destabilized by the emergence of any debate over the ‘‘true’’ identity of the city or whether one group possessed the right to govern over others. The catalyst for this debate emerging was largely the exploitation of oil and the state’s attempts to neutralize any potential threat to its authority in the oil-producing environs.

Kirkuk’s Oil Although oil was known to be present in northern Iraq for several millennia, it was not until the industrialized powers of Europe began to need oil for expanding industries or, in the case of Britain, for fueling the next generation of warships that consideration of the region began to change from mild speculation to earnest investigation. The first evidence of Ottoman authorities showing interest in the oil of Mosul vilayet (the province that included Kirkuk) was in the late 1880s when Sultan Abdul Hamid conferred the concessions of the vilayets of Mosul and Baghdad onto the state’s Civil List, enabling contracts to be signed to undertake work in those regions. The first oil exploration in Iraq began in 1902 at Chia Surkh in present-day Diyala.25 The competition between European powers that began in the nineteenth century was manifest in the constellation of companies that expressed interest in investigating the oil fields of northern Iraq and Persia, with a range of international groups making bids for concessions between 1900 and 1914.26 In 1904 the Ottoman Civil List signed a contract with the Anatolian Railway Company—funded by the Deutsche Bank—to carry out surveys in Mosul and Baghdad, following on from the previous year’s signing of a contract between the Ottoman Railway Company of Anatolia (again controlled by the Deutsche Bank) and the Ottoman authorities to build the Berlin-to-Baghdad railway. To ensure access to resources in the region, the contract gave its holders mineral rights to twenty kilometers of land on each side of the track.27 The United Kingdom was not slow in responding. William Knox D’Arcy, one of the architects of Britain’s Persian oil initiative, petitioned the sultan for the earlier lapsed Deutsche Bank rights.28 While he met with no success, the presence of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (APOC), with the British government owning a controlling interest, indicated that London was at least aware of the potential of significant oil reserves existing under the soils of the Mosul vilayet. A further player appeared on the scene between 1908 and 1912 in the form of the Dutch. Succeeding where the British had failed, the Dutch were recognized by the Ottoman

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government as being worthy of consideration for petroleum concessions. By 1912 three different European groups were actively seeking concessions in the provinces, including the Deutsche Bank, the APOC, and the Dutch-Anglo-Saxon Oil Company. Germany and Britain often had stakes in the same companies. To complicate matters further, wider political considerations came to the fore as the European conglomerates were keen to exclude any US involvement (in the shape of the American Chester Group) in the region. With this goal, the British, Germans, and Dutch combined their efforts to pressure the Ottoman government into dealing directly with the British and German governments (the Dutch were in effect part of the British initiative).29 From this three-way meeting of Britain, Germany, and the Ottoman Empire, the Turkish Petroleum Company (TPC) was formed in 1912 from a company earlier called Africa and Eastern Concessions, with the aim of acquiring all claims to oil fields in Mesopotamia. The TPC was dominated by British institutions, with the Turkish National Bank (again a British-owned institution) owning 50 percent of the shares and the remaining half divided between the Anglo-Saxon Company and the Deutsche Bank. European powers, especially Britain, remained keen to exercise control over the valuable resources and to prevent US companies from gaining a foothold in the area.30 Yet even with these business dealings, the British, at an official policy level, remained largely impervious to the prospect of oil in Mosul vilayet until much later in the war. This change in focus was brought about by the realization of the potential size of the oil reserves. Critical in this regard was Britain’s move from initially entertaining, if not advocating, the idea of an independent Kurdish state located somewhere in southeast Anatolia and the Mosul vilayet to abandoning the idea.31 There were many reasons why the British ultimately changed their minds with regard to supporting an independent Kurdish state carved out of southeast Anatolia and possibly including the Mosul vilayet. Security of the Mesopotamian plains was certainly one consideration, as was the need to ensure that the new monarchy designed to govern over Iraq had as many Sunni subjects as possible—due to an inherent suspicion of the Shi’i population of the south. This is not to say that the British were ignorant of Mesopotamia’s oil wealth. There is clear evidence that a powerful lobby existed in Whitehall—centered on military leaders— from at least the 1880s, with Winston Churchill being the catalyst turning these interests into meaningful policy that would ultimately see the boundaries of Iraq encompassing the Mosul vilayet, including Kirkuk.32 By 1911 Churchill was the first lord of the Admiralty, in charge of Britain’s most powerful strategic force and inherent symbol of the might of

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the British Empire. One of Churchill’s tasks was to consider how the Royal Navy would develop in the future and how new technologies could alter the balance of power between the navies of Europe’s increasingly fractious powers. He had also inherited a navy that had begun to build a reliance on oil fuel and that was seeking to expand.33 For the Royal Navy to remain superior to the rapidly expanding German navy, future ships needed improved firepower and speed. The only foreseeable way in which further speed could be obtained was to change the engines of warships from being coal-fired and steam-powered to being oil-fired and turbine-driven leviathans. Underpinning the ability of these new ships to project British power across the globe would be the existence of a readily available, affordable supply of oil. Britain was dependent on exports from the US, Romania, Russia, Mexico, and the Netherlands, and of these, the US was by far the largest supplier. Some 80 percent of British oil came from the US, which, while an ally, was also seen by the British as a potential imperial competitor.34 Keen to remove this potential threat to their power, the British sought to incorporate oil-rich regions into their empire. The focus was initially on Persia and the establishment of APOC in 1909. However, with oil finds becoming apparent in Ottoman territory and with Mesopotamia viewed by the British as being firmly in their sphere of interest, the Mosul vilayet was increasingly factored into the geopolitical imagination of British strategic planners on the eve of World War I. William Knox D’Arcy of APOC was only too keen to ensure that his own company would be at the forefront of any move to the west. It is debatable, however, whether Churchill’s oil aspirations had percolated into wider British strategy until the latter years of the war. While the British had shown considerable interest in Mesopotamia before the war, they had always been focused on other issues, including the securing of trading routes between the Mediterranean and the gulf and the possible use of the region to locate ‘‘surplus populations’’ from India or even to threaten ‘‘Russia’s soft underbelly in the Caucasus,’’ thereby protecting the most important imperial possession—India.35 The fact that the British were not overly concerned about potential oil reserves in Mosul vilayet—and were willing to focus their efforts in Persia—was clearly evident in the terms of the secret Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916 signed by Britain, France, and Russia. The plan prepared for the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the redistribution of its territories, and it saw the vilayet of Mosul allocated to the French zone of influence, with the British gaining Baghdad and Basra.36 The British obtained from the French an agreement that the economic rights of British nationals in Ottoman territory that became French would be respected—including

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the activities of the TPC. However, it was not until Mosul’s subsequent transfer to the British sphere that this could be guaranteed.37 British negotiators’ recognition of the importance of Mosul’s oil was clearly secondary to the greater geopolitical concerns, including the desire to maintain a French buffer between them in Mesopotamia and their most feared foes, the Russians, to the north.38 However, the end of World War I changed British perceptions of the situation markedly. Throughout its duration, there had been a steadily growing lobby group of senior officials arguing that control of Mesopotamian oil was a key British interest. Most notable among these was Sir Maurice Hankey, secretary of the war cabinet. He felt strongly enough to write to then foreign secretary Arthur Balfour in 1918 that ‘‘oil in the next war will occupy the place of coal in the present war, or at least a parallel place to coal. The only big potential supply that we can get under British control is the Persian and Mesopotamian supply. . . . Control over these oil supplies becomes a first class British war aim.’’39 In the Admiralty, the resident oil expert, Rear Admiral Sir Edmund Slade, was openly pushing for British domination of oil resources in Persia and Mesopotamia. In a paper written by Slade on the petroleum situation in the British Empire on 29 July 1918 to the Cabinet Office, he declared that ‘‘[it was necessary] to encourage and assist British Companies to obtain control of as many oil-producing areas in foreign countries as possible, with the stipulation (in order to prevent control being obtained by foreign interests) that the oil produced should only be sold to or through British oil-distributing Companies. These oil-producing areas [Persia and Mesopotamia] could be developed to assist in providing our requirements in times of peace while our own resources in British territory can be conserved to war.’’40 Hankey and his co-lobbyists were successful. After the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the British policy makers realized the error they had made in agreeing that the Mosul vilayet would become the responsibility of the French.41 To rectify the situation, the British—who by the war’s end now occupied the Mosul vilayet—came to an agreement with the French to alter the terms of the Sykes-Picot Agreement, leaving Britain in control of the three provinces of Mosul, Baghdad, and Basra and the French as the mandated authority in Syria and Lebanon. Following the defeat of the Central Powers, the structure of the previously established TPC changed, with the British confiscating the German portion of the business (held by the Deutsche Bank). However, the French needed to receive a payoff for agreeing to recognize British control of the Mosul vilayet. It came in the form of the former Deutsche Bank share of the TPC. In what became known as the Long-Be´renger Agreement, the shares were transferred to French interests. These oil-

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related dealings were then formalized a year later, in 1920, by the terms of the San Remo Oil Agreement.42 While the organizational aspects of the fledgling Iraqi oil industry were being hammered out between European capitals and, in the 1920s, the US, it was not until 1927 that Kirkuk’s future would be irrevocably changed with the drilling of the first well on the southernmost aspects of the Kirkuk structure. Geologists from the TPC focused their efforts on the obvious site of Kirkuk—with its oil seeping to the surface—and quickly identified a one-hundred-kilometer-long structure stretching from south of Kirkuk in a northwesterly direction under Erbil. The striking of oil at Baba Gurgur No. 1 reads as though it were scripted for a Hollywood movie. The ensuing gusher reached fifty feet above the derrick, even threatening nearby villages and Kirkuk itself and killing two oil workers. Before workers finally managed to cap the well some nine days afterward, it was estimated that Baba Gurgur flowed at a rate of ninety-five thousand barrels per day (bbl/d).43 From this point on, Kirkuk’s oil was a focal point of the economy of the state and hence its politics. To emphasize the importance of oil in the story of Kirkuk, it is worth briefly reconsidering Kirkuk’s modern political history by imagining a scenario without oil. If the underlying geology of the province had contained water aquifers instead of oil fields, it is unlikely that the enforced population movements caused by the policy of Arabization would have taken place, while the demographic issues that are now so problematic to resolve would have been of a different, lesser magnitude. This counterfactual ‘‘Kirkuk without oil’’ scenario warrants developing a little more deeply. It is possible, for example, that in the aftermath of World War I and the occupation of Kirkuk following the signing of the Mudros Armistice in 1918 that the British would have supported the creation of a Kurdish state—even extending northward of the current Iraqi border to Lake Van, deep in Anatolia.44 However, as it became more apparent that unknown but probably vast amounts of oil lay underneath Kirkuk, the British position toward the Mosul vilayet changed, which is one of the reasons it was incorporated into the kingdom of Iraq. How the state managed this immense resource and how the need to protect the industry from the aspirations (actual or perceived) of others dominated the actions of the state in the north of Iraq then becomes a fundamentally important theme in the history of the region in the remainder of the century and into the next.

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Chapter 2 Kirkuk in the Twentieth Century

To build a picture of pre–World War I Kirkuk is not the easiest of tasks. The images presented by historians from Iraq are more often than not deeply essentialized and promote the notion of Kirkuk being dominated by either Turkmens or Kurds. Few of these sources are particularly useful when trying to build an understanding of Kirkuk’s demography in this early period of the twentieth century. In building an accurate picture of Kirkuk in the early twentieth century, the most useful starting point is the findings of the many survey teams tasked by post-Ottoman powers in the aftermath of World War I and during the formative moments of the Iraqi state. After the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the subsequent dividing up of its territories into the new state structure that began to coalesce thereafter, several sets of statistics were presented to the Mosul Commission of the League of Nations, which was tasked to consider and decide the future of the former Mosul vilayet (which included Kirkuk). Table 2.1 illustrates the range of figures generated at a roughly equivalent time by Turkish, British, and Iraqi sources. The figures display huge variance that reflects the fact that the survey methodologies employed by different groups were widely and critically different. Most importantly, there was never any agreement reached on what actually constituted being Kurdish, Turkmen, Arab, or Christian. The most common method of identifying ethnicity was by language. However, in the context of the Mosul vilayet and of Kirkuk in particular, this was a highly problematic method to follow. In Erbil, a city largely Kurdified by the end of the nineteenth century, many ethnic Turkmens would have been largely Kurdish speakers, whereas in Kirkuk many of the urbanized Kurds—previously integrated into the political structures of the city—would probably have been primarily Turkish speakers.1 Political agendas also have to be factored into any analysis of the statistics presented during the conference negotiations. From the perspective

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Table 2.1. Population of the Mosul Vilayet Turkish Statistics Presented at Lausanne Conference, 1923 Kurds Arabs Turkmens Christians and Jews

263,830 (39.2%) 43,210 (6.4%) 146,960 (21.8%) 31,000 (4.6%)

Yezidis Total settled population Nomads Total population

18,000 (2.7%) 503,000 (74.7%) 170,000 (25.3%) 673,000

British Military Estimates, 1921

Government of Iraq Enumeration, 1922–24

427,720 (54.5%) 185,763 (23.7%) 65,895 (8.4%) 62,225 (7.9%) 16,865 (2.1%) 30,000 (3.8%) — — 785,468

520,007 (64.9%) 166,941 (20.8%) 38,652 (4.8%) 61,336 (7.7%) 11,897 (1.5%) 26,257 (3.3%) — — 801,000

Source: Bruinessen, M. van. 2005. ‘‘Iraq: Kurdish challenges.’’ In Walter Posch (ed.), Looking into Iraq. Chaillot paper no. 79. Paris: Institute for Security Studies, European Union: 45–72, using information from Mim Kemal Oke. Musul Meselesi Kronolojisi (1918–1926). Istanbul: Turk Dunyasi Arastirmalari Vakfi, 1987: 157.

of the British, every effort was made to show that the Turkmen presence was perhaps not as notable as the Turkish government tried to suggest. Hence, many more Kurds and Arabs were recorded, largely at the expense of the Turkmen numbers. However, once the pressure of the Mosul deliberations had subsided and the vilayet was firmly within the boundaries of the kingdom of Iraq, it is clear that the British view of Kirkuk in particular began to change somewhat. Rather than promoting the idea of at least a plurality of Kurds in the city, the British political officers C. J. Edmonds and Wallace Lyon, both writing from their direct experiences in Kurdistan and Kirkuk in the aftermath of World War I, noted that the Turkmens predominated in Kirkuk but that Kurds were a majority in the rural areas.2 The statistics provided to the Mosul Commission are now taken up only by the most extreme of the Turkmen and Kurdish protagonists— such are the clear problems with deciphering their meaning. Yet many Kurdish and Turkmen writers still choose to refer back to these figures in newspaper articles and pieces in weblogs and speak to an audience of millions keen to accept any new argument that presents their own community’s case in as strong a position as possible. Final agreement on the boundaries of the new Iraqi state was reached in 1925, which saw the incorporation of the Mosul vilayet.3 The discovery of the immense oil field at Baba Gurgur at the end of the decade set the scene for what was to become an enduring conflict between the Kurds and the Iraqi state. The Kurdish demands to have their distinct ethnic characteristics recognized combined with Baghdad’s concern over the

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security of Kirkuk and the maintaining of oil production collided with increasingly violent consequences. For the Kurds, the city and its environs had been part of the Kurdish homeland for centuries. Indeed, Kirkuk had once been the capital of a sizable and prosperous Kurdish emirate, and many Kurds, Mulla Mustafa Barzani included, would later present a vision of a Kurdistan Region in Iraq with oil-rich Kirkuk as its capital. For other communities, multiethnic Kirkuk had similarly been a focal point of their activities. As a prominent town on the route between the Ottoman heartlands and Baghdad, Kirkuk had long been a trading and mercantile focal point in which an Ottoman-associated bourgeoisie had enjoyed notable prosperity and wealth within the urban areas. This bourgeoisie—largely Turkmens—would reject any notion of Kirkuk being the homeland of the Kurds. For Iraqi nationalist Arabs—whether in Kirkuk or in Iraq in general—Kirkuk quickly became seen as an integral and important part of Iraq, which, economically speaking, it certainly was. Any challenge to Kirkuk’s distinctively ‘‘Iraqi’’—in effect Arab and Sunni—identity was seen not just as a localized problem of Kurdish aspirations but as a national security problem that had existential implications for Iraq as a whole. The oil industry of Kirkuk sat amid the conflict between the Iraqi government and the Kurds. From the perspective of Baghdad, Kirkuk and its oil infrastructure were distinctly geopolitically sensitive. Following the deterioration in the relationship between Kurdish tribes and President Abd al-Karim Qassim of Iraq, Mulla Mustafa Barzani announced the start of the ‘‘Kurdish Revolution’’ in December 1961. The Kurdish peshmerga (literally ‘‘those who face death’’—the name given to Kurdish fighters) achieved notable victories against the Iraqi military, with Barzani building alliances with other Kurdish tribal leaders who were caught in the conflict with Baghdad. Barzani’s successes in the field against the Iraqi military were at least partly the cause of the military’s turning against Qassim. Yet his overthrow in 1963 did not deliver to the Kurds what they had been fighting for—namely, autonomy including Kirkuk. Instead, the Kurds now had to deal with a new Ba’thist regime that was keen to buy time in order to consolidate its position within the country—a bitter war in the Kurdish mountains was not at all a possibility welcomed by the new government. Barzani’s demands, however, proved too great for the government to accept. He expected formal recognition of Kurdish autonomy across a swath of land that included all of the old Mosul vilayet (including Kirkuk and the oil fields) apart from the city of Mosul.4 While the government balked at most of Barzani’s demands, it was his insistence on the inclusion of Kirkuk within an autonomous region that

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created the most opposition. The state’s response to Kurdish national aspirations prompted increasingly repressive measures to remove any direct peshmerga threat. The verb ‘‘Arabize’’ has been used to refer to many situations across the Middle East and North Africa, from a range of actions and policies including language politics in Morocco and Algeria to the targeting of non-Arab communities by the Janjaweed militia in Darfur. However, it is Kirkuk that should be synonymous with the term because of the sheer scale of the processes of social engineering embarked on particularly from the 1970s on. Few issues are debated as intensely as those that relate to the demographic balance of communities in Kirkuk and the history of demographic change in the city and in the governorate. The debate is complex because of the involvement of several communities, each with contending narratives of their experience in Kirkuk. It is made infinitely more complex by the gerrymandering strategies of the Ba’th regime— which included the populating of districts with Arabs, the depopulating of areas of non-Arabs, and the inclusion or removal of districts from the province in order to build a more numerous Arab population—in addition to the intellectual efforts made by each interest group to promote or discredit its own or other respective sources of information. Similar claims have been made since 2003 by non-Kurdish communities that accuse the KRG and Kurdish parties of ‘‘Kurdifying’’ Kirkuk with returnee Kurds, many of whom they claim would not be able to trace any sort of meaningful familial association to the city or province. Before any solution to the problem of Kirkuk can be agreed on by the political leaders of post-Saddam Iraq, it is first necessary to decide which version of Kirkuk is being discussed. The size, shape, and overall location of the governorate changed markedly over the twentieth century and may well continue to do so if the negotiations of mid-2008 result in an agreement. While a more focused discussion of gerrymandering is left for later, the purpose at this point is to present the bare facts concerning the changing geographic shape of the province of Kirkuk.

Gerrymandering Kirkuk The province of Kirkuk that is spoken of in today’s news is not of identical territorial dimensions to the province of the earlier twentieth century. To have an administrative unit that changes shape is not perhaps unusual, but in Kirkuk’s case the reasoning behind the changes was explicitly ethnopolitical. Kirkuk’s changes are also unusual due to their sheer scale and frequency. With each change, two interrelated developments occurred. The first was an overall change in the population size of the governorate. This was particularly apparent in the first half of the

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twentieth century, as little thought was being given to the overall composition of the governorate in terms of ethnic identity. However, with later changes it is clear that the balance between communities was being deliberately affected, most notably with Kurdish- or Turkmen-dominated districts or subdistricts being detached and reattached to neighboring governorates, and with Arab-dominated districts or subdistricts being tacked onto Kirkuk. Population statistics and the demographic characteristics of Kirkuk are, therefore, contingent on the prevailing ‘‘shape’’ of the governorate at any particular moment in time. While there have been numerous changes to Kirkuk’s boundaries, those undertaken in 1968 and after, following the return to power of the Ba’th Party, proved to be the most transformative in terms of their impact on the demographic structure of the governorate. Following the earlier incorporation of the predominantly Arab subdistricts of Hawija and Riyadh into Kirkuk in 1961 (republican decrees 328 and 387 respectively), the outline of Kirkuk changed radically following the advent of the second Ba’th regime in 1968 (Map 4 illustrates Kirkuk’s 1968 boundaries). In a clear bid to build an Arab majority in Kirkuk after the end of the Kurdish revolution of Mustafa Barzani, the new government issued republican decree 608 of December 1975, formally detaching from Kirkuk the Kurdish-dominated and highly populated districts of Chamchamal and Kalar and reattaching them to Sulaimaniya, with Kifri also detached and reapportioned to the governorate of Diyala. The process continued throughout the 1970s, with the Iraqi government progressively detaching districts or subdistricts thought to be predominantly non-Arab. In 1976 attention turned to the population centers of the Turkmens, with Tuz Khurmato and Qadir Karam being detached from Kirkuk by republican decree 41 of January 1976 and reapportioned to Salahadin governorate. Republican decree 33 of December 1976 saw the subdistricts of Kandenawa and Qaraj detached from the Makhmour district of Erbil governorate and reapportioned to the Arab-dominated Dibis district of Kirkuk. Later the Mosul governorate district of Zab was formally annexed into the Hawija district of Kirkuk. Further additions occurred in the 1980s, when Arab-dominated subdistricts of Mosul were attached to Kirkuk, creating a clear Arabmajority subregion in the west of the governorate linking directly into Arab majority areas in Mosul and Salahadin and Diyala governorates. The final changes to the map of Kirkuk occurred as late as 2000. Perhaps in a bid to remove any possibility of the KRG claiming the entirety of Erbil governorate (as the KRG held the governorate center of Erbil and most of the territory of it), the Iraqi government moved to incorporate areas of the governorate under its control into other provinces. In

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Map 4. Kirkuk governorate, 1968. The size and location of the Kirkuk governorate are presented relative to surrounding governorates and composite subdistricts of Kirkuk. Adapted by the authors from maps provided by the KRG.

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so doing, Sargaran subdistrict was reallocated to Dibis district in Kirkuk by republican decree 245 of 2000, leaving the boundaries of Kirkuk governorate as depicted in Map 5. These represent Kirkuk’s current boundaries. Several points are worth mentioning in relation to the changing political geography of Kirkuk. The first is the absolute decline in the size of Kirkuk since the 1930s. From being a governorate with an area in excess of 20,000 km2 in the 1950s, Kirkuk now has an area of 9,679 km2, with most of the lands lost being populated predominantly by Kurds and then Turkmens. The second noticeable aspect to the pattern of boundary movement has been the westerly movement of the governorate, from the Kurdish-dominated regions of the east (Chamchamal, Kalar) to the Arab-dominated regions of the west (Hawija, Zab). In short, Kirkuk now is no longer where it once was, and this has to be factored into any analysis of how the demography of the province can be analyzed and meaningful conclusions presented. For emphasis of this point, consider Map 4 which illustrates where Kirkuk would be if the relevant republican decrees were to be rescinded. The inclusion of the eastern regions of Chamchamal, Kalar, and Kifri, especially with the large numbers of internally displaced peoples coming from Kirkuk, would undoubtedly change the ethnic balance of the governorate, which is why the KRG is actively pushing for this to happen. With these changes of boundaries and territorial size in mind, attention shifts to the changes in the demography of Kirkuk. These changes, of course, mirror the territorial accretion and erosion described above but reflect a far more invidious attempt to manipulate Kirkuk’s ethnic profile—through the state-sanctioned enforced expulsion and transfer of peoples.

The First Phase of Arabization, 1925–58: Protecting the Oil From the Kurdish perspective, the Arabization of Kurdish lands by successive Iraqi governments is, along with the Anfal campaign and the destruction of Halabja, among the most salient events in understanding Kurdish suffering in Iraq. Arabization was not, as is commonly supposed, a policy implemented first by the Ba’th regime. Rather, it can be traced directly to the emergence of Kirkuk as the first center of Iraq’s oil industry. Following the discovery of the Kirkuk supergiant field in 1929, the first commercially available oil flowed in 1934. It was clear from the outset that Kirkuk was home to vitally important and huge reserves; yet it was also readily apparent to the first postcolonial Iraqi government that Kirkuk was not an ‘‘Arab’’ town. Rather, from the perspective of the Kurds, it was populated by them and clearly part of Kurdistan Region.

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Map 5. Kirkuk governorate, 2002. The size and location of the Kirkuk governorate are presented relative to surrounding governorate and composite subdistricts of Kirkuk. Adapted by the authors from maps provided by the KRG.

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Similarly, the Turkmen view, while not as clearly defined in nationalist terms as that of the Kurds, still considered Kirkuk to be a city of mixed identity. In truth, the Iraqi government was almost certainly motivated by the presence of Kurds and Turkmens in Kirkuk and the need to consolidate the hold of the still fragile state over its territory of strategic value. The first phase of Arabization was tied intrinsically to the founding of an oil industry and infrastructure in Kirkuk. The first oil company to begin the systematic exploitation of Kirkuk’s resources was the Turkish Petroleum Company. Established in 1914 in Istanbul, but with considerable British shareholding, the TPC continued to work in Kirkuk following the end of the war and by the end of 1925 had conducted extensive surveys and built the infrastructure necessary for large-scale exploitation to take place. The TPC, in conjunction with the British administration and the Iraqi government, brought in significant numbers of migrants to work in the rapidly growing oil sector—with Arabs and Assyrians from other parts of Iraq being employed often instead of the local population. The name of the company was changed to the Iraqi Petroleum Company (IPC) and its headquarters moved to Kirkuk. Following the first oil being pumped, the IPC invested heavily in Kirkuk, which required the further expansion of its workforce. The first export of crude oil took place in 1934, followed by the opening of the dual pipeline transporting crude from Kirkuk to Haifa and Tripoli the year after. Kirkuk quickly became Iraq’s most important economic center. Some four million tons of oil were exported in 1935, placing Iraq firmly in the league of major oil exporters. Its preeminence also brought with it problems for the Iraqi government. Readily aware of continued Kurdish hostility toward the regime after experiencing several revolts, the government moved to socially engineer Kirkuk in order to weaken the Kurdish presence there. This was not a particularly difficult task and was made significantly less so by the fact that the oil industry growing up in Kirkuk needed a cadre of experienced personnel familiar with the workings of a modern oil infrastructure and needed staffing by highly trained technicians and operatives. The local administration of the city and province needed bureaucrats comfortable with the demands imposed by a modernizing state keen to make its mark on the region. Few among the Kurds could meet these requirements, making it easy for the Iraqi government to justify the in-migration of people from other parts of Iraq to Kirkuk. The result was immediate and wide-scale social change in the heart of Kirkuk. New neighborhoods were built—often inside the oil quarters of the city—with these neighborhoods housing the newly arrived migrants living on significantly higher salaries than the indigenous Kirkukis who

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remained. Large numbers of Arabs, mainly from the Obeid and Jibbur tribes, were also settled in and around Hawija, with Kurdish sources claiming that some one thousand Arab families were brought to Hawija between 1936 and 1957.5 It should, therefore, be of little surprise that two dynamics developed in Kirkuk that would shape the contours of the relationships between its different groups over the rest of the century. The first was that leftist parties and organizations espousing communism found Kirkuk, and particularly its Kurdish population, to be fertile ground for recruitment. The second dynamic was the socioeconomic marginalization of the Kurdish community compared to incoming migrants and those Kirkukis who managed to find employment in either the oil industry or government offices. In the case of the latter, the Turkmens largely managed to preserve the position of responsibilities they had enjoyed under the Ottomans. In addition, the Turkmen mercantile business sector benefited from the newly found affluence of those in Kirkuk who worked in the oil industry. The tension was initially clearly caused by disparities of wealth and ability to gain access to the most lucrative of employment opportunities. However, the tension quickly became ethnicized between the Kurds—in effect, the dispossessed or, more accurately, the excluded—on the one side and Arabs and Turkmens on the other.

Conflict in the City The situation in Iraq in 1959 was tense, and problems in Kirkuk may be properly understood only from the perspective of wider Iraqi politics. Following the military coup of 1958 in which the military under the leadership of Qassim had successfully removed the monarchy and its apparatchiks in a bloody show of force in the streets of Baghdad, the politics of Iraq had still not stabilized. Rather, the Iraqi government had struggled to exercise control over the country and, in an attempt to strengthen its position, entered into an alliance with the Iraqi Communist Party (ICP)—a move that Qassim hoped would allow him to keep disaffected nationalists at bay while maintaining some semblance of influence over the increasingly popular Communists.6 In the north of the country and especially in Kirkuk, the ICP was largely composed of Kurds, reflecting a long-standing association between Kurdish nationalist movements and leftist intellectual ideas. In an attempt to ensure that any Kurdish problems could be managed, Qassim allowed for the return from exile of the leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), Mulla Mustafa Barzani.7 A figure with strong views on the future of Kirkuk and with established ties to the Communist Party, Barzani did little to calm the concerns of Turkmens that he did not intend to impose some form of

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Kurdish hegemony in Kirkuk. Still recognized by many leftists as being of bourgeois orientation and increasingly seen by the Kurds as their archrivals in Iraq, the Turkmens of Kirkuk viewed their position with understandable trepidation. For the Turkmens, their fears of a possible Kurdish takeover began to materialize with the appointment of Maarouf Barzinji, a Kurd, as the mayor of Kirkuk in July. Tensions rose following the 14 July revolution celebrations, with animosity in the city polarizing rapidly into two distinctive ethnic groups, Kurds and Turkmens.8 From what appears to have been an accidental collapse into fighting on 14 July, leaving some 20 Turkmens dead, the events of the next two days suggest a high degree of planning and a clear ethnically based conflict between Kurds and Turkmens taking place in the heart of the city. On 15 July, Kurdish soldiers of the Fourth Brigade of the Iraqi army mortared Turkmen residential areas. By the time order was restored on 17 July by military units from Baghdad, 120 houses had been destroyed or plundered. Numbers of casualties vary, with the Iraqi government offering figures of between 31 and 79 dead and some 130 injured.9 While the figures indicate the severity of the event, the details illustrate that the most important mobilizing element was peculiarly ethnic and why the Turkmens refer to it as a ‘‘massacre’’ of them by Kurds. In his expansive chronicle of Iraq’s history, Batatu notes that of the officially reported 31 killed, all but 3 were Turkmens. Of the 28 people executed by the state for their involvement in the killings, only 4 were not Kurdish. In the aftermath of the event, the Kurds believed that they were persecuted not only by the government but also by Turkmens, with secret organizations formed to assassinate the most prominent Kurds in a successful attempt to harry Kurdish families out of the city. From 1959 onward Kurds who could move actively sought to leave Kirkuk—such had their personal security conditions deteriorated. In addition to those who wanted to leave, many Kurdish state employees (teachers, civil servants, and others) were simply transferred to central or southern Iraq. Kurdish political organizations, particularly the KDP, were ruthlessly suppressed. Following the first Ba’th coup of 1963, the persecution of the Kurds became even worse as both Kurdish nationalists and communists were viewed to be the direct opponents of the newly installed, dangerously unstable military-Ba’thist regime.

The Second Phase of Arabization, 1963–68: The Turn of the Military Worse was to come for the Kurds. The peshmerga had become more invigorated following events in Iran that had seen the brief existence of the

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Kurdish republic in Mahabad in 1946. Concerned about the ever-present threat posed to the security of Kirkuk by increasingly well-organized peshmerga, the Iraqi government moved to weaken the Kurdish hold on the entirety of the governorate and, in particular, to ensure that areas around the pipelines running from Kirkuk to the southwest were protected. Kurds living in proximity to the pipelines were replaced with more reliable Arabs. Further Arabization strategies were then implemented. Beginning in the mid-1930s the Iraqi government had begun the construction of a vast irrigation project around the Hawija plains, southwest of Kirkuk—claimed by the Kurds as traditional grazing land, which they shared occasionally with nomadic Arab tribes, including the al-Ubaid and the al-Jibbur, who migrated from the south. Upon completion, tracks of lands were given not to the Kurdish inhabitants but to the sporadic Arab visitors, in addition to the Qaraj plains in the south of Erbil Province and the Qara-Teppe plains in the south of Kifri—in effect creating an Arab bridge protecting the oil pipelines and altering the demographic balance of Diyala, Erbil, and, most importantly, Kirkuk Provinces in favor of the Arab population.10 The 1957 census accounted for some 27,705 Arabs living in the district of Hawija, with the district formally being incorporated into Kirkuk. From a Kurdish perspective, this was an act of gross gerrymandering, and it brought into their environment a significant body of people who have constituted a security threat to them ever since. Indeed, it is not only in the post-2003 period that Kurds have viewed the Arabs of Hawija as implacably hostile. Nouri Talabany, a famed Kurdish lawyer and academic, has noted that following the commencement of the Kurdish revolution in 1961, many Arabs from Hawija were organized into irregular military units tasked with carrying out attacks on Kurdish villages presumed to be assisting Kurdish peshmerga. During one attack in 1963, the popular Arab chant was ‘‘ihna al-Arab, ahl il gheera; natrud al-Akrad, min haldir’’—‘‘Arabs we are, and zealous folk; we shall expel the Kurds from these lands.’’11 The period of military rule in Iraq from 1963 to 1968 constituted a truly horrendous period for the Kirkuki Kurds. With the Kurdish revolution achieving several successes against the Iraqi army in the high mountains, the regime remained more determined than ever to ensure that its hold on Kirkuk remained resolute, and it sought to take revenge on the Kurds of Kirkuk as a substitute for not being able to take it directly against the KDP. Kurdish neighborhoods in Kirkuk were demolished (most notably Koma’ri); Kurdish villages near the city were destroyed;12 Kurds in Dibis were expelled and replaced with Arab tribes, in some thirty-five villages; similar numbers of villages were Arabized in Sargaran and Kandinawa districts;13 Kurds working in the oil industry were

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expelled or transferred outside the province; Arabs were brought into the local police force; names of schools and streets were changed from Kurdish to Arabic; and a large-scale militarization of the province was undertaken, including the establishment of security zones around oil facilities.14 From the Kurdish perspective, the 1960s constituted a turning point in their relationship with the Iraqi state. The events of the previous decades, while often brutal and tragic, were the understandable (if not excusable) actions of a state seeking to secure a valuable region. The 1960s, however, were different. The overt Arabization of Kirkuk combined with its concomitant de-Kurdification had become a clear strategy of the government, one pursued with deadly vigor. Ethnic difference became the defining logic of the strategy. The 1960s also saw the Kurdish-Turkmen relationship become increasingly strained following the massacre of 1959. For the Kurds, the 1960s did not constitute the climax of their suffering at the hands of the Iraqi state. Indeed, much worse was to come.

The Third Phase of Arabization, 1968–74: Ba’th Consolidation The Kurds were not the only ones to have found the 1960s a troublesome decade. The Ba’th Party had struggled to survive in the political upheavals that were endemic in the political life of the country. After successfully joining forces with the military to remove President Qassim from power in 1963, Ba’th Party figures were appointed to important positions in the government. Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr, for example, was made prime minister, with Ali Salih al-Sa’di his deputy.15 Yet while the Ba’th government proved adept at persecuting the remnants of support that existed for the deposed regime and targeted the ICP with considerable ferocity, it proved unable to counter the momentum that was growing behind the Kurdish revolution that had been ongoing since 1961. Increasingly criticized from inside Iraq and, perhaps more importantly, from outside—in particular by President Nasser of Egypt—the military allies of the Ba’th Party turned against it, unceremoniously pushing members out of office on 18 November 1963. The Ba’thists’ fall from power was a painful experience for the still young party, but one from which lessons were quickly learned. Foremost among these was the obvious need to craft a strategy to deal with the Kurdish threat permanently. The Ba’thists regrouped and reorganized themselves throughout the rest of the 1960s and returned to power in alliance once more with the military on 17 July 1968. While the revolution of July 1968 was again a collaborative effort between the Ba’th and military officers, this time the

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tables were turned, and members of the Ba’th Party ensured that they, not the military, would be the new masters. The new Ba’th president, Ahmad Hassan al-Bakr, along with his colleagues Salih Mahdi Ammash and Hardan al-Tikriti, quickly removed the coalition of its most important military figures and then turned on the ICP and the Kurds to counter any short-term threats to the regime.16 However, the Ba’thists believed that short-term solutions to threats posed to their survivability and domestic strength were not enough. Instead, they moved to resolve the problem once and for all. For the Kurds, the new Ba’th government was even worse than what had preceded it. Rather than curtailing the worst aspects of the Arabization policy and the overall persecution of the Kurds, the Ba’th regime identified the policy as being one of its most important ones and sought to further target the Kurdish presence in Kurdistan in general and in Kirkuk in particular. After consolidating their hold on power, the Ba’thists embraced the Arabization policies of the previous regime with even greater vigor. In addition to the moving of civil servants and the continued imposition of Arabic names instead of the previous Kurdish and Turkmen ones, new strategies were designed. The intensity of the targeting of Kirkuk’s Kurds peaked at moments of key political instability, and yet the new Ba’th government needed to secure itself political space and time in which to regroup in order to impose its will. In a clear illustration of the weakness of the Iraqi government by 1970, the number-two governmental figure, Saddam Hussein, traveled north to meet with Mustafa Barzani face-to-face and presented him with blank sheets of paper on which the Kurdish leader could make his demands.17 Kirkuk, however, remained a disputed territory— demanded by Barzani but refused by the government. The solution— again designed to give the Iraqi government time to nurture a political environment and engineer a military capability through which to dilute the Kurdish threat—was in effect to stall the process. Rather than determining Kirkuk’s future one way or the other, the government agreed that the final boundary of the Kurdish autonomous region would depend on where there was a proven majority of Kurds as shown by plebiscite or census.18 In the meantime, what became known as the ‘‘March Agreement’’ was signed. Even without the inclusion of Kirkuk, the agreement was clearly the most comprehensive ever presented to the Kurds. In addition to recognition of the autonomous region, Kurds would be educated in their own language, be governed by Kurdish-speaking officials, receive specific funds for development, be recognized as one of the two nationalities that comprised the Iraqi people (along with Arabs), and be granted one of the vice-presidential positions in Baghdad. However, with hind-

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sight, it seems clear the Ba’th regime acted with considerable cynicism. Following the signing of the agreement, significant discontent began to be felt among Kurdistan’s political elites as they believed that promises made in the agreement either were not being implemented quickly enough or were not being implemented at all. The discontent was not confined only to the Kurds. Emphasising the exasperation felt in Baghdad, the Iraqi government attempted to assassinate Mulla Mustafa Barzani on two occasions in 1972, while his son Idris was the target of a failed assassination attempt in Baghdad. At the root of this deterioration of relations remained the status of Kirkuk. Following 1970 and Barzani’s demands to include Kirkuk within an autonomous region, newly invigorated actions were undertaken to further weaken the presence of Kurds in the city in preparation for any future census. The new Arab arrivals—who had been coming since the 1950s—were recorded in the registers as resident in Kirkuk for many years before, in what Talabany refers to as the state practice of official fraud.19 The ability of Kirkuki Kurds to conduct the normal business necessary to everyday life was severely curtailed. Kurds were forbidden to sell property unless selling to Arabs and were banned from buying property under any circumstances. Kurds who owned properties that were badly dilapidated—suffering from years if not decades of neglect and underinvestment—were denied permission for renovation, condemning many to an existence of dire poverty. The political marginalization of the Kurds was also clearly evident with the transfer of the governorate’s administrative offices from the Kurdish to the Arabized section of the city.20 The further in-migration of Arab families continued unabated under the second Ba’th regime, with tens of thousands of families being paid to move to Kirkuk with the additional benefits of guaranteed housing and employment—usually in the administration of the governorate or in the rapidly expanding security services. In addition, the government attempted to provide a financial inducement to the Kurdish population to leave by offering a financial package to any person willing to leave Kirkuk for towns in the center or south of Iraq. The construction of settlements specifically for incoming Arab migrants in the early 1970s escalated exponentially. Spurred by the demands of Barzani to include Kirkuk within the Kurdish autonomous region as outlined in the March Agreement of 1970, the Iraqi government moved with renewed vigor to engineer the demography of the city and province to show at least an Arab plurality if not an outright majority. Nouri Talabany, for example, notes that some six hundred houses were built in the Kurdish quarters of Azadi and Iskan, near the road connecting Kirkuk to Sulaimania, and given the Arabic name of Al-Kara-

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mah. In addition to the settlement, an army camp was built adjacent to it in order to provide security to its population. This scheme was put in place immediately following the signing of the 11 March 1970 agreement between the Ba’th regime and Mustafa Barzani and was followed by the construction of a further five hundred houses built next to AlKamarah and named Al-Muthana.21 Tension grew quickly between Mulla Mustafa Barzani and the regime, with the former accusing the government of locating Arabs in disputed areas, including Kirkuk and Sinjar, and going so far as to tell the government that the results of any census held in these territories would be unacceptable to him.22 Following the collapse of negotiations between the KDP and the Iraqi government in March 1974, the Ba’th regime unilaterally announced the Autonomy Law for Iraqi Kurdistan, which also codified the existence of a Kurdistan Autonomous Region, but one that was greatly attenuated—including only half the land claimed by the Kurds and, of course, excluding Kirkuk.23 The KDP rejected the law outright, and open conflict between peshmerga and government forces again resumed. Benefiting from years of experience of fighting in the mountains, and from the support of Iran, Barzani’s forces proved to be more than a match for the Iraqi military formations arrayed against them.24 However, Saddam Hussein was no longer in the weak position he once was. Having ensured the stability of the regime, the Iraqi leadership had entered into negotiations with the Kurds’ greatest ally, Iran, breaking the bond of opportunism that existed between Tehran and Barzani by giving to Iran the coveted Shatt al-Arab waterway in the south. What became known as the ‘‘Algiers Agreement’’ between Iran and Iraq of March 1975 was a body blow to the Kurdish insurgency in Iraq from which it took over a decade to recover. With the withdrawal of Iranian support from the Kurds, the rebellion collapsed, and Barzani left Iraq, never to return.25

The Fourth Phase of Arabization, 1975–87: Routing the Kurds To ensure that the Kurds could never again claim that they had a majority of the population in the governorate, the Ba’th regime embarked upon a deeper Arabization of the region, with tens of thousands of families moved off their land to sites in the southern deserts. The scale of the population movements was truly awesome, with Human Rights Watch (HRW) noting that ‘‘[b]y the late 1970s, the Iraqi government had forcibly evacuated at least a quarter of a million Kurdish men, women, and children from areas bordering Iran and Turkey. Their villages were destroyed to create a cordon sanitaire along these sensitive frontiers,

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and the inhabitants relocated to settlements built for that purpose located on the main highways in army-controlled areas of Iraq Kurdistan.’’26 The expulsion of Kurds was matched by an even more excessive round of Arab immigration. In 1979 alone some two thousand houses were built in New Kirkuk, and a further four thousand were added to the scheme in subsequent years. A further extensive building program was undertaken in the early years of the Iran-Iraq War, with at least two hundred houses built for ‘‘Saddam’s Qadisiyyah Martyrs’’—relatives of those killed in the war. The Kurdish researcher Shorsh Resool wrote the following: ‘‘After the collapse of the Kurdish movement in March 1975, the Iraqi government implemented all types of Arabization. It included deporting Kurds from the city to Kerkuk, building Arab neighborhoods inside the city and settling Arabs in them, building modern villages around Kerkuk then bringing Arabs from the south and middle of Iraq to settle there, and forcing Kurdish tribes to change their nationalities to Arabic. All of these methods of Arabization were implemented in a more vicious way [than before].’’27 The Arabization policy was not merely the brutal application of force. In addition, the new realities on the ground were codified in law. When Kurds or Turkmens were moved, for example, their property deeds were invalidated by decree, while agricultural lands were formally nationalized.28 In addition, incoming Arab families were legally recognized by the offices of the state, as were their properties and landholdings. While these incoming Arabs are now commonly castigated by Kurds as ‘‘occupiers,’’ moving to Kirkuk in the 1970s and 1980s was viewed as something of an obvious choice for them to have made. HRW quoted one ‘‘elderly Arab tribesman’’ from the al-Hadidi tribe, who explained how forty-seven families from his tribe went to the Kurdish village of Khani Siddiq in 1975: ‘‘We went to Khani Siddiq in 1975. Before, we were living from place to place in the al-Jazeera desert, in our tents. We owned no land. The government came to us and said they would take us to villages in the north. The government kicked out the Kurds and gave them compensation, and then brought us. The government didn’t force us to go to the north. They came and asked us if we had lands and we said no. They said that if anyone wanted to go to the north, they would take us. We were very happy to go to the north because we had no irrigated lands in the south.’’29 It is salutary to consider the deep effect that the Arabization process had not only on the demographic balance of the city but also on how communities viewed each other. Communal identities had been hardening since the 1950s, with the massacre of 1959 showing the intense animosity that had developed between Kurds and Turkmens. However, in

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terms of understanding how today’s Kirkukis feel about each other, it is the impact of actions taken in the 1970s and 1980s that is perhaps more apparent. People aged ten to twenty years old then are now between thirty and fifty years old and recount their experiences in Kirkuk as recent and relevant. Many of these people are also the most politically active and involved in the struggle over Kirkuk’s future. Their stories are widespread and numerous. One Kurdish interviewee, Sonja Khalil, who was ten years old at the beginning of the 1980s, illustrated clearly how her life changed as the government’s policies began to take effect: ‘‘When I was five years old, I had many friends. They were not only Kurds. They were Arabs, Turkmens, Christians as well. We were children. We did not think about ethnicity or religion. This changed following the start of the war with Iran. The relationships became different. Arabic had to be used all the time. It made me feel even more Kurdish. By 1986, everyone knew of the Anfal and how the Kurds were being oppressed. I felt in great danger. One day, when I was 14 years old, a friend had a photograph of Barzani in school which a teacher found. We didn’t see him again. This was when I realized I was a Kurd and what it meant to be a Kurd.’’30

The Final Phase of Arabization, 1987–2003: The Ba’thists’ Final Solution The Arabization policy was given further impetus with the appointment in 1987 of Ali Hassan al-Majid (better known as ‘‘Chemical Ali’’ due to his deployment of chemical weapons against Kurds in the Anfal campaign of the 1980s) as secretary general of the Northern Bureau of the Ba’th Party, with its headquarters in Kirkuk. The completion of the Arabization of Kirkuk was at the top of al-Majid’s agenda. This policy was to reach its zenith in the 1990s. Saddam Hussein ordered his forces into Kuwait in August 1990 in a move calculated to restore national pride following the devastating attrition inflicted by the war with Iran in the 1980s while also securing access to Kuwait’s oil reserves. With Kuwait invaded and Saudi Arabia threatened, the West quickly mobilized an international ‘‘coalition of the willing’’ to protect Saudi Arabia and oust Saddam’s forces from Kuwait. Operation Desert Storm—the liberation of Kuwait—commenced on 17 January 1991. The subsequent rout of Iraqi forces exposed the regime to a possible coup, and in the chaos of the days following Iraq’s defeat, spontaneous uprisings broke out first in the south of Iraq on 1 March, followed soon after by a rebellion in Kurdistan starting on 4 March. Kirkuk quickly fell to the rebels, along with every other major urban center, before the Iraqi military regrouped and recaptured Kirkuk on 29 March.

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The events of 1991 proved to be of even greater concern to the regime than had the threats posed to Kirkuk by Barzani in the 1970s. With the US and the UK protecting areas north of the thirty-sixth parallel (including Erbil and Dohuk) and making clear that the security of other Kurdish population centers north of the Green Line dividing Iraqi government-controlled land from that of the fledgling Kurdistan Region would also be maintained, the Iraqi government took steps to ensure that its hold on Kirkuk was maintained. The immediate effect of the establishment of the Kurdistan Region was population movements on both sides. The newly empowered Kurds removed from territory north of the Green Line any Arab families brought to the northern governorates by the regime. These expelled Arabs were then relocated by the Iraqi government to Kurdish lands in government-controlled Kirkuk. However, as the regime became increasingly sensitive to the existence of a meaningful de facto state in the Kurdistan Region, it intensified its drive to Arabize Kirkuk. Within Kirkuk city and governorate, the regime distributed ‘‘ethnic identity correction’’ forms to Kurds, Turkmens, and Assyrians that required them to register themselves as Arabs.31 Particularly troublesome Kurdish neighborhoods were simply leveled and their populations expelled to the Kurdistan Region.32 While it is difficult to put an exact figure to the number of people affected by the regime’s actions in the 1990s, it seems reasonable to assert that some 120,000 persons were displaced from Kirkuk between 1991 and 2000,33 with most of these finding shelter in dilapidated makeshift camps in the Kurdistan Region and receiving only the most basic of support from the KRG or the UN agencies operating there. The overall effects of Arabization were staggering. The demography of northern Iraq was radically transformed particularly from 1960 onward, and Kirkuk in particular experienced more change than any other city in the region. To what degree the north of Iraq had been transformed can only be estimated—such is the unreliability of available figures—but even the most unreliable data sets illustrate clearly that something extremely significant had occurred in Kirkuk in the second half of the century.

The Numbers Game By far the most influential data set of relevance to the current debate is that provided by the government of Iraq census of 1957. In this census people were asked to list their mother tongues. Of course, this would give results that could be questioned (and are) according to whether language is a sufficient or appropriate indicator of ethnic identity, but

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Table 2.2. 1957 Census Results for Kirkuk Province

Mother tongue Arabic Kurdish Turkish Syriac (Christian) Hebrew Other Total

Kirkuk City

Rest of Province

Total

Percentage of Total Population

27,127 40,047 45,306 1,509 101 6,330 120,402

82,493 147,546 38,065 96 22 215 268,437

109,620 187,593 83,371 1,605 123 6,545 388,829

28.2 48.2 21.4 0.4 0.03 1.77 100

Source: 1957 Census.

Table 2.3. Comparison of 1957, 1977, and 1997 Censuses 1957 Census Kurds Arabsi Turkmens Total

Percentage

187,593 109,620 83,371 388,829

48 28 21

1977 Census 184,875 218,755 80,347 483,977

1997 Census

Percentage 38 45 17

155,861 544,596 50,099 752,745ii

Percentage 21 72 7

Sources: 1957 Census; 1977 Census; 1997 Census. i All Christians were registered as Arabs. ii This figure includes other smaller minorities.

according to Bruinessen, the census categories were conceived more as an indicator of ethnicity rather than purely of language choice—hence the inclusion of specifically ‘‘ethnic’’ categories of Syriac and Hebrew.34 The 1957 census results for Kirkuk Province are seen in Table 2.2. The 1957 census has been recognized by the majority of the protagonists in Iraq as being the most accurate set of statistics available on which at least to begin a discussion about Kirkuk’s future if not actually decide it. Later censuses would prove to be far more problematic as they were reflections of the Arabization policies of the Ba’th regime rather than of any organic process of social movement and demographic change. Even so, for the purposes of building an understanding of the current situation in Kirkuk, the figures in Table 2.3 provide valuable insights into the changes imposed particularly from 1968 onward. The pattern presented by the census data over a forty-year period is clear. First, the population of Kirkuk expanded considerably, nearly doubling in size. However, this increase in numbers was through the inmigration of Arab settlers, with the Arab community of Kirkuk increasing nearly fivefold over the period. Interestingly, the absolute numbers

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of Kurds living in Kirkuk remained reasonably stable between 1957 and 1977 even though their relative proportion declined. The Kurdish population decreased in an absolute sense in the period 1977–97, clearly coinciding with the worst moments of the Kurdish experience in Iraq—in the 1980s—and the reinvigorated Arabization of Kirkuk that characterized the 1990s in general. The status of the Turkmens in these censuses is of considerable interest. At no point could they be considered to have constituted even a plurality within the governorate, and they were seemingly affected greatly as a community by the Arabization process, with their relative population proportion decreasing from 21 percent in 1957 to a mere 7 percent in 1997. These figures have considerable ramifications when it comes to considering the current Turkmen claim that they constitute at least a plurality within the city. Even if it is accepted that the majority of Turkmens inhabit the city, it remains highly unlikely that they could constitute a plurality of the population as they did in 1957 (with some 45 percent of Kirkuk city’s residents registered as Turkmens), given the years of relative decline, the widespread in-migration of Arabs, and the maintenance of a sizable, if diminished Kurdish community. Of course, this analysis is based on an assumption that citizens responded accurately and truthfully. Yet many commentators would contend that this often did not happen. The pressure imposed upon individuals, for example, to register themselves not as Kurds or Turkmens but as Arabs was often intense, particularly in the later censuses,to prevent being evicted or forced to flee their hometown. The numbers presented also bear little resemblance to what is now the case on the ground in Kirkuk. In the aftermath of Operation Iraqi Freedom, many of the wafideen Arabs (those brought into Kirkuk as part of the Arabization process) fled their land, and many Kurds returned to their former properties. In short, while the Iraqi censuses offer valuable data regarding the ethnic composition of Kirkuk, explicitly before the Ba’thists came to power, they are difficult to employ accurately when discussing the current situation. Arabization was a pernicious policy aimed at homogenizing Kirkuk’s population in order to remove what was perceived as a threat posed by non-Arab populations. However, it was only one means of achieving a particular goal of controlling Kirkuk’s oil and eliminating any possible challenge to its ownership in the future. While Kurds and Turkmens were being expelled and Arabs encouraged to settle in their place, the Iraqi government was also changing the way it managed the oil resources of Kirkuk.

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Bleeding Kirkuk Dry From 1991 on the Iraqi government moved to ensure that the Kurdish threat posed to Kirkuk’s ownership would be removed and that the exploitation of the oil field would be strategically managed. The former was achieved by an increase in the Arabization process and the expulsion of non-Arabs—mainly Kurds—to the Kurdistan Region. The latter strategy proved to be just as damaging in an environmental and economic sense. If the problem of Kirkuk was the presence of oil, then it made sense for the oil to be removed. The government therefore embarked upon a policy of systematically overpumping the Kirkuk reservoir—the logic being that it would be better to exploit potentially unstable Kirkuk first, while maintaining the quality and quantity of oil reserves in the supergiant fields in the south. With approximately one-fifth of Iraq’s oil reserves, Kirkuk consistently provided around a third of Iraq’s production. The result was a decline in the crude oil qualities of Kirkuk, combined with the damaging intrusion of water into the oil reservoirs caused by overpumping. The scale at which Kirkuk was overexploited in the 1990s is staggering. With an optimal production rate of 250,000 bbl/d, oil production from Kirkuk peaked at 680,000 bbl/d in the run-up to 2003.35 This overproduction was combined with what some analysts have referred to as the purposeful mismanagement of the field but which in reality was the purposefully unsustainable management. To maintain production rates, for example, excess fuel oil was reinjected into the oil-bearing strata.36 Some analysts contend that as much as 1.5 billion barrels of fuel oil were reinjected into the reservoir. Ultimately such actions reduced the quality of Kirkuk’s oil and increased the viscosity of the crude, making it considerably more expensive to remove from the ground. By 2003, and following an extensive report authored by UN consultants on the state of Iraq’s oil industry, speculation was rife that the Kirkuk reservoir and oil infrastructure had been seriously—perhaps irreparably—degraded. While the reservoir was damaged, perhaps severely, during the latter days of the Ba’th regime’s existence, the direst predictions about Kirkuk’s reservoir were exaggerated. Kirkuk remains a valuable and important component of the Iraqi oil industry, and its importance heightened following 2003. With the status of the city and its possible inclusion in the Kurdistan Region becoming a critical issue on the table of Iraq’s post-Ba’thist leaders and US advisers, attention became once again focused on the importance of Kirkuk not only to Iraq but also to the Kurds as a potential resource base for independence. Complicating this situation further was

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the opportunity provided to the KRG by the constitution of Iraq to seek to develop its own regional oil industry by exploiting reserves previously left untouched that lay within territory recognized as being part of the Kurdistan Region, or claimed as such. Quickly the issue of the administrative identity of Kirkuk became caught up in highly complex discussions involving how oil in fields deemed ‘‘in production’’ (that is, Kirkuk) would be managed compared with those identified as ‘‘undeveloped.’’ The problem was complicated by the fact that there exists a sizable number of ‘‘undeveloped’’ oil fields (which may be part of the larger Kirkuk structure) lying adjacent to Kirkuk but in the Kurdistan Region as defined in the constitution and before the inclusion of any further territories.

Iraq’s Oil Industry since 2003 According to the most recent accepted statistics available concerning oil reserves, from 2001, Iraq’s proven oil reserves amount to some 115 billion barrels. However, geologists and oil industry experts speculate that a further 45 to 100 billion barrels could be under the western and southern deserts. Perhaps most importantly, Iraq has significant room to increase production, particularly as it has the lowest reserve-to-production ratio of the major oil-producing countries.37 Of the proven reserves, it is estimated that one-fifth are located in the Kirkuk reservoir, with Kirkuk alone having the current capacity to produce 250,000 bbl/d and with the Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimating that this could be increased to 600,000 bbl/d if the necessary infrastructural investments occurred. Oil from Kirkuk feeds into the Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline, which is nominally capable of handling 1.2 million barrels per day. The first postwar oil production in Iraq began on 22 April 2003 from the southern Rumaila field. By March 2004 output had reached some 2.5 million bbl/d. Output varied hugely and nowhere more so than in Kirkuk. Oil once again flowed from the Kirkuk reservoir into the Ceyhan pipeline on 13 August 2003 but was quickly shut down following insurgent attacks a few days later. It did not reopen again until March 2004. Largely because of instability and the legacy of decades of underinvestment, Kirkuk has still not matched the levels of production it displayed in the 1990s of 700,000 bbl/d when the Ba’th regime was purposefully pumping oil at unsustainable levels. While the fields of the south have largely been producing oil nearly at preinvasion levels, Kirkuk has struggled to rise above 200,000 bbd/d due to reservoir damage, the decrepit state of the infrastructure, and, of course, insurgent attacks against the pipelines, which have on several occasions stopped oil production com-

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pletely. It was, however, the damage done to the reservoir by the years of overproduction that caused most concern. Before the war, in 2000, the team of UN experts mentioned earlier reported on the precarious state of the Baba and Avanah domes (two of the most important of the Kirkuk structure) and, with specific reference to water injection strategies, warned that ‘‘the possibility of irreversible damage to the reservoir of this super-giant field is now imminent.’’38 Whether by choice or by circumstance, this stark warning seemed to have been taken in by the new administrators of Kirkuk following the deposing of Saddam’s regime. The deterioration of the status of Kirkuk in Iraq’s overall oil industry was reported by the Iraqi Ministry of Oil in May 2007. Not only was the production from the northern fields a paltry 206,000 bbl/d, but also none of this oil was exported. Rather, all of it was allocated directly for domestic consumption.39 The Kirkuk field seemed to be no longer the prize it once was.

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Part II Three Ethnopolitical Perspectives

Territories over which ownership is contested feature prominently in conflicts across the world. Few of them are straightforward. Instead, they are often the end products of decades, even centuries, of political, social, and economic interactions that manifest themselves in the present as seemingly intractable examples of ethnic hatred, grounded in the perennial divisions between peoples who have failed to come to terms with their differences. In the Middle East, Jerusalem stands out as the most emotive symbol of the struggle between Palestinians and Israelis, each of them viewing it as their own for intertwined religious and historical reasons. In Europe, Belfast is now recovering from its years as the battleground of Protestant Unionists and Catholic Republicans, but the scars left on Northern Irish society will remain raw for many decades to come. Mostar is yet another example of a divided city over which modern hatreds become merged with the symbols and myths of ancient hatreds, and which again will remain emblematic of the terrible interethnic conflict that wracked the Balkans in the 1990s.1 Charged historical narratives commonly essentialize the community whose position is being presented and castigate those whom they oppose. Conflict is a common feature of these disputes, although its intensity may vary. In addition to conflict, a further perennial feature seems to be the inability of the international community to involve itself in such disputes in an attempt at least to alleviate some of the pressure that has built. Instead, the problems of disputed territories are often used by external actors to benefit their own immediate national security concerns. It is only after tensions have reached their peak that more humanitarian actions seem to emerge. Whether as the initiative of a particular state or through the agencies of international/suprastate organi-

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zations such as the United Nations, the European Union (EU), or the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), external involvement then often assumes the form of an impartial actor working toward an equitable resolution of the dispute. This external involvement nearly always favors an ideal resolution that expects involved parties to agree to what they could never agree to in the past—power sharing or some form of devised coexistence within a complex framework that promotes interethnic harmony, minority rights, and a process of often unclear ‘‘normalization.’’ With this in mind, dispassionate narratives of history are then forced to take a backseat in any process of resolution. It is often problematic for one narrative to be accepted unquestioningly over others as singular interpretations tend to point toward the legitimacy and hence legality of the claims of only one of the interested communities. The objective truth matters and may be ascertainable, but the subjective collective narratives of the relevant communities are often of more relevance in the negotiation of such disputes. The importance of these representations is not just in how they present the perceived history of the community in question but also in how they attempt to portray (or not, in the case of some more exclusivist accounts) ‘‘the others’’’ in the conflict. These subjective perspectives form the focus of the following analysis. There is no attempt to identify a particular ‘‘truth’’ among the different Kirkuk narratives in part because the ‘‘truth’’ is invariably difficult to establish and also because the facts, in some ways, are irrelevant. Opinions and the management of them are everything. In short, it makes no difference if a definitive history of Kirkuk (if works of history can ever be referred to as ‘‘definitive’’) shows conclusively that its original inhabitants were and have always been Turkmens from time immemorial or that the city was in fact the regional capital of a wealthy Kurdish emirate several centuries ago and has been part of some wider Kurdish region since then. The critical issue is how each community views its own claim and, by extension, the claims of those around them. With this in mind, the chapters in Part II present the views of the Kirkuk situation from the perspective of the three principal communities: the Kurds, the Turkmens, and the Arabs.

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Chapter 3 The Post-2003 Iraqi Context

No disputed territory exists in isolation from its wider geopolitical context. Kirkuk’s history and geopolitical situation, however, seem tailormade to produce interethnic struggle. From being a largely cosmopolitan town of the Ottoman Empire, with a mainly Turkish-speaking bureaucracy and elite (irrespective of whether or not these were in fact Turkmens, Kurds, or Arabs), Iraq was reinvented in the aftermath of World War I, which introduced new relationships between communities and the state. Increasingly communities became empowered or weakened on the basis of their ethnic and religious identities as a new ‘‘dominant nationhood’’ largely imbued by notions of Arabism and associated with (mainly) Sunni elites left over from the Ottoman period began to take hold.1 The discovery of oil north of the town in 1929 introduced a new dynamic that had not existed before into the interethnic balance. Far from being a provincial town in a province some distance from the center of the state, Kirkuk was now the focal point of Iraq’s economy with a strategic resource of global importance. The growing oil industry brought with it not only economic migrants performing the tasks demanded by a rapidly growing enterprise but also the need for the state to secure the resource from any possible regional or internal threat. The securing of Kirkuk was the raison d’eˆtre behind the policies of Arabizing Kirkuk, which every subsequent Iraqi government pursued to ever increasing degrees and which culminated with the actions of mass deportation ordered by Saddam’s regime from the late 1970s on. It was not only Kurds who were removed by the Arabization policies. Turkmens and Christians were also forcibly evicted. However, it is the Kurds who identify the Arabization of Kirkuk as a state atrocity against them to a degree not generally shared by their Kirkuki neighbors. Along with the genocidal Anfal campaign, which aimed to systematically depopulate the rural regions of Kurdistan, and the accompanying use of chemical weapons against Kurdish villages in the 1980s—manifest most

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brutally by the attack on Halabja in 1988—the Arabization of Kirkuk holds a particularly emotive place in the hearts and minds of Kurds, and it acted as a rallying point for the reinvigorated Kurdish nationalist movement that emerged in the 1990s. While the Iraqi government maintained the ability to control or at least marginalize the Kurds in the 1970s and 1980s, the establishment of an autonomous Kurdistan Region in 1991 gave political space to the Kurds and their leaders. In this space, notions of injustices intermingled with a heightening of the Kurds’ sense of distinctiveness from those around them. Some more nationalist-minded Kurds, though rarely from the leaderships of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and the KDP, began to consider how an independent Kurdistan could emerge and how it would be able to provide for itself. It was in this environment that Kirkuk became the most important nationalist symbol, after the destruction of Halabja, of Kurdish oppression at the hands of the Iraqi government. Kirkuk continues to be seen as a lingering injustice by many Kurds. Its relative importance as a mobilizing force for Kurdish nationalism began to outweigh the examples of the Anfal campaign and the destruction of Halabja, which for many young Kurds were already firmly rooted in a history that, if not dim, was increasingly distant. Kirkuk, however, is palpable, nearby, and unresolved. The emergence of the Kurds as powerful political actors in Iraq who have the overt intention of unifying Kirkuk with the Kurdistan Region brought with it a predictably antagonistic reaction from Turkmens, Arabs, and Christians. Violence between Turkmens and Kurds had broken out sporadically in the Kurdistan Region in the 1990s. The Kurdish parties considered the most vocal Turkmen party, the Iraqi Turkmen Front, to be little more than the proxy of Ankara. For its part, the ITF believed that the Kurdish leadership wanted to eradicate any meaningful non-Kurdish presence in the region. Christians enjoyed a somewhat better relationship with the Kurdish parties heading the Kurdistan Region, with some important KDP members hailing from the community and with several prominent Christian organizations being funded by the Kurdish parties. Yet a distinct element among the Christian community remained highly critical of what was perceived to be a Kurdish plan to dominate the region. Most critical of the KDP, the PUK, and the KRG was and is the Assyrian Democratic Movement (ADM), a party with a large diaspora membership, which remains highly critical of the failings of the KRG to the international community. While members of the ADM stayed focused on the plight of Christians across Iraq (and especially in Baghdad, Mosul, and areas in the Kurdistan Region), they also maintained interest in Kirkuk, ostensibly due to their belief that the city was originally founded by their ancestors.

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The claims and counterclaims on the status of Kirkuk among Kurds, Arabs, and Turkmens are taking place within a wider political framework. The future of Kirkuk is intrinsically linked to the future of Iraq itself as the dispute over Kirkuk may easily undermine the cohesiveness of the Iraqi government (which remains in a precarious state in the best of times). Negotiation and compromise are the keys to ensuring that the problems of Kirkuk do not spill over into the rest of Iraq or act as a catalyst for further intercommunal problems. Yet compromise is easier to talk about than to achieve. Resolving Kirkuk in a manner deemed unacceptable to the powerful Kurdish parties is simply not a possibility as it would almost certainly result in their withdrawal from the political structures of Baghdad (including the presidency council, the government, and the council of representatives) and the removal of Kurds from the Iraqi security services (resulting in their considerable weakening if not actual collapse). It might possibly see the Kurds bring Kirkuk into Kurdistan by extraconstitutional means (that is, by occupation) followed by a contested secession. Yet resolving Kirkuk in a way that ostracizes the Turkmens, Arabs, and Christians is almost equally problematic, both for the Iraqi and the Kurdistan regional governments. The latter would have to deal with recalcitrant and capable populations that enjoy strong links to neighboring states and to Arab Iraq. For the former, any resolution of Kirkuk deemed unacceptable to non-Kurds will be perceived as weakness in the face of Kurdish strength and might result in the fall of the incumbent government. For the wider Middle East region, the future of Kirkuk and indeed other disputed territories in Iraq is of crucial importance. Until agreements are reached, the political process in Iraq remains in a state of disarray. With internal boundaries between the Kurdistan Region and the Iraqi government undefined, and with arguments raging over the legality of Kurdistan’s actions in signing agreements with oil industry investors, Iraq and the KRG have little prospect of stability or prosperity.

The Actors Situations in which two groups are in conflict over the same territory are by far the most common in the context of disputed cities. Few can deny the complexity of the disputes and the sophistication of efforts made to resolve the disputes over Jerusalem, Belfast, and Sarajevo. However, it is equally evident that as the number of concerned parties increases, so the complexity of dispute increases accordingly. Kirkuk is contested by three main communities—Kurds, Arabs, and Turkmens. In addition, there exist other interested parties—namely the small Christian commu-

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nity that claims Kirkuk is built upon the city of Arrapha founded by the ancient Assyrians several millennia ago. Each of these communities projects a specific narrative about itself and also about the legitimacy of the claims made by its neighbors. As is to be expected, these narratives only rarely match. Complicating this already confused picture is the fact that the interested communities are, to a greater or lesser degree, not homogenous. The Kurds have the most coherent narrative regarding Kirkuk’s history and future. Much the same narrative exists at both the popular and elite levels. However, while the KDP, led by KRG president Massoud Barzani, and Jalal Talabani’s PUK remain largely unified on issues pertaining to Kirkuk, it is clear that the KDP pursues a harder line on bringing Kirkuk ‘‘into’’ the Kurdistan Region than does the PUK. At the same time, the internal dynamics of the situation illustrate tensions within the Kurdish community. While the members of the PUK leadership have to act in a manner that is cognizant of the political balance in Baghdad, the grassroots membership of the PUK proved to be exceptionally keen to enter Kirkuk before any other group could do so. These internal stresses—between leaders and the grassroots—have the potential to destabilize the Kurdish political system, rather than the legacy of the KDP-PUK rivalry. The Turkmens too remain divided. Some—namely, the followers of the ITF—are adamantly opposed to any notion of Kirkuk’s integration into the Kurdistan Region and seek to involve Turkey directly in the dispute. Others—including the Turkmen National Association (TNA) and the Turkmen Reform Movement (TRM)—are willing to accept and even welcome Kirkuk’s incorporation into Kurdistan, as long as Turkmen rights are constitutionally protected.2 The Arab community is still more chaotic politically and sociologically. It is divided among ‘‘original’’ Kirkukis (perhaps from one of the long-established tribes of the area), migrants brought in by the Iraqi government to work in the oil industry, and those imported as part of the process of Arabization designed to change the demographic balance of the city. Since 2003 this situation has been further complicated by the heightening of tensions across Sunni-Shi’i lines. Though there exists no singular Arab, Turkmen, or even Kurdish position on Kirkuk’s future, the polarized extremes of these groups have dominated the debate. These extremes commonly resort to the use of uncompromising language and demonize the actions of their neighbors as being either associated with the former regime or now with Al-Qaeda or the Sunni-associated insurgency (in the case of Arabs), proxies of Ankara willing to promote conflict in Kirkuk to promulgate a bigger confrontation between Kurds and Turks (in the case of the Turkmens),

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or as land-hungry chauvinistic invaders seeking to incorporate Kirkuk into their region in order to then secede from the state and declare independence (in the case of the Kurds). Post-2003 analyses of Kirkuk written by Iraqis largely fall into one of these categories and seek to demonize opponents while portraying their own community as the victims. This is not to say that they do not provide some useful insights into the nature of the conflict or even, among the more balanced ones, some insightful recommendations as to how it may be managed in a way that is not based on zero-sum calculations. However, the more extreme views of the Kurds, Arabs, Turkmens, and to a lesser extent Christians do not, on the whole, inspire confidence in their ability to avoid the descent into full-blown conflict.

Three Perspectives The perspectives of the communities disputing territorial rights in the north of Iraq are deeply held. Much of what is described as fact is often myth and impossible to prove or disprove. In addition, all of the communities make reference to being the direct descendants of peoples inhabiting the region centuries, if not millennia, ago and seek to legitimize their claims according to these rights granted by ancient tenure. The ability to trace the lineage of a particular people back to a moment deep in the past is highly problematic and of only limited utility when attempting to resolve what are in effect modern political and social problems. However, in such circumstances contemporary grievances quickly become imbued with the symbols and myths of ancient times. Therefore, it is useful to take account both of the modern formative factors that caused territory to be disputed in twenty-first-century Iraq and of the essentialist notions of identity that color and shape the modern political posturing.

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Chapter 4 The Turkmen Perspective The Demise of a Formerly Dominant Community

Few facts about Iraq’s Turkmen community are easy to establish. It is not clear how many Turkmens inhabit Iraq, and it is equally difficult to determine conclusively who the Turkmens are and from where they came. These uncertainties are compounded by the existence of a range of Turkmen political organizations representing views that cover a wide range of opinions. Some of these include the avowedly anti-Kurdish (or, more accurately, anti–Kurdistan Region), the staunchly Iraqi nationalist, the strongly Shi’i Islamist, and those who may be described as pro-Kurdish as they seek the integration of Kirkuk into the Kurdistan Region. Notwithstanding this diversity of perspective, the most salient element affecting Turkmens’ political mobilization is their relationship with the Kurds, in particular whether they oppose or support the further territorial expansion of the Kurdistan Region by the accretion of disputed territories. It is the position taken by the anti-Kurdish Turkmens that commonly receives the most attention, and with good reason. There exists a vocal and effective Turkmen voice in Kirkuk and in other cities of the north that opposes what these Turkmens perceive as expansionist Kurdish plans not only to consolidate the Kurdistan Region within its post-1991 boundaries but also to include what Turkmens refer to as Turkmeneli—a vast swath of territory running from Iraq’s border with Turkey and Syria and diagonally down the country to the border with Iran. Turkmen sources note that Turcomania—an anglicized version of ‘‘Turkmeneli’’—appears on a map of the region published by William Guthrie in 1785, but there is no clear reference to Turkmeneli until the end of the twentieth century.1 The fact that no published expression of it shows Turkmeneli continuing into Syria, Turkey, or Iran reflects the reality of its origins—namely the founding of the ITF in 1994, following a discus-

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Map 6. Turkmeneli: The ‘‘Land of the Turkmens.’’ This map indicates the territory claimed by the ITF as predominantly inhabited by Turkmens. Adapted from the authors’ personal copy of the map provided by the ITF.

sion in a conference of the Iraqi Turkmen National Party the year before.2 Turkmeneli (see Map 6) includes within its boundaries Tel Afar, Mosul, Erbil, Tuz Khurmato and, of course, Kirkuk. The fact that some maps of Kurdish origin show Kurdish claims including the entirety of Turkmeneli serves only to intensify the levels of animosity that exist between the ‘‘anti-Kurdistan’’ Turkmens and the Kurds.

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The situation is all the more complex because it is impossible to gauge the numbers of Turkmens in Iraq accurately. The last reliable census was conducted over half a century ago, in 1957, and even this is disputed. In an attempt to overcome these problems, some scholars have attempted to extrapolate from the data provided by the 1957 census by applying an average growth rate, with estimates as high as 13–16 percent of Iraqi society—or three million people—being commonly found in Turkmenwritten literature.3 Conversely, other, non-Turkmen writers seek to downplay the numbers, with other Iraqi and Western sources estimating the figure to be significantly less than 5 percent.4 Population sizes matter in post-Saddam Iraq, particularly as the political system has become one in which community membership is the overriding factor organizing the balance of power between groups. However, from the perspective of the Turkmens, the numbers game is heavily skewed against them. While they contend that their numbers are more significant than what is usually accepted by their Iraqi counterparts and international observers, the evidence provided by Iraqi censuses and through the observations of travelers and academics throughout the twentieth century tells a different story. With regard to the official statistics gathered by the Iraqi government, especially the 1957 census (which is important as it is seen to describe the situation in Kirkuk before largescale populations movements caused by Arabization occurred), Kurds in the province made up 48 percent of the population, Turkmens 21 percent, and Arabs 27 percent. A strong body of Turkmen opinion contends that these figures woefully underestimate the number of Turkmens, with many being registered by the government as either Arabs or Kurds. Turkmens, then, feel particularly aggrieved by how academics and observers have discussed the demography of Iraq, particularly with regard to the ratio of Arabs, Kurds, and Turkmens. A brief survey of the available literature on Iraq gives some idea as to the nature of the problem from the Turkmen perspective. The vast majority of academic work conducted from the mid-twentieth century on tended to focus on the elite-level politics of Iraq, with a particular emphasis on political history and the changes of government that occurred with regularity. Second to this body of literature is a much smaller, but still significant, collection of materials that focus mainly on the Kurds. Often written by observers who had developed close relationships with people whom they considered through romanticized lenses as noble mountain folk, these works often give a more ‘‘pro-Kurdish’’ outlook compared to those that focus on the entirety of Iraq. A book that raises particular concern among Turkmens, for example, is Kurds, Turks and Arabs, written by C. J. Edmonds in 1957. Based on his experiences as a political officer in Kurdistan and

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Iraq in the 1920s and 1930s, Edmonds’s work remains one of the most important snapshots of Kirkuk. Using the 1947 census, Edmonds shows the Kurds to be 53 percent of the population of Kirkuk Province and 25 percent of the city.5 Against this, Turkmens often refer to the writings of Hanna Batatu and David McDowall. The former, for example, notes that ‘‘Kirkuk . . . had been Turkish through and through in the not too distant past,’’ with Kurds moving into the city in the twentieth century, driven by economic considerations and seeking employment within the oil industry. Batatu has written that by 1959 the number of Kurds had swollen to one-third of the population, with the Turkmens declining to just over half. Furthermore, other towns such as Erbil, Batatu notes, had undergone a similar process.6 McDowall is less forthright than Batatu, referring merely to the 1947 census, which showed Kirkuk city to be 25 percent and the province to be 53 percent Kurdish, but it is still referred to by those Turkmens wishing to challenge the notion of Kurdish numerical predominance in the twentieth century.7 Turkmen authors have proved adept at marshaling the sources that best support their claims. Ershat Hurmuzlu, for example, provides a detailed commentary of materials that illustrate the Turkic nature of Kirkuk, from British government documents discussing the extensive use of Turkish in Kirkuk to Iraqi writers commenting on Kirkuk’s Turkmen majority and journalists and academics referring to Kirkuk’s Turkmen history.8 The nature and character of the tension that pervades the TurkmenKurdish relationship is not, however, wholly explainable by the dimensions of territorial conflict and demographic contestation. Underlying what is on the surface a dispute over the right to define the future via the promotion of a subjective past, and through a particularistic ethnic lens, other dynamics also affect how Turkmens view Kurds and vice versa. Notions of ethnic difference—which are by most accounts quite recent phenomena—are colored by the remnants of class differences that have their origin in the high, if not privileged, status of the Turkmen community’s Ottoman forefathers. This status was maintained following the establishment of the state of Iraq but subsequently eroded following the end of the monarchy and the rise of the Ba’th Party. From this class-based perspective Kurds are seen as the rural migrants from the mountains to the north and east, settling in Kirkuk in order to improve their socioeconomic lot in life but traditionally having less of a presence in the governance and business-related activities of the city. Their numbers increased to the point that they became at least a plurality in the governorate, but the Turkmen view remains that the number of Kurds who can claim a long family history of living in the city is far lower than that currently presupposed or claimed. The relationship is

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also made profoundly problematic by exogenous factors—namely, the interest of Turkey in the status of the Turkmen population of Iraq. Ankara’s interest in the well-being of the Turkmens of Iraq has only a recent history—largely in response to the establishment of the Kurdistan Region—and yet this lack of historic involvement does not detract from the overall impact of Ankara on how Turkmens and Kurds interact with each other in Kirkuk and other towns and cities in northern Iraq. The Turkmens’ claim to Kirkuk and how this claim is legitimized can be broken down into four components. First, as with those of Kurds, Arabs, and Assyrians, the ‘‘Turkmen narrative’’ seeks to tie the modern Turkmens to a glorious past with their ancestors present in the region for centuries and enjoying leadership status in key moments of Iraq’s history. This tendency has been discussed in earlier sections. The second component of the Turkmens’ construction of their history on which their outlook in the current dispute is based is their position in the Ottoman Empire. From being a community ultimately favored by the administrative system of the time, the Turkmens’ claim to Kirkuk tends to focus on the Turkish or Ottoman flavor of the city in its architecture and culture, with references made to buildings, place names, and Ottoman sources that indicate the relative preponderance of Turkish or Turkmen people in the city, if not the governorate. The third component buttressing the Turkmen view is based on the suffering they endured not only at the hands of the Iraqi state (which is largely in common with the other non-Arab communities of the city) but also at the hands of the Kurds, who sought to impose themselves on Kirkuk’s politics and character through taking advantage of the political realities of the day. Events such as the Kirkuk massacre of 1959 present a powerful and emotive argument for those Turkmens who fear for their security and safety in a region dominated by Kurds. The fourth component, directly related to the modern history of suffering, is the sense of injustice that permeates the Turkmen community. From their perspective, the international community seems to be overwhelmingly focused on the Kurds as the only people who suffered at the hands of the Ba’th regime. Turkmens believe that Kurds have managed to dupe the international community into believing that they have been the perennial victims of exclusivist Arab nationalist projects in Iraq, including the strategies to Arabize Kirkuk city and province. The Turkmens crave acknowledgment that they too suffered at the hands of the Ba’th regime—perhaps in relative terms more than the Kurds—and that the vast swaths of land targeted for Arabization by the Ba’th regime were not traditionally Kurdish but were rather the ancient lands of the Turkmens. Compounding this sense of injustice is a sense of exasperation caused by what they refer to as the ‘‘Kurdification’’ of Kirkuk following

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the return of the main Kurdish parties and their peshmerga in 2003. Caught between what they see as an Arab land grab in the 1980s and 1990s and, what they view as an equivalent Kurdish action in the 2000s, they see a nexus of interest between Kurds and Arabs, as neither has a real interest in changing the situation in Kirkuk back to what the Turkmens contend would be the status quo ante of the region, in which the city was their dominion.

Turkmens in Modern Iraq The end of the Ottoman Empire brought profound changes for the Turkmens of the Mosul vilayet. Empowered by their position in the Ottoman Empire and enjoying a relatively privileged socioeconomic status in the towns of the region, the Turkmens were clearly the haves and the Kurds the have-nots. This distinction, reinforced by sporadic outbreaks of ethnic violence, characterized the relationship between the Turkmens and the Kurds throughout the remainder of the century. Certainly in the early twentieth century the Turkmen perspective was that the towns of the vilayet were part of the greater Ottoman region and, as such, had been colored historically, economically, culturally, and socially by Turkic conditioning throughout the centuries. This was particularly the case for the towns of Kirkuk, Mosul (even though this meant that the Arab heritage of the city was conveniently overlooked), and Erbil but recognized that the towns deeper in the mountains, especially Sulaimaniya, had largely become Kurdish, even if their Turkic roots were relatively recent.9 This sentiment was particularly strongly felt in the 1920s, to the extent that the Turkmen community wished to see Turkey annex the Mosul vilayet and then be part of a wider Turkic state. The later twentieth-century history of Iraq from the perspective of the Turkmen community was largely one of struggling to maintain their position in the face of an expanding Kurdish population. From the Turkmen perspective, the Kurds sought to dominate Kirkuk politically and challenge the previous socioeconomic hierarchy. This power play was tied to wider Iraqi political life, with the state governed by increasingly authoritarian regimes that, while ostensibly civic nationalist in their outlook, remained deeply suspicious of non-Arab elements and viewed them as threats that needed to be actively managed. The class-based differences between Turkmens and Kurds are an important but often neglected element in how each side views the other. In general, Turkmens see themselves as the most industrious peoples of the region who, through their own initiatives and energy, succeeded in making the towns of the north of Iraq into administrative and mercantile centers of the Ottoman Empire—particularly when compared to the

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activities of the nomadic Kurds. From the Turkmen perspective, the Kurds are recent migrants to the now-disputed towns. They are rather seen as rural migrants drawn to the towns particularly by the post-1927 oil boom and by the difficulties of living in the rural areas caught in a spate of tribal rebellions during the 1920s. In many ways this overlaying of ethnicity with class formed the critical element in the development of the animosity between the Turkmen and Kurdish communities. Batatu notes that ‘‘in a preponderant sense, the creditors were Turkmen, the debtors Kurds; the big merchants, the middling shopkeepers, the artisans Turkmen; the oil workers, the menial labourers, the petty vendors Kurds.’’ He does note, however, that there were many poor Turkmens, ‘‘and not a few well-to-do Kurds.’’10 In the environment that characterized mid-twentieth-century Iraq—with the memories of the pre–World War I era still fresh in the minds of many, with the state struggling to impose a particular narrative and interpretation of historical memory upon its citizens, and with communist and socialist sentiments flowering among Iraq’s subaltern classes—tension between Turkmens and Kurds was inevitable and the potential for violence ever present.

The Turkmen Narrative of Oppression From the Turkmen perspective, the twentieth century was a period characterized by acts of terror committed against them by the state, by forces set against them by the state, and by Kurds seeking to push them forcibly out of their homeland. In considering these historical events, the Turkmen narrative tends to focus on three principal issues: massacres, Arabization, and Kurdification.

Massacres The Turkmens endured targeted assaults at regular intervals during the twentieth century. These were largely isolated incidents, but some were of such intensity that they acquired a powerful symbolic dimension, used to emphasise not only the plight of the Turkmens in the twentieth century but also the threats that may still exist. The most emotive of these events took place in Kirkuk from the 1920s on. Living in one of the most coveted cities in Iraq, the Turkmens were inexorably drawn into the dangerous world of Iraqi political life, where alliance building existed alongside the exploitation of cleavages and the sudden and highly destructive use of violence as a means to rework the political landscape. When modern twentieth-century Iraqi political dynamics of class, nationalism, and communism became merged with the symbols and emotions of perceived ethnic differences, it was a relatively easy task for the state to engi-

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neer situations in which Kurds and Turkmens would take up arms against each other under a variety of banners. Subsequent escalations in tensions between Kurds and Turkmens, particularly that of 1959 in Kirkuk, have provided the Turkmens with a memory that for many is firsthand and is used as evidence of the brutality of the Kurds and the implicit dangers of existing in a region dominated by them. If we turn to the Turkmens’ narrative of Kirkuk’s history, it is clear that they see violence deployed against them as part of a systematic and, at times, preplanned strategy aimed at removing them from their homeland. This sense of conspiracy runs deep, and with good reason. The first episode that Turkmen observers identify when considering their treatment in the new state of Iraq is the massacre of 4 May 1924 in Kirkuk. From the Turkmens’ perspective on this event, the first opportunity to weaken them was taken by the British imperial power and supported by the new monarchy. Seen as disloyal remnants of the Ottomans, with a natural tie to the new Turkish nationalist ideology emerging in Anatolia, the Turkmens of Kirkuk posed a threat to the stability of Iraq— particularly as they did not support the ascendancy of King Faisal I to the throne. The scene was therefore set for the Turkmens to be targeted by the British in collaboration with other Iraqi elements. Of these, by far the most effective in combat and willing to subjugate the Turkmens were the Levies—troops recruited from the Assyrian community that had sought refuge in Iraq from the Hakkari region of Turkey. The spark for the conflict seems to have been little more than a dispute between a Levi soldier and a Turkmen shopkeeper; yet it was enough for the British to allow the Levies to attack the Turkmens of Kirkuk, resulting in the massacre of, according to Turkmen sources, some two hundred people.11 Perhaps indicating a degree of fault on the part of the Levies, Lt. Col. R. S. Stafford noted that ‘‘this outbreak, on the part of disciplined troops, however great the provocation, was a serious blot on the good names of the Assyrians.’’12 A further episode of conflict between the Turkmens and the monarchy occurred on 12 July 1946 in the Gawer Baghi area of the city. Oil workers, who the Turkmen contend were mainly from their community, held a strike to demand improved basic rights in the oil industry and were fired on by army units with police in support. Perhaps more so than the massacre of 1924, the Gawer Baghi incident is somewhat more confusing to understand in terms of the salience of ethnicity as a factor behind the strike or behind the government’s reaction. Leftist writers discuss the massacre as being evidence of ‘‘a growing sense of militancy in the trade union movement.’’13 Writers of a more Turkmen coloring are keen to show the incident as ‘‘a clear example of the policy of racial suppression.’’14

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Whatever the correct interpretation of the events in Gawer Baghi, there is little doubt that it pales into insignificance in the minds of Turkmens when compared to the events of 1959. The Kirkuk massacre of 1959 came about due to the aligning of political forces across the state. However, its trigger was undeniably local and focused on the ethnic and socioeconomic cleavage between Turkmens and Kurds. It is indisputable that those fighting under the banner of the Communists were almost wholly Kurdish and that those who were targeted were almost totally Turkmens. Indeed, the Kirkuk massacre perhaps does most to undermine the rosy image of Iraq in the late 1950s as being a country in which some sense of Iraqi nationalism was beginning to emerge. For the Turkmens, July 1959 is the moment that their relationship with the Kurds changed irreparably from one of coexistence to one of ethnic-based competition. Under the Ba’th regime the discrimination against Turkmens increased, with several Turkmen leaders being executed in 1979 and 1980 as Saddam purged the party and the military of any potential threats. In addition, many Shi’i Turkmens were killed for their affiliation with the clandestine Da’wa Party. Yet the massacre of 1959 remains staunchly rooted in the mass psyche of the Turkmens as a warning not only about the inherent dangers of politics in Iraq but also about the depth of hatred and mistrust that has always existed between Turkmens and the Kurdish community. From 1959 on, the idea that Kurds and Turkmens could live in mutual coexistence within a multiethnic Kirkuk seemed increasingly implausible.

Arabization Arabization—commonly associated with the policy of removing Kurds from Kirkuk and the wider region—had a terrible impact on the Turkmens. Indeed, the Turkmen community often claims—indeed believes—that it was affected to a far greater degree by the Arabization policy than was any other ethnic group, particularly because the Ba’th regime recognized that Kirkuk, far from being a city in which Kurds predominated, was historically Turkmen and remained firmly ‘‘Turkmen’’ in its cultural orientation. Any reading of the Turkmen literature quickly reveals the extent to which Turkmens view that they were the principal victims of the policies of the Ba’th regime in twentieth-century Kirkuk and how they are now suffering—in an identical, if not even more extreme sense—at the hands of the Kurds.15 The accusations of ‘‘Kurdification’’ will be addressed later, but there is a further Kurdish-associated element to the issue of Arabization on which Turkmens focus heavily. Turkmens are highly sensitive to the

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notion that the Kurds, while suffering no more than Turkmens, have managed to associate themselves in the eyes of the international community as the victims of state-sponsored repression. There is a belief that the Kurds hijacked the legacy of Arabization to further their own ethnic project. This tendency to view the Kurds, on the one hand, as fellow sufferers under the Ba’th region but, on the other hand, as competitors for how these legacies are then viewed and utilized in the cause of ethnic one-upmanship is a common feature of the Turkmen narrative. From the perspective of the Turkmens, Arabization was a process that reached back to the formative moments of the Iraqi state. Inherently tied to the need to ensure that the oil fields of Kirkuk were firmly under the control of the central government—a government seeking to impose its own notion of a dominant nationhood of Arabism with a Sunni hue on the state—the first wave of Arabization saw families moved from the center and south of Iraq into Kirkuk to work in the rapidly expanding oil industry and to take up public-sector positions in general. New quarters were established in the city, and while Turkmens were not actively forced out, the overall demographic balance of the city changed as the Arab migrations continued. Sharing a common story with the Kurds, the Turkmens identify the second coming to power of the Ba’th Party in 1968 as heralding a new and devastating period of Arabization. However, the Turkmens differ from the Kurds in that they identify themselves as being the focal point of the Arabization process, as the regime recognized that the Turkmens were in fact a majority in Kirkuk.16 In terms of absolute numbers, the census figures clearly show that far more Kurds than Turkmens were affected. However, it is also clear that the Turkmens were not simply included in a wider ‘‘non-Arab’’ removal and replacement scheme. Indeed, several presidential decrees and directives from state security and intelligence organizations indicate clearly that the Turkmens were a particular focus of attention. To take one example (of many), Iraqi Military Intelligence issued directive 1559 on 6 May 1980 ordering the deportation of Turkmen officials from Kirkuk. One of its key paragraphs issues the following instruction: ‘‘identify the places where Turkmen officials are working in governmental offices [in order] to deport them to other governorates in order to disperse them and prevent them from concentrating in this governorate [Kirkuk].’’ In addition, on 30 October 1981, the Revolution’s Command Council (RCC), the preeminent authority of the regime outside the immediate circle of the president, issued decree 1391, which authorized the deportation of Turkmens from Kirkuk, with paragraph 13 noting that ‘‘this directive is specifically aimed at Turkmen and Kurdish officials and workers who are living in Kirkuk.’’17 Members of the Ba’th Party

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were particularly encouraged (the higher ranking members would not have had a choice) to move to Kirkuk.18 Ethnic cleansing was but one element of Ba’thist policy aimed at reducing the influence of the Turkmens in Kirkuk. Those Turkmens who remained in Kirkuk were subjected to a pervasive policy of assimilation. The U-turn on RCC decree 89 of 24 January 1970 illustrates graphically how the regime attempted to systematically Arabize Kirkuk and its non-Arab Kirkukis. Decree 89 initially guaranteed the cultural rights of Turkmens—including allowing them to study in Turkmen-language schools. However, only a few years later the regime reneged on this arrangement and abandoned Turkmen-language schools in favor of a wholly Arabic system. Furthermore, school names of obvious Turkic origin were changed to names that emanated from the Ba’th Party or from Arab heroes. Some examples include the changing of Yieldezlar to alFajer al-Jadid, Yedi Qardash to Ba’th and then to Qadasiyya, and Doghroloq to Omer Ben Abdulaziz. Neighborhoods with Turkic names were similarly redesignated, as were mosques, streets, and markets. The Yeni Tesa’in quarter was renamed Al-Ba’th, as was the Qoriye market. The Jeqour neighborhood became known as Arab, and the Qardashleq football team became known as Shabab al-Ta’mim. Kirkuk’s Turkmeni hinterland faired little better, with village names changing overnight. The confusion of the inhabitants of Shirinja Bulaq, who awoke to find their village called Al-Yarmouk (referring to the battle where the Muslim army defeated the Byzantine Empire), must have been only marginally less than that of the people of Zindana, who suddenly found that they were living in Misr (Egypt).19 At least they had Arabized villages in which to wake. Many Turkmen villages and neighborhoods in Kirkuk were simply demolished, particularly in the 1990s. Within the ancient citadel of Kirkuk, Turkmen sources list no fewer than nine neighborhoods that were flattened.20 Turkmens also point to the severe economic hardships they had to endure as the Ba’th regime sought to make life as difficult as humanly possible for them in Kirkuk. One notable dynamic affected in particular the employment of university graduates. Many, such as doctors, engineers, and scientists, were not permitted to work for any nongovernmental organization. While the ministry in question allocated jobs based on degree results, the Ba’th Party’s Northern Affairs Committee had the final say in approving these posts, with the result that ‘‘almost all Turkmen who had been appointed centrally by the ministry in Turkmen areas [were] subsequently rejected.’’21 Instead, Turkmens were offered jobs in the center or south of the country, thus further driving down their numbers in Kirkuk.22 While the policies of successive Iraqi governments are presented by

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Turkmens as being particularly emotive aspects of their existence in Kirkuk and are used to legitimize their rights in the future, their importance to the story of the Turkmens’ struggle in Kirkuk is largely second to that of the tense relationship and difficult history that exist between the Turkmens and the Kurds. This is quite remarkable, considering the sheer scale of suffering that must have been inflicted on the Turkmen community particularly by the Ba’th regime. Yet the number one focal point of contemporary Turkmen political discourse is their relationship with the Kurds.

Kurdification The final component of the Turkmen perspective focuses wholly on the actions of the Kurds against them since 1991. The strength of feeling among some Turkmens against the Kurds concerning this limited period of time is considerable. In particular, many Turkmens believe the Kurds to be newcomers to the scene that have not only taken advantage of the post-2003 situation to strengthen their position, but have themselves embarked on a Kurdish version of Arabization—Kurdification (takrid). Indeed, Turkmens are swift to point out that not only did they suffer just as much as the Kurds did at the hands of the Arabization policies, but they also had to contend with the further pernicious effects of Kurdification. This problem of the Turkmen-Kurdish relationship took on a logic of its own following the formation of the Kurdistan Region in 1991. For many Turkmens, who were deeply inculcated with their identity as the rightful inheritors of the Ottoman Empire and yet subsequently suffering repeated massacres at Kurdish hands in the twentieth century, the Kurdistan Region constitutes an existential threat to their survival as a people through strategies aimed at eradicating Turkmens or assimilating/subordinating them. Because of this, Kurdish leaders often find themselves in a no-win situation. When they act ‘‘to type’’ by promoting a Kurdish nationalist agenda that ultimately leaves few meaningful political opportunities for Turkmens in the Kurdistan Region, or at times has seen the Kurdish parties engage in open fighting with the ITF, this reinforces the Turkmens’ fears of eradication. When Kurdish leaders seek to recognize Turkmens more formally by empowering them in local governance structures, they are accused of attempting to shatter Turkmen unity by co-opting one group over another. This animosity has been further heightened by the involvement of Turkey in the affairs of the Kurdistan Region. For Ankara, keen to identify a ‘‘legitimate’’ reason for interference in the affairs of northern Iraq beyond the standard argu-

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ment about national security, the plight of the Turkmens provides a convenient justification.

Turkmens in the Kurdistan Region The animosity between Kurds and Turkmens reached new and dangerous highs in the 1990s. All of the Turkmens’ fears came to pass with the formation of the Kurdistan Region following the withdrawal of the structures of the Iraqi state from the north of Iraq in 1991. Seemingly overnight the Kurds claimed de facto sovereignty over land still believed by Turkmens to be rightfully theirs. Turkmens viewed with trepidation the possibility of the Kurdistan Region turning from a de facto entity into some form of de jure one—which they believed would seek to incorporate within its boundaries the rest of the towns of Turkmeneli. The political geography of the Kurdistan Region explained to some extent the pattern of the problems as they developed throughout the 1990s. The largest concentration of Turkmens tended to be in the de facto capital of Erbil—a city often referred to by Turkmens, if not originally founded by Turkmens (it was founded by Assyrians), as one in which Turkmens had assumed prominent administrative and economic positions. As such, they increasingly came into dispute and often conflict with the ruling powers of the city—which after 1996 was the KDP of Massoud Barzani. Throughout the remainder of the decade, the Turkmens of Erbil found themselves caught in an uneasy triangular relationship with the KDP and Ankara. Tensions between Kurds and Turkmens in the Kurdistan Region in the 1990s became inflamed as the KDP and the PUK were institutionalized as the political hegemons of the region and, from the perspective of the Turkmens, sought to marginalize them from positions of authority and to subsume their culture within an all-pervading Kurdistani identity. To contend with the new situation, and almost certainly with support from Ankara, which remained keen to exert as much pressure on the Kurdistan Region as possible, a new political front of Turkmen parties—the Iraqi Turkmen Front—was formed on 24 April 1995. The ITF was made up of eight organizations, with representations from Turkmen associations overseas also given membership.23 The relationship between the ITF and the KDP was tense and deteriorated as the decade went on. Turkmens associated with the ITF complained about harassment by Kurdish security forces. These tensions often turned violent. In March 2000, for example, Human Rights Watch reported that KDP security attacked the offices of the ITF in Erbil, killing two guards, following a lengthy period of disputes between the two parties within a wider setting of difficult relations between the KDP and

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Ankara. Responding to the threat posed by the ITF, in 2002 the KDP created a Turkmen political organization that supported the further institutionalization of the Kurdistan Region. Accurately, this was viewed by many pro-ITF Turkmens as a deliberate attempt to buy off Turkmen opposition and break their bonds with Ankara. Formed in November, the Turkmen National Association was brought together from five constituent parties mainly from Erbil and its environs. The pro-Kurdistani stance of the TNA was made clear by Jawdat Najjar—a member of the Turkmen Cultural Association—who proclaimed that ‘‘the unity of Turkmen ranks became a reality as the result of the Iraqi Kurdistan regional government achievements.’’24 Promoted by the KDP as the true voice of the Turkmens and derided by the ITF as nothing more than a puppet of the Kurdish leaders, the TNA has turned into a significant, if controversial political actor in Erbil, if only because its existence— whether KDP-inspired or not—effectively weakened the claim of the ITF to be the sole representative voice of the Turkmens.

Conclusion The problem the Turkmens have in presenting their case regarding their position in Iraq is clear. Irrespective of whatever realities existed in the past, the present situation is of a highly dispersed population covering a broad swath of land but existing as minorities in every major urban settlement. Even if their numbers do constitute some three million (and this is extremely improbable), the geography of their distribution is such that it has proved virtually impossible for them to mobilize human resources in the same way that the Kurds have managed to do so. As a result, they have systematically failed to make inroads in any of the elections held. Of course, Turkmens (particularly those associated with the ITF) will list many reasons for this, not least Kurdish manipulation if not outright intimidation. Yet it remains striking that the Turkmen voice that is so strong in some quarters remains patently weak at moments that matter. It is by recognizing the Turkmens as a formally dominant minority that the dispute with the Kurds can be best understood. What is particularly notable about the Turkmen position in general is its focus on the status that Turkmens enjoyed during the Ottoman period and even into the modern twentieth-century history of Iraq. In searching for reasons as to why the enmity between some groups of Turkmens and some groups of Kurds is so deeply consuming, it is perhaps in this area of classdistinctiveness that some can be found. Indeed, the loss of a position of relative privilege and influence, on the one hand, combined with the animosity that perceived wealth and status give, on the other, have per-

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meated the Kurdish-Turkmen relationship to degrees perhaps underappreciated by many analysts. In addition to this, it is impossible to ignore the impact that the Kirkuk massacre of 1959 has had on the attitudes of many Turkmens toward Kurds. Kurds in their turn have proved to be totally untrusting of any Turkmen individual or organization that has sought the support or intervention of Turkey in the affairs of the Kurdistan Region. While it is difficult to accept some of the more extreme versions of the Turkmen perspective (including population figures) at face value, and even more problematic to accept that they are genuinely numerous enough to challenge the Kurds for control of territory in any areas of the current Kurdistan Region or even the disputed territories, it remains the case that the Turkmens constitute a vocal community capable of prompting the intervention into Iraq’s and Kurdistan’s affairs of Turkey. Perhaps more importantly, Turkmens can serve as a yardstick, along with the Christian community, as to how the ever-strengthening KRG will treat minorities living within its boundaries—whether inside Kirkuk or not—in the years ahead.

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Chapter 5 The Kurdish Perspective Gaining ‘‘Jerusalem’’

The Kurdish claim to Kirkuk is perhaps second only to the crisis in Palestine in its ability to generate significant political rhetoric across the wider Middle East. Indeed, when the wider geopolitical ramifications of the two situations are placed side by side, developments surrounding the Kurdistan Region and the future of Kirkuk could far surpass the transformative impact—in either a negative or a positive way—of events that happen in the Palestinian occupied territories. The reasoning behind this claim is straightforward and should serve as a stark warning to those considering future security scenarios that expect the Kurds to relinquish their claim to the city. To begin with, this situation involves significant numbers of people. The future of the Kurdistan Region in Iraq concerns some five million people and the wider Iraqi population of an estimated twenty-four to twenty-eight million. What happens in the Kurdistan Region—including whether it is autonomous or independent—has a direct impact on the entire Kurdish population, whether in Turkey, Iran, Syria, the Caucasus, or, indeed, in the rest of Iraq. With these populations accounted for, the number of potentially affected people leaps by an additional twenty-five million. On top of this, any reordering of the political system of Iraq to incorporate a larger consolidated Kurdistan Region or, even more pertinently, any restructuring of the state system of the Middle East to accommodate an independent Kurdish homeland would then affect directly the entire region. These are not merely possibilities. The question of the status of Kurds is already of the utmost importance in Turkey, Syria, Iraq, and Iran. In Turkey, the Nawruz celebrations of 2008 in Diyabekir and Mardin—with crowds of over one million strong gathering—served notice to Ankara that attempts to delegitimize Kurdish organizations (including the Kur-

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distan Workers’ Party, or PKK) have abjectly failed. If the numbers failed to impress the security services, then the fact that many of the demonstrators wore openly the colors of the supposedly banned PKK would certainly not have been overlooked. In Iran, ethnopolitical tensions remain high in the towns and cities of Kordestan Province as Kurdish nationalism rears its head in opposition to the clerical establishment and its domination by Persians and Azeris. In Syria, the towns of Qamishli and Afrin—longtime centers of Kurdish activism—now find themselves experiencing the attention of the state’s security services, while other towns and cities, including Aleppo and Damascus, are now affected by the growing demands for recognition by the significant numbers of resident Kurds.1 There is a strong transstate element to this newly invigorated nationalism among the Kurds. With communications easier than ever and with the linkages engendered by the forces of globalization, Kurds are now more unified in their outlook and in the belief that they are the victims of a multitude of injustices committed against them in the twentieth century. As such, they now follow with intense attention the development of what is currently the leading symbol of the Kurdish national project— the Kurdistan Region of Iraq and its continuing struggle not only to survive but also to consolidate its position and challenge Iraq, Turkey, Iran, and Syria in what is seen by many Kurds as an existential struggle. The Kurdistan Region is therefore the focus of the worldwide Kurdish community. For this community—whose nationalist sentiment is growing daily and rapidly—the most important issue is how the region will fare in its struggle to build a homeland for the Kurds that is not crushed by neighboring powers or left to wither by the international community. Over a half-century later, the fate of the Kurdish Republic of Mahabad still lingers in the Kurdish popular memory and serves as a warning to Kurdish leaders of the antipathy toward a Kurdish homeland from regional neighbors and the fickleness of international interests alongside more recent betrayals.2 Considering the situation logically and with an understanding of recent political history, it is clearly not essential for the Kurdistan Region’s survival that Kirkuk be included, especially if the region is to remain part of a federal Iraq. Kirkuk has not been formally a part of the Kurdistan Region for more than a few fleeting days of peshmerga occupation in 1991. Yet nationalist sentiment (in this case both of Kurds and of those who oppose Kurdistan) is a dynamic with the power to overcome logic. Quite simply, Kirkuk and the symbolism it represents are critical in these scenarios, both from the perspective of the Kurds and from the position of those with whom the Kurds have to deal now and in the future. As an economic pole but more importantly a symbol of Kurdish

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hegemony in the region, the future of Kirkuk represents the culmination of the Kurdish national project that seeks to ensure that ‘‘Kurdistan’’ exists as a political reality as well as a geographic expression. Hence the future of the Kurds and the question of Kurdistan’s existence are among the most pressing national questions demanding a resolution in the twenty-first century.

The Salience of Kurdish Nationalism A great deal has been written about the origin of the Kurds. The writing is, however, divided. On the one hand are those analyses that discuss the ancient lineage of the Kurds stretching back to the ancient empires of the Medes or even before to the Hittites and the Hurrians. On the other hand are those who discuss the Kurds as a heterogeneous grouping of mountain-living people who have, over millennia and centuries, come to adopt the same or similar practices and cultures, become speakers of dialects or languages grouped within a particular Indo-European subgroup, and ultimately have only marginally more in common with each other than they do with those people surrounding them. The latter tendency clearly has more currency among Western academics, with constructivist notions of identity formation being more popular and acceptable among the community of social scientists. Particularly with regard to Kurds, with their late nationalist development, range of dialects (or even languages, according to those who argue against the cohesiveness of the Kurdish national project), and often fractious modern political dynamics, the idea that they exist as a distinct national people—let alone are the descendants of peoples who lived in the area several thousand years earlier—is often dismissed as the musings of primordialists. Yet modern notions of identity formation, which tend to eschew considerations of ethnicity and preindustrial associations capable of giving rise to nationalist movements in the twentieth century, while persuasive in some ways, cannot fully account for the evident differences between Kurds and their neighbors. Kurdish society and culture—perhaps even political dynamics—are products of their mountainous environment, with the limitations of topography and the rhythm of highland life impacting their development and local interactions. Living in a hard physical environment on a landscape that was difficult to access presented formidable barriers to local communication and interaction. Therefore, the natural structure of Kurdish political and social organization was inherently localized and tribal and was built around notions of territorial limits and with membership granted by kinship.3 These aspects of geographic determinism affected economic activity, religious

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association, and political development but also kept the Kurds isolated not only from other peoples but from each other as well; hence the continued existence of Kurdish in a range of dialects and subregional accents and the relatively late development of a cohesive sense of nationalism among them. Whatever the accuracy of the Kurdish historical narrative of Kirkuk— or, for that matter, the equivalent depictions of the Turkmens and Arabs—it is clear that there exists among the Kurdish intellectual elite, political leaders, and the information-hungry public at large a belief that Kirkuk has been Kurdish for countless generations and that its Kurdish identity has survived the trials and tribulations imposed by many events. These include, among others, the Ottoman-Safavid conflict, the influx of Turkmens, the ravages of the Mongols, the rise of Islam, and events in prehistory in which Kurdish empires triumphed over the might of civilizations and empires. Whether these events happened or not in the way they are presented is less significant than the fact that millions of people believe they happened. The question, therefore, is not what modern theoreticians of nationalism and identity formation say about the (lack of ) homogeneity among the Kurds or the intellectual vacuity of notions of primordial origins and ethnic distinctiveness. They may be theoretically correct in what they are saying. However, in practice, their thoughts are meaningless when considering the situation in present-day Kurdistan and in Kirkuk. What matters is how Kurds themselves perceive their history, their nationalism, and their future.

The Kurdistan Region Kirkuk’s future, and the Kurdish view of it, needs to be viewed through a wider historical and geographic lens. For the Kurds, what is happening now in Iraq is nothing more than should have happened in the 1920s, when Iraq was being invented and the Kurds included within its boundaries. For the Kurds of Iraq, their tragedy has been to be incorporated into a state that was dominated by the nationalist discourse of a different people, Arabs, while existing in a region deemed crucial to the development of the state through its naturally occurring riches—whether water provision or oil. The Kurds contend that they should have been given independence as befitted their status as a nation existing in a definable territory.4 Their incorporation in Iraq, they argue, was involuntary and unjust. Although the Kurds have been discontented elements within the Iraqi state since its inception, the current reworking of the internal boundaries of Iraq is a relatively recent activity and has its origin in the suc-

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cesses gained by the Kurds when they took up arms against the Iraqi government in the 1960s. While the Kurds were little more than localized nuisances to the state before the 1960s, the consolidation of the Kurdish national movement led to an open declaration of revolt in 1961, with the Kurdish peshmerga controlling vast swaths of territory as the decade progressed. The first mention of the term ‘‘Kurdistan Region’’ in the official discourse of the Iraqi state came in 1970, as the Iraqi government effectively sued for peace with Mulla Mustafa Barzani and the KDP and signed the March Agreement of that year, which formally recognized the existence of a Kurdish autonomous region. This region effectively collapsed in 1975 following the withdrawal of support for the Kurds by Iran, but it reappeared in the chaotic aftermath caused by Iraq’s defeat in Kuwait and the subsequent uprisings that threatened the survival of the Ba’th regime. The southern intifadah in Iraq was matched in the north by the rapareen, an uprising that from spontaneous beginnings stabilized and ultimately led to the carving of a de facto Kurdistan Region in the north of Iraq in the 1990s. More accurately, the borders of the Kurdistan Region were created by Saddam when he ordered the withdrawal of government staff from the region before imposing an economic blockade. The first episode—led principally on the Kurdish side by Mulla Mustafa Barzani—promised a great deal but ultimately faltered on the subject of Kirkuk’s status when it became clear that the Ba’th regime would not meet the promise made to negotiate the disputed territories. The second episode managed to deliver more autonomy than the Kurds had enjoyed at any time in their existence, and yet still Kirkuk remained an elusive dream—not to be incorporated into the region but still used as evidence to illustrate the tragedy of the Kurds and to invoke nationalist solidarity. The map of the Middle East was effectively redrawn in 1991 with the creation of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. While being a de facto, even illegal, entity for the first decade of its life and wracked with internal conflict as its political elites struggled to come to terms with the domestic and regional realities of their quasi-independent existence, the Kurdistan Region advanced from its shaky beginnings and grew to the point where it would be almost impossible to deconstruct it and return it back to the centralized authority of Iraq.5 While the region existed under UN sanctions and an internal embargo imposed by the Ba’th regime, economic conditions there were appalling throughout the first half of the 1990s. The Kurdistan Region’s fortunes, however, turned in 1996. With the commencement of the UN’s oil-for-food program, valuable food and medical aid found their way to the Kurdistan Region along with the rest of Iraq. However, perhaps more important in a political sense, the oilfor-food program forced the international community and the UN sys-

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tem at least to recognize what was happening in the north of Iraq. In addition, while the UN and the international community could not legally work directly with the de facto Kurdish authorities (as Baghdad was still officially in charge), those representatives on the ground had little choice but to work with their counterparts from the ‘‘local authorities.’’ Quickly and effectively the offices of the KRG became increasingly institutionalized and the people of the region more willing to think of a future in which they could determine their own destiny. From 1997 on, Kurdish leaders acted with increased confidence as they sought to regularize the affairs of the Kurdistan Region, which culminated with its formal recognition in the constitution of Iraq in 2005. However, with only some four-fifths of Iraq’s Kurds living within the boundaries of the Kurdistan Region as defined by the constitution, the scene was set for conflict. Kurdish popular irredentism (albeit within the confines of Iraq’s borders) came up against Arab nationalism fueled by fear of supposed Kurdish aspirations to secede and the polarizing effect that oil reserves bring to any territorial dispute. The situation in post2003 Iraq was thus labeled a ‘‘tinderbox’’ by many analysts contemplating the confluence of nationalisms, resource competition, and regional meddling taking place in the pressured environment of the city of Kirkuk.6 The fact that the situation—while desperately tense—did not collapse into the cataclysmic scenes often envisaged warrants attention, particularly with a focus on the Kurdish leaderships’ decisions about seeking a de facto solution in Kirkuk by extraconstitutional occupation or a legal solution by gaining consensus in Baghdad and, later, by seeking the involvement of the international community in the form of the UN. From the perspective of the Kurds, their realistic hope and expectation are that Kirkuk and other disputed territories will unite with the already extant Kurdistan Region and that its expanded borders will then be codified within the laws and constitution of the Iraqi state. From their perspective, this is something that is owed them as their right brought about by historical legacies of occupation and suffering inflicted on them by twentieth-century Iraqi governments.7 There is nothing deemed recent about this expectation—indeed, the perception of Kurds is that their struggle has been a perennial one evident at least since the demise of the Ottoman Empire; nor is the situation for most nationalist Kurds tied directly to the oil wealth of the governorate. Rather, Kirkuk and other disputed territories, including Sinjar, Makhmour, Hamdaniyya, Khanaqin, and Baladruz—in short, wherever it can be claimed that there is a significant Kurdish population—are part and parcel of the overall Kurdish issue in Iraq. Kirkuk, however, is different in several ways from the other territories

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disputed by the KRG and the Iraqi government, and it is simply impossible to ignore the effect that the presence of oil has on the motivations of interested parties. While Shingar (the Kurdish name for Sinjar), a district of Ninevah Province, may be a particularly emotive place for the Kurds to claim, it remains geographically distant from the major Kurdish population centers; more important, it has not been the subject of major contestation in the past (as the Kurds were simply not in a position to contest territory so far to the west) and is not known for its natural resources. The case is similar with Hamdaniyya, but this district of Ninevah Province is populated predominantly by Chaldeans and Assyrians and is seemingly devoid of any resource potential. Kirkuk, though, cannot be discussed in the same manner. The fact that the city and province sit atop one of Iraq’s main supergiant oil fields is of crucial importance for those seeking to keep it out of the Kurds’ grasp. These include the many non-Kurdish inhabitants of the town, the constituent components of the Iraqi government, regional powers, and most notably Turkey. For the Kurds, it is undeniable that the elites are occupying Kirkuk for reasons related to its oil. Kurds claim that they wish to ensure that the oil wealth is not wasted but rather is used effectively in the interests of Iraqis. If one is being more suspicious, their ability to control the oil industry both to affect what is happening in the present and to be able to stake further claims in the future cannot be ignored. However, there is more to this situation from the Kurdish perspective than simply the presence of hydrocarbons. For the Kurds, one has to look beyond the oil issue and consider the hugely symbolic power that Kirkuk has in the mass psyche of the Kurds. Kirkuk has been, for at least half a century if not longer, the focal point of Kurdish nationalist aspirations in Iraq. Indeed, it is indicative that the Kurds commonly refer to the city as their ‘‘Jerusalem’’ or, more often, the ‘‘heart’’ of Kurdistan. Why it has this status is a good question to ask. Was it because of the oil? Many Kurds—in the streets and in the political leaderships—may covet the oil wealth that exists there. Yet it does not take a great deal of geopolitical enlightenment to understand that Kirkuk’s oil is valuable only when it can get out to the markets. As a potentially landlocked region, Kurdistan would always be hostage to the whims of neighboring powers. The main motivation for the Kurds in Kirkuk is the immense symbolic position it holds in the Kurdish national movement in Iraq. As Kirkuk is the only major Kurdish population center never held by the Kurds (or not held beyond a few days during moments of chaos in the rest of Iraq), the possession of the city has almost mythical status for Kurds and would be the ultimate proof that they have finally succeeded in their quest for meaningful autonomy in the Iraqi state.

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Conclusion The Kurdish position regarding Kirkuk is simple to understand and difficult to counter. With a belief in their historical tenure that is unshakable, Kurds believe that their claim to Kirkuk and the governorate is both rightful and legitimate. While Turkmens, Arabs, and Assyrians all have a legitimate presence there, the historical record shows clearly and indisputably that Kirkuk was and remains Kurdish. If records do not show this, then there are plenty of reasons why they should not be taken seriously—including the attempts by successive Iraqi governments to alter the records or to systematically pressure peoples of Kirkuk to register not as Kurds but as Arabs. The second, perhaps most pertinent, element that conditions the Kurds’ view of their claim to Kirkuk is that of the immense injustice committed against them by the Iraqi government and allowed to happen by the international community. The Kurds believe their return to Kirkuk and the incorporation of this city and governorate into the Kurdistan Region to be not only in keeping with the true history of the region but also the only morally legitimate course of action.

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Chapter 6 The Arab Perspective Applying the Old Rules

In many ways the Arab perspective on the situation in Kirkuk is the most maligned. If not viewed now as the forces responsible for Arabization, the Arabs are still often seen as the beneficiaries of the policy, gaining access to land, employment, and other opportunities at the expense of those Kirkukis deemed by those now contesting the future of the city as indigenous. With both the Kurdish and Turkmen communities, the task of identifying who is an indigenous inhabitant of Kirkuk is fraught with difficulties, and this is even more the case with regard to the Arab community. This task is, however, only one component of the ‘‘Arab problem’’ in Kirkuk. There is a second issue to be taken into consideration that is in some ways far more complex than simply identifying the history of Arab settlement in the area. For most Arabs, whether indigenous or wafideen, the discussion over the future of Kirkuk should simply not be happening. Kirkuk—so the argument goes—has a long history of being an Iraqi city, identified not with one particular ethnic group or another but with Iraqis. According to this logic, if Iraqis were settled in the city by previous governments, then their residence there now should not be seen as problematic. The real situation to challenge is the attempts by Kurds to portray Kirkuk as historically theirs and to incorporate what was once a cosmopolitan Iraqi region into their national territory. It is readily apparent that Arabs were settled in Kirkuk from the 1960s on, largely as a means of altering the demographic characteristics of the city and governorate in a manner deemed more stabilizing by the government of Iraq. However, it is also quite clear that Kirkuk has within its boundaries Arab tribes and populations that have existed there for generations. Particularly in the southwest and southeast of the province, there exist Sunni Arab families and clans with tribal names of great antiquity and wider familial associations. These people claim that they

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are not the wafideen brought in by the Iraqi government but rather Iraqis indigenous to the north of Iraq and existing in reasonable harmony with their non-Arab countrymen. The Arab argument can be broken down into three distinct parts. The first is largely built around the legitimate presence of Arabs in Kirkuk, particularly from the tribes of the Obeid, Jibbur, and Hadid. The presence of these tribes in the province and in the affairs of the city has a long history and, say Arabs, makes it problematic for Kirkuk to be incorporated into the Kurdish-dominated Kurdistan Region. The second argument is that they believe the Kurds to be overstating the suffering they endured at the hands of the Iraqi government and therefore exaggerating the numbers of displaced Kirkuki Kurds who must now be resettled. The final argument is best described as being ‘‘Iraqi nationalist.’’ Arabs in Kirkuk view with disdain the threat posed to Iraq’s integrity by what they perceive to be the overreaching actions of the leaders of the Kurdistan Region. Believing the Kurdish leaders to be motivated by oil, Kirkuk’s Arabs view the Kurds as acting not in the interests of Iraq but in their own interests. Far from joining Kurdistan, the Arabs (often in unison with the Turkmens) argue for a range of other possibilities to be considered, including keeping Kirkuk simply as a governorate of Iraq or giving Kirkuk some form of special status. Prior to analyses of these three arguments, it is first necessary to explain exactly who the Arabs of Kirkuk are. Just as with the Turkmens and the Kurds, they are not a homogeneous grouping. There exist significant numbers of Shi’is in addition to the presence of Sunni Arabs. Arabs settled in Kirkuk at different periods of time and often display different outlooks depending on how and when they were settled. Some also exist outside the city in the towns and villages of the governorate, and many are concentrated in specific districts (notably Hawija), merged with the Kirkuk governorate in an attempt to increase the proportion of Arabs appearing on the province’s population register.

The Arabs of Kirkuk The Kirkuk governorate has long been a meeting point between Arab nomadic tribes hailing from the west and south and Kurds and Turkmens living in the area. Before Kirkuk became a byword for ethnic conflict, it would be fair to say that the relationship between Arabs and others was unproblematic, with shared land existing among groups for centuries. Indeed, most of the evidence suggests that Kirkuk’s ethnicities lived in relative harmony before the founding of the Iraqi state and the discovery of oil in the region. These ‘‘native’’ Arabs of Kirkuk constitute one particular political sub-

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grouping. Of Sunni orientation, these people emanate mainly from three nomadic families of the Obeid, the Jibbur, and the Hadid.1 Until recent years the most established Arab families in Kirkuk were from the Tikritis, present in the area from as early as the seventeenth century. The other tribes came to Kirkuk in the later Ottoman period, with Ubeid members largely dominating in present-day Hawija after being relocated there by the Iraqi government in the 1930s.2 These tribes, or their subgroups, form the eastern part of an extensive Sunni Arab tribal network that stretches from the west of Ninevah, across the southern parts of the Erbil governorate, and into Kirkuk and Diyala further to the south. As with the Kurds, some of these nomadic groups settled in Kirkuk city, particularly following its growth from the 1930s on, with several quarters developing in the western part of the town. While never claiming to be of equivalent numbers with the Kurds in the province or in the city, according to the census of 1957, native Arabs (and there were at this time relatively few Arabs who did not fit into this wide category) numbered some 43,000, compared to the Turkmen figure of 48,000 and the Kurdish one of 178,000. The second subgrouping of Arabs in Kirkuk is commonly known as the wafideen (newcomers). The name refers not to those Sunni Arab tribes and families who migrated to the region in an organic fashion and found their place in what is accepted by the other communities as a legitimate fashion, but to those who were settled in Kirkuk by the Iraqi government and were therefore used (whether unwittingly or not) in a policy of social engineering designed to strengthen particularly the hold of the Ba’thist regime on the city. This group of people did not originate from any particular area of Iraq, though the majority of them came from poor Shi’i families from the south of Iraq. In many cases they were displaced by the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s or moved by the regime from areas of concern in the south up to Kirkuk to forestall any possible threat that may have been emerging in their places of origin. Many wafideen consequently consider themselves to have the same claim to victimhood as the Kurds and Turkmens do, with some contending that their situation is even worse as they had no choice but to move in the first place and now find themselves decried as agents of the Ba’thists. This association with the policies of the Ba’th regime had dire but predictable consequences for wafideen Arabs following the overthrow of the government of Saddam Hussein in 2003. Following Turkey’s refusal to support US efforts in the north of Iraq, the peshmerga forces of the KDP and the PUK found themselves at the forefront of efforts to push Iraqi forces out of areas immediately south of the Green Line, including, most importantly, Kirkuk. Even before the peshmerga entered the Arab towns and villages of the

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Kirkuk governorate, many of the inhabitants fled, largely out of fear of revenge from the now powerful Kurds, who were believed to be keen to seize control of as much of the Kirkuk governorate as possible. Some of these fleeing wafideen, surprisingly, had the understanding that their tenure on the land on which they had farmed and lived for many years was, at best, questionable. Equally remarkable, in what must have been an environment characterized by considerable ethnopolitical pressure, was that there was no evidence of any massacre of Arab settlers occurring by returning peshmerga forces.3 Even so, once the fighting had finished, it would prove impossible for those Arabs wishing to return to their villages in the governorate to do so. Instead, they found them to be occupied by Kurdish civilians or guarded by peshmerga. There exists a multitude of Arab positions regarding the future of Kirkuk. These largely, though not always, mirror the division between ‘‘native’’ inhabitants and wafideen. The different positions have also been affected considerably by post-2003 developments. Among the old Sunni Arab families of Kirkuk, for example, with their long experience of dealing with Kurdish tribes and their leaders, there has developed an interesting interaction between them and the leaders of the Kurdistan Region, particularly as the Sunnis possess considerable strength when speaking in unison with other Sunni tribes across the north of Iraq, especially in Ninevah Province and Mosul. The outlook of this particular component of Arab society in the north also has some advocates of a particularistic ‘‘Kirkuk-first’’ solution—seeking to act as ‘‘Kirkukis’’ in their political outlook rather than being dragged into any of the bigger games of Kurdish autonomy or Iraqi state centralization. Among the wafideen as well there exists a considerable range of opinions. Some, perhaps with motivations provided by the Kurdish organizations, recognize the illegality of their position in the city and region and accept that, with proper recompense, they should be returned to their places of origin. Others, however, have adopted a far more militant tack and have mobilized under the banner of the young Shi’i leader Muqtada al-Sadr—a vocal opponent of the expansion of the Kurdistan Region.

A Kirkuk of Iraq for Iraqis From the perspective of the Arab community of Kirkuk, it is the Kurdish claim to the city that is most disturbing. As the Arabs see it, the Kurds have steadily increased their numbers in Kirkuk throughout the twentieth century and used their conflict with Baghdad to build a propaganda machine that presented them ultimately as orphans without a country of their own and subject to policies of ethnic cleansing by the Ba’thist regime. For many Arabs in Kirkuk, particularly among the Sunni tribes

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once favored by the deposed Iraqi government, it is simply not accepted that the Kurds (and Turkmens for that matter) suffered the levels of hardship and deprivation that they now claim and for which they seek redress. Particularly when the 1990s are considered, Arabs in Kirkuk believe that far fewer Kurds were expelled than the tens of thousands claimed by the Kurdish parties. Quoting Abd al-Rahman Mashed al-Asi, an Arab community leader in Kirkuk, the International Crisis Group reported in 2006 that ‘‘in the period 1991–2003, the regime expelled a total of 11,856 individual Kurds from Kirkuk governorate’’—a figure far lower than that often mentioned by the KRG. Furthermore, Arab arguments take issue with what is often perceived to be a Kurdish claim to victimhood that does not recognize the suffering of other Iraqis (including Arabs and especially the wafideen) at the hands of the Ba’th regime. For many Arabs brought to Kirkuk during the 1980s, the move was involuntary. Many families simply did not have a choice but to move, and it is therefore illogical and unethical, they argue, for the problem caused by any process of Arabization in the 1980s and 1990s to be countermanded by an equivalent process of Kurdification in the 2000s. Further underlying this belief is that, whether Arabs wanted to be moved or not, they had the legal right to move according to the legal statutes at that time. From this perspective, the Agrarian Reform Act of 1970, which limited ownership of land and dispossessed many major landowners, and subsequent laws expropriating the empty land of non-Arabs expelled by the government were, while draconian, legal, and by renting the land at nominal rates they were simply filling a gap within the economy in Kirkuk as was their right as Iraqis.4 As such, from the perspective of many Arabs in Kirkuk (and especially wafideen Arabs), Kirkuk’s socioeconomic development has occurred as an integral component of the Iraqi economic system, and Kirkuk is, therefore, an intrinsic part of Iraq. As Iraqis, they had every right to accept jobs in any part of Iraq, including Kirkuk, and as such their presence there—often nearly thirty years in duration, and much longer for some of the Sunni Arab families—is totally legitimate. Having been in the area for decades, Arabs have also become firmly integrated into Kirkuk’s social, cultural, and political life and no longer have meaningful links to their place of origin. It is therefore of little surprise that the Arab community of Kirkuk views with considerable hostility the notion that Kirkuk is in some ways ‘‘Kurdish’’ or that the Kurds have a right to ownership of the city based on any special notion of their suffering at the hands of a regime that largely benefited the incoming wafideen or the resident Sunni Arab tribes. For many, therefore, preventing Kirkuk’s inclusion in the Kurdistan Region and maintaining it in its current relationship with Baghdad is a strategy that unites Arabs, whether Sunni or

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Shi’i, and finds common cause with the Turkmens. There are some, however, who seek to keep Kirkuk out of the Kurdistan Region by making Kirkuk a region in itself.

Promotion of Kirkuki Distinctiveness by the Arabs For the old established families of Sunni Arabs living in Kirkuk and its environs, the area has long been recognized as a multiethnic region, often referred to as being dominated by Turkmens in the city but being resolutely ‘‘Iraqi’’ in its outlook. As many of these families had close links with the previous regime, it is not surprising that what is in effect very much an official pre-2003 Iraqi government view of the city and region continues to be promoted. Yet it is an idea that has weight not only among Sunni Arab elites outside Kirkuk but also among many nonArab Kirkukis. The thinking among these Sunni Arab elites operates at three levels when it comes to forwarding a ‘‘Kirkuki’’ solution for the problem of Kirkuk’s future. The first level views with abhorrence the possibility of living under the authority of a named Kurdistan Region. This psychological element is not merely the knee-jerk reaction of a group of people left dispossessed since the removal of the Ba’th regime. It is a deeply held conviction that is built upon their strong belief in the sanctity of the Iraqi state. This, in effect, ties into the second level of Sunni Arab belief that leads them to consider promoting the Kirkuki-first agenda. At this level is the belief that the Kurdish leaders are planning secretly (or not so secretly) to fragment Iraq and secede by creating an independent Kurdish state. For this to happen, so the logic goes, the Kurdistan Region would need to be augmented by the inclusion of the Kirkuk region in order to provide independent Kurdistan with the financial wherewithal to support itself. To prevent this from happening, Sunni Arab tribes in the north of Iraq are adopting a range of common and interlinked positions designed to contain what they perceive to be Kurdish expansionist designs. The third level of thinking among Sunni Arab groups that leads them to promote a Kirkuk-first policy is what appears to be a genuine belief in the distinctiveness of Kirkuk as a multiethnic, cosmopolitan Iraqi city in which all ethnic and religious groups have coexisted for centuries in relative peace and harmony. As this thought goes, ultimately Kirkuk’s interests as an oil-rich, economically vibrant entrepoˆt could best be administered independently of Kurdistan—with Kirkuk having its own federal status if need be. How such an entity would be governed remains an open question that advocates of the plan seldom address.

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Conclusion Arab perspectives on Kirkuk’s future vary considerably. Some recognize the problems of Kirkuk as being distinctive and in need of special attention. Others consider any notion of Kirkuk being anything other than an Iraqi city to be unacceptable. What tends to exist as a common theme among them, however, is an understanding, even belief, that changes in the nature of political authority in Iraq are transitory. While the Kurds are powerful now, the time will soon come when the previous order of authority will be restored. This may come to pass, but at present the reality on the ground is clearly of an institutionalized and capable Kurdish political and military machine that cannot be ignored. While Arab political leaders make impressive claims about what their position should be in Kirkuk, they remain unable to promote their claims with a single voice due to the divisions that exist across Iraq between Sunnis and Shi’is. With the largely Shi’i wafideen gone from Kirkuk, some Shi’i parties—namely, the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI) of Abd al-Aziz al-Hakim—have shown a willingness to discuss Kirkuk’s future with the Kurds within a wider discourse on federalism in Iraq. Other, mainly Sunni, parties have categorically refused to be involved in any such discussion. Of course, the situation is highly complex, with many Shi’i politicians remaining resolutely opposed to the Kurdish position on Kirkuk. Yet the key fact to recognize is the lack of cohesiveness within the Arab political elites toward the question of Kirkuk’s future. When compared to the well-organized and unified Kurdish position, the claims made by some of the most critical Arab politicians look unrealistic.

Review Kirkuk’s historical development—with reference to governance in general and the interaction between different communal groups in particular—can be divided into three discrete periods. The first of these is the longest in terms of timescale, covering the genesis of Kirkuk to the end of World War I. Of course, a great deal happened in a period of several thousand years, and life in the city and its hinterland was not always harmonious. However, it is reasonable to describe Kirkuk—particularly under Ottoman control—as characterized by a multiethnic population at ease with the mechanisms of administration and distribution of decision-making authority. The second period covers the twentieth century, beginning with the fall of the Ottoman Empire and Kirkuk’s incorporation into Iraq, and culminating with the fall of Saddam’s regime in 2003. In this century

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the fault lines of ethnicity and class became uncovered through Kirkuk’s assumption of a position of value and prominence within a new state built upon an ideology of Arab nationalism. With the maturation of the Middle East geopolitical system throughout the twentieth century, the fault lines apparent in Kirkuk reverberated across borders, worsening what was already a situation of heightened domestic instability due to the involvement of regional powers—namely, Turkey and Iran. The third period commenced with the invasion of Iraq by US-led forces in 2003 and is ongoing. In this period decision makers in the new Iraq have had to contend with the legacies of actions taken in the twentieth century by successive governments and have had to manage the aspirations of peoples newly released from the constraints of dictatorship and with often highly communalized notions of identity. In addition to dealing with these legacies and aspirations, Iraq’s new decision makers have to operate within a new system of governance, which is built upon foundations that have been heavily influenced by foreign powers (namely the US) in the form of postwar agreements, political structures, and ultimately the new Iraqi constitution. Separating Kirkuk’s future from that of developments within the wider Iraqi political arena has proved to be impossible. At times Iraqi leaders have sought to treat Kirkuk as a special case, leaving negotiations over its future to later dates. However, five years after the removal of Saddam, the future of Kirkuk can no longer be ignored. The crisis that had been brewing there since 2003 threatened to destabilize not only the north of Iraq but also the entire political system.

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Part III The Postwar Struggle for Kirkuk

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Map 7. Kirkuk governorate, 2003. This map shows major cities and district-level administrative divisions. Adapted from UN map available at www.humanitarian info.org/iraq/maps/148%20A3%20Tameem%20Governorate%20Map%20all %20pop%20places.pdf.

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Map 8. Annotated map of Kirkuk city quarters, 2005–. The ethnic composition of major neighborhoods is illustrated in this map. Compiled from the authors’ own data and various interviews with Kirkuki residents.

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Chapter 7 The Kurds Ascendant

By the time Kirkuk fell to a mixture of US special forces and Kurdish peshmerga on 9 April 2003, the future history of the city had already been irrevocably altered by a decision taken in Ankara the previous month. After months of unseemly haggling between Washington and Ankara, on 1 March a majority of voting members of the Turkish parliament finally endorsed a plan to allow US troops to launch a second front using Turkish territory as a staging area.1 However, the abstention of 19 members of parliament (MPs) meant that the final vote tally—264 in favor and 251 against—fell short of the absolute parliamentary majority required to approve the bill. The initial deal, apparently concluded as early as December 2002, had envisaged the use of Turkish territory for an invasion of northern Iraq by up to eighty thousand heavily armed US troops. In return, Turkey was to receive generous economic incentives and the right to participate directly in shaping the postwar politics of northern Iraq. The final version presented to parliament would have authorized sixty-two thousand US troops to launch the northern front from Turkish bases in exchange for US grants and loan guarantees of $30 billion, and, critically, an agreement for up to forty thousand Turkish troops to enter Iraqi Kurdistan.2 The Turkish parliament’s rejection of the bill would have several detrimental repercussions for Ankara’s strategic profile in the region. Most obviously, the vote was not well received in Washington. Deprived of the heavily armored Fourth Infantry Division, which was left floating in five ships off the coast of Turkey for over two weeks prior to the vote, the US was forced to cobble together a ‘‘Plan B’’ for northern Iraq that required special forces to operate with Kurdish peshmerga forces (under US command) and, ultimately, the deployment of one thousand to two thousand troops from the 173rd Airborne Brigade. With perhaps three thousand troops on the ground in northern Iraq at war’s end, it proved impossible for the US to control events in the major cities of the north—

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notably Mosul and Kirkuk. Thus, the US’s prewar pledge to Turkey that it would control ‘‘any potential population flows into Kirkuk and Mosul . . . by occupying the area’’ was logistically impossible to fulfill.3 At various stages Turkey also obtained verbal commitments from the two Kurdish factions that neither would enter Kirkuk unilaterally and that both would seek to discourage ‘‘uncontrolled movements of refugees and displaced persons.’’4 Deprived of its capacity to influence events directly, however, Turkey was reduced to issuing ominous-sounding, though ultimately futile, threats about the consequences of crossing Turkish redlines. It was reported, for example, that a senior Turkish diplomat said there was ‘‘no flexibility’’ in Turkey’s position, warning that even a move by unarmed civilians into the cities would be a provocation. A senior Turkish military official went further, telling reporters that one Kurdish fighter spending one hour in either city would draw a military response.5 The weakness of Turkey’s position became glaringly apparent on 10 April when Kirkuk fell without a fight to the peshmerga forces of the PUK, accompanied, so the PUK claimed, by US special forces. PUK media sources reported that peshmerga had entered the city in spontaneous response to a ‘‘fierce uprising against the Ba’thist regime.’’6 US military sources, meanwhile, spoke of a ‘‘multi-ethnic uprising’’ involving Kurds, Turkmens, Arabs, and Christians.7 According to the Times, however, the PUK’s triumphant entry into the city was the culmination of a carefully constructed plan ‘‘worthy of a Hollywood script’’ that ‘‘duped the Americans, played off the Turks and walked over the Iraqis.’’8 In the Times interpretation of events, ‘‘the peshmerga leadership consistently assured Washington that it would not send its forces into Kirkuk for fear of antagonizing the Turks. Yet it knew that it had to achieve a de facto control of Kirkuk, and neutralize the Turkish threat. So it orchestrated a ‘spontaneous’ uprising to coincide with the retreat on Thursday of Iraqi units.’’9 Clearly, the PUK had prepared well for the fall of Kirkuk. Within one day an estimated ten thousand PUK peshmerga had entered the city, followed by police units from various PUK-controlled parts of the Kurdistan Region. The party’s political leadership established its operating base at the municipal headquarters, appointed its own mayor, and began handing out ‘‘safe-conduct’’ passes to citizens of all ethnicities in the form of PUK membership cards.10 Moreover, it seems clear that the PUK had not coordinated the advance with either US military forces or the political leadership of the KDP. According to Hoshyar Zebari, a senior KDP official, the entry into Kirkuk was ‘‘a unilateral move by the PUK. The Americans were very upset.’’11 Massoud Barzani, meanwhile, expressed irritation at the PUK’s apparent violation of its agreement with the US, asserting, ‘‘we complied

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and did not enter so as not to damage Kirkuk’s identity. But the entry that did take place made me apprehensive about the city’s future.’’12 There appears to be no clear consensus among observers about the extent and severity of the looting and violence that accompanied the fall. Some Western journalists on the scene spoke of ‘‘anarchy’’ and of two days of ‘‘determined, almost methodical looting’’ by Kurds,13 while more sensationalist accounts spoke of armed militias of all ethnicities ‘‘pillaging’’ the city14 and of ‘‘euphoria turning to ethnic bloodlust.’’15 A spokesman for the Iraqi Turkmen Front upped the rhetoric, claiming that PUK peshmerga were ‘‘slaughtering’’ Turkmens in the city, and the ITF’s representative in Turkey, Ahmet Muratli, accused the PUK of attacking and plundering ‘‘population and title deed registrations which proved the existence of Turkmens in Kirkuk.’’16 Human Rights Watch, whose researchers were present in Kirkuk at the time of the fall, offered the more sober (and probably more accurate) assessment that ‘‘the abuses committed by armed Kurdish elements, while inexcusable, were of a limited nature and it is unclear whether they were formally sanctioned by Kurdish leaders. The fact that only a limited number of killings and other abuses were reported strongly suggests that the Kurdish leadership—probably under pressure from their American allies—took strong steps to prevent wider abuses by their forces.’’17 Perhaps surprisingly, a fifteen-man observer team from Turkey reached a similar conclusion, reporting that ‘‘there are no systematic attacks against the Turkmens in Kirkuk,’’ that land registry and population records ‘‘were not destroyed but some of them were looted,’’ and that a large number of the peshmerga had already withdrawn from the city in line with Talabani’s instructions.18 By the time US forces from the 173rd Airborne entered the city on 12 April, the worst of the looting appeared to be over, and a fragile calm had settled over the city. Now officially ‘‘in control’’ of the city, US troops faced the unenviable task of mediating between the claims of rival groups, distinguishing between legitimate and illegitimate security forces, and, somewhat optimistically, of creating a ‘‘weapons-free zone’’ in Kirkuk. After one day in the city, an officer with the 173rd aptly encapsulated the US’s dilemma, stating, ‘‘this is just a power struggle, and we can’t get in the middle of it.’’19 Within less than a week a semblance of normality had returned to the city. On 13 April the Washington Post reported that Kurdish forces had largely completed their withdrawal from Kirkuk. By 15 April, KDP media were reporting that hospitals were functioning normally, electricity supplies had been restored to over half the city’s population, and water services had resumed.20 On 17 April the US supervised the establishment of a multiethnic city council to help administer city services.21 With no reliable demographic data to draw on, the US took the default option

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of a twenty-four-member council, with seats divided equally among the city’s four major ethnic groups (Kurd, Turkmen, Arab, and Christian).22 On the surface, at least, it appeared as though Kirkuk had successfully avoided the ethnic bloodbath predicted by many in the run-up to war. Below the surface, however, a number of worrying incidents suggested otherwise. On 14 April the Middle East News Agency (MENA) claimed that Kurdish peshmerga killed a local Turkmen and his seven-year-old son;23 the same day five Arabs and three Kurds were killed after clashes erupted between Kurdish forces and Arabs in the Arab Sunni stronghold town of Hawija to the southwest of Kirkuk city.24 On 15 April, meanwhile, the International Herald Tribune (IHT) reported from the village of Daquq outside Kirkuk that PUK officials in the village were issuing signed expulsion orders to force Arabs out of the area.25 Within a week of the fall of Kirkuk, indeed, most of the dynamics that would shape the trajectory of Kirkuk’s future were already apparent. Turkey had effectively marginalized itself from the debate over the future of the city; as the IHT observed, ‘‘Turkey’s military has had an expensive war. Its commanders have not only lost a special bond with the United States that had endured for half a century, but also forfeited a chance to secure a strategic bridgehead in Kurdish northern Iraq.’’26 Equally problematic for the Turks, the PUK’s peshmerga had blatantly and publicly crossed a supposed Turkish redline by entering Kirkuk unilaterally and in force, and the Turks had done nothing in response. Effectively, as one strategic analyst noted, ‘‘the Turks blinked. They blinked big time.’’27 Turkey’s initial failure to respond to an obvious transgression by Iraqi Kurds significantly undermined the credibility of all future threats. In essence, Turkey lost its ability to use intimidation as a weapon to influence events in Kirkuk at an early stage. Turkey’s default option—using the ITF as a proxy force to advance Turkish interests and thwart Kurdish ambitions—was also gravely undercut by the Turkish Parliament’s veto. From the outset US military and civilian officials treated the ITF with suspicion, assuming it (with some justification) to be little more than a proxy for Turkish foreign policy interests.28 The ITF’s repeated calls for Turkish military intervention in the immediate aftermath of the fall of Kirkuk, and its tendency to stoke up ethnic tensions with exaggerated claims, also did little to enhance its popularity or its reputation as a force for stability and sobriety in Kirkuk. In stark contrast to Turkey’s diminishing fortunes, the Kurds emerged from the war as the dominant force in Kirkuk. As the only indigenous participants in Operation Iraqi Freedom, the Kurds were the natural allies for US forces to turn to in the immediate postwar environment. Like most Iraqi cities, Kirkuk’s governing structure disintegrated during the course of the war as Ba’thist administrators fled en masse southward

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to avoid anticipated retribution. Kurdish forces stepped in to fill the vacuum. With over a decade’s worth of experience running governments in the Kurdistan Region and with capable and reliable security forces on hand, the Kurds were the logical choice to take the lead in governing and policing the city. Much as US officials made efforts to appear evenhanded in their dealings with Kirkuk’s rival ethnicities, their greater reliance on the Kurds was born of necessity and, most likely, preference. The immediate postwar environment also revealed the magnitude and complexity of the task facing the two thousand or so US troops from the 173rd Airborne charged with governing the city. Pitched into an alien and hostile environment in the midst of squabbling ethnicities, the forces of the 173rd faced the unenviable task of reconstructing the economic, physical, and political infrastructures of the city from the ground up. Simultaneously they were expected to distinguish friend from foe and separate fact from fiction in the ‘‘dueling narratives’’ of the city’s ethnic groups. The sheer complexity of the Kirkuk issue became abundantly clear the moment the former regime’s grip on power dissipated. Colonel David Gray’s colorful description of the struggle for Kirkuk as ‘‘an amalgamation of a knife fight, a gun fight, and three-dimensional chess’’ was, if anything, an understatement.29 In reality, the struggle for Kirkuk’s future has been conducted at multiple separable, but related, levels of analysis. At the local level, the struggle has involved competition among rival ethnicities for control of the city. More precisely, the Kurds have sought to consolidate their de facto dominance, while Arabs and Turkmens have sought to obstruct and, ultimately, to delegitimize Kurdish control. At the national level, the struggle has pitted Kurd against Arab. The two Kurdish parties were united in their determination to codify their claim to Kirkuk in Iraq’s constitution. A mechanism and time line for the incorporation of the city into the Kurdistan Region was the price exacted by the Kurds for their approval of the constitution and their support of two Shi’i Arab-dominated governments. Arab political leaders, meanwhile, are almost universally opposed to any Kurdish ‘‘annexation’’ of Kirkuk and have sought to exploit the vagueness and ambiguities of the relevant constitutional provisions to delay and obstruct the process. In addition to the struggle for local and national control over Kirkuk, there are two subsidiary levels of analysis—the regional and international—that have potential future significance. At the regional level, the intra-Kurdish power struggle between the PUK and the KDP for preeminence in the city has, to date, been muted. It risks intensification if Kirkuk is absorbed into the Kurdistan Region because this will likely disturb the delicate balance of power that has prevailed in that region since the end of the war. It may also intensify if, for

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whatever reason, the Kurds ‘‘lose’’ Kirkuk and each party seeks to use the other as a plausible scapegoat. At the international level, the struggle for Kirkuk has involved Turkey and, to a lesser extent, Iran and Syria. Nothing much binds these countries together except their common experience governing restive Kurdish populations and, as a consequence, their shared desire to obstruct Kurdish ambitions in northern Iraq. Though analytically separable, these levels are in practice umbilically linked. In keeping with Colonel Gray’s multidimensional chess analogy, moves on one board have inevitably affected, and been affected by, strategies adopted at other levels. The Kurds’ concerted efforts to translate their political influence at the national level into legal ‘‘ownership’’ of Kirkuk, for example, have greatly increased tensions at the local level, to the detriment of their attempts to legitimize their governance of the city. The US, meanwhile, has been a key actor at all levels; arguably, though, it has pursued mutually incompatible strategies at different levels. At the local level, the US has relied heavily on the Kurds as its most capable and reliable allies in the struggle against the insurgency. At this level the US has been complicit in the consolidation of de facto Kurdish control, particularly in the security sphere. At the national level, however, the US’s approach to the issue has been much more ambivalent. ‘‘Issue-avoidance’’ may be the most appropriate way to characterize the US strategy at this level, making the US complicit in delaying a resolution favorable to Kurdish interests. Nonetheless, a resolution on the final status of Kirkuk cannot be delayed indefinitely.

The Struggle Begins At the local level, the struggle for Kirkuk has pitted Kurd against Arab and Turkmen. US officials have tried, with limited success, to appear evenhanded in their treatment of the three major population groups in the city. The city’s small Christian community, meanwhile, totaled less than 5 percent of the population and has had little option but to avoid conflict by remaining neutral. Almost immediately following their entry into Kirkuk, troops from the 173rd, under the leadership of William Mayville, sought to project an image of balance and fairness. The PUK’s appointed mayor was summarily dismissed (as was his KDP rival), remaining peshmerga forces were ordered out of the city, and on 17 April the US convened Kirkuk’s first postwar government. Kirkuk’s new Administration Committee comprised twenty-four members, with six members each drawn from the ranks of the three major communities and the remaining six seats allocated to the much smaller Christian community.30 Mayville sought to achieve a similar balance in the city’s

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police force. According to an interview with Mayville conducted by the US Army’s Stars and Stripes magazine, three days after the fall of Kirkuk, ‘‘one cop from each entity—Arab, Assyrian, Kurd and Turkmen—was told to report to work the next morning. They did, and worked together. The next day the team was doubled, and then doubled again the following day. Most of the cops are unarmed, often working in conjunction with U.S. forces.’’31 A largely unarmed police force was part of Mayville’s eminently sensible, but ultimately unenforceable, plan to make Kirkuk a weapons-free zone. To demonstrate that the strategy would be implemented in an evenhanded manner, on 26 April, US troops raided and confiscated weapons from the offices of all the major political parties in the city, including those of the KDP and the PUK. Likewise, in early May a potentially violent dispute between Arabs and returning Kurds near the town of Makhmur was averted by swift US intervention. The dispute concerned rights to the harvest that had been farmed by Arabs but on land originally owned by Kurds. The US’s solution was to split the profits from grain sales fifty-fifty between Arabs and Kurds. However, the futility of the US’s egalitarian gestures was soon apparent. A 26 April news report by MENA claimed that ‘‘the PUK Kurds hold full control over all government buildings in the area, and they replaced all Turkmen and Arab civil servants with Kurds. The universities in town also bore the brunt as all of their staffers were replaced by Kurds.’’32 The reliably vocal ITF, meanwhile, claimed that the Kurdish parties had ‘‘seized’’ all government posts in the city and that the US had been duped by the Kurdish parties, who had ‘‘dressed militiamen in police uniforms and posted them everywhere’’33 Likewise, Turkish news sources reported that some one thousand PUK police were patrolling the city alongside US forces. The KDP’s own media outlet Brayati confirmed that fifteen hundred officials ‘‘ranging from policemen, traffic wardens and security officers’’ had been sent from Erbil to Kirkuk and that the city’s previous administration was in the process of being ‘‘dismantled.’’34 According to the Washington Post, as of mid-May some three hundred of the city’s five-hundred-strong police officers were Kurds. The Kurds, particularly the PUK, also dominated the city’s emerging media sector. By the beginning of May, the US-backed ‘‘Kirkuk TV’’ was broadcasting transmissions in all four of the city’s major languages, and the ITF had already launched its own radio and television networks. However, according to reporters on the ground from the Christian Science Monitor, ‘‘the radio, television, and newspaper outlets here in Kirkuk are all being sponsored by one Kurdish political party, the PUK . . . which has been spreading its resources from its quasi-capital in Sulaymaniyah.’’35

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Kurdish dominance of the city was largely unavoidable, and there was probably little the US could have done to prevent it. In simple terms, the Kurds had access to far greater financial resources and reservoirs of trained and experienced manpower than did the city’s other communities. Initially at least, there appeared to be no systematic, intentional bias toward the Kurds on the part of US officials; but this was clearly not the way it was perceived by other groups (most notably the ITF) in the city. In the context of Kirkuk, however, perception was often more real than reality. Hence, when the US adopted a principle of representation on the basis of strict equality among groups in the allocation of seats for the city’s first postwar government, this was perceived by the ITF as a sign of bias toward the Kurds because, at least in the view of the ITF, Turkmen inhabitants greatly outnumbered Kurds in the city. The situation was further complicated by divisions within the Turkmen community. Initially the US allocated the six Turkmen seats on the Kirkuk Committee to the ITF. Following complaints by other Turkmen factions and, it was reported, the two main Kurdish parties, the US replaced five of these with delegates from other Turkmen parties with closer links to the Kurds.36 As a result, the remaining ITF representative was ordered by his party to boycott committee meetings and was then permanently expelled from the committee by the US.

Governing Kirkuk Similar controversies emerged when the US began preparations for the ‘‘election’’ of a more permanent representative assembly toward the end of May. The magnitude of the US’s task was aptly summarized by a US officer charged with organizing the process: ‘‘No accurate census has been done in recent memory and with the Ba’th Party’s Arabization of the region, who controls what and who has the largest population among Kirkuk’s many ethnic groups is anyone’s guess. The problem is baffling just from a statistical standpoint; add in some racial violence, ethnic hatred and a whole lot of distrust and it quickly becomes an issue of monumental proportions.’’37 The US opted for an indirect election whereby a total 156 voting delegates would be selected by the US to represent the city’s four ethnic groups (39 delegates for each group), with the remaining 144 delegates chosen (also by the US military) to represent ‘‘independents.’’ The total number of delegates (300) was determined by nothing more scientific than the capacity of the auditorium in which the voting would take place. The ethnic delegations would then each elect six representatives on the council, with the final six members elected by the independent delegation. The process was intended as a compromise and was modeled on the

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system used to elect a council in neighboring Mosul in early May. The Mosul system was considered an appropriate template for Kirkuk because it had produced a council that appeared to be acceptable to Mosul’s various ethnic groups.38 Directly electing a council in Kirkuk would have been logistically impossible under prevailing conditions, while a purely US-appointed body would have been politically unpopular and would inevitably have left the US vulnerable to accusations of favoritism, regardless of who was appointed and from which ethnic group. The system was, therefore, probably the best that could have been implemented at the time. The inclusion of independents was designed to add a ‘‘balancing factor’’ to the council, affording representation to ‘‘professional minded people who are thinking beyond their ethnicity and ethnic politics.’’39 Though the system was a reasonable compromise born of necessity, it became mired in controversy from the outset. On the day of voting (24 May), for example, five members of the Arab delegation were arrested at the door of city hall following an intelligence tip-off that all had been high-ranking Ba’th Party members. Turkmen delegates complained bitterly about their lack of representation among the independent delegation, and two of their delegates had to be forcibly removed from the hall. The election of the six independent members, comprising five Kurds and one Christian, proved especially controversial. Along with the six ‘‘ethnic’’ delegates elected by each delegation, this meant a council composed of eleven Kurds, seven Christians, six Turkmens, and six Arabs. The five Kurdish independent delegates were ‘‘independent’’ in the sense of being unaffiliated with either of the main Kurdish parties, but their selection for membership on the council was inevitably perceived by Turkmen and Arab delegates as clear evidence of US bias in favor of the Kurds. The Turkmens were also aggrieved that two of their six elected members were known to have close links to the PUK. In response, the Arab and Turkmen delegations threatened to boycott the vote for mayor unless that was due to take place the day after the council elections. According to one news source, the situation became so ‘‘heated’’ that Maj. Gen. Ray Odierno, charged with overseeing the ballot, ‘‘intervened and said he would review the voting for the independents.’’40 Following the withdrawal of three Arab candidates for the post, the race for mayor was reduced to a head-to-head contest between an independent Kurdish candidate, the former lawyer Abdel Rahman Mustafa, and the ITF’s nominee, Mustafa Kamal Yaychli. The race for deputy mayor pitted Ismail al-Hadidi, an independent candidate from one of the oldest Arab families in the city, against two Turkmen candidates— Tahsin Kahya, the head of the Iraqi Turkmen Islamic Union, and the

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ITF’s Ali Mahdi.41 On 28 May the council’s thirty members yielded a 2010 vote for Mustafa as mayor, while Hadidi prevailed in the race for deputy mayor. In addition, three ‘‘assistants to the mayor’’ were chosen: a Kurd, Hassib Rozbayani, to head up a committee on resettlement and displacement issues; a Turkmen, Irfan Kirkuki, to supervise de-Ba’thification; and a Christian, Sargon Lazar, to organize governmental affairs. On paper at least, the ethnic makeup of the council and its governing team seemed well balanced. With eleven members, the Kurds controlled a plurality of seats on the council but not a majority. The Kurds would, therefore, need to forge alliances with other groups in order to approve measures in the council. Likewise, an independent Kurdish mayor with an Arab deputy and Kurdish, Turkmen, and Christian assistants did not seem egregiously out of line with prevailing estimates of Kirkuk’s ethnic composition. However, the process and its outcome provoked a bitter reaction from Arab and Turkmen political leaders. The leader of the council’s Arab delegation, Wasfi Aasi, complained, ‘‘our only problem with the outcome is that it was determined in advance by the Americans.’’42 A spokesman for the ITF criticized the results as ‘‘unfair’’ and echoed Aasi’s sentiments, claiming that ‘‘the results were known beforehand, given that the 30-strong committee that chose the new governor included 20 Kurds.’’43 The reference to ‘‘20 Kurds’’ on the council became a standard refrain in the ITF’s complaints of systematic US bias in favor of the Kurds, and it was clearly not literally accurate.44 Overall, though, the ITF’s complaint about being underrepresented on the council and marginalized from executive power was not without justification. The only Turkmen in an executive position, Irfan Kirkuki, was head of the Turkmen People’s Party, a party with strong links to the PUK. As a staunch defender of the Kurdish positions against frequent verbal attacks by the ITF, Kirkuki was considered an ‘‘illegitimate’’ voice for the Turkmen community by the ITF. Similarly, Arab deputy mayor Hadidi, though far from a Kurdish nationalist, was an ‘‘original’’ Arab from one of the city’s oldest Arab families, and he was known to be broadly supportive of efforts to reverse the effects of the previous regime’s Arabization policies. The Kurds, therefore, emerged from the process as clear ‘‘winners.’’ They controlled a comfortable plurality of seats on the council; their main protagonist in Kirkuk, the ITF, had been comprehensively sidelined; and the chief positions of executive power were controlled by Kurds or by members of other ethnic groups known to be either broadly pro-Kurdish or, at a minimum, not stridently anti-Kurdish. From a broader perspective, the results had greater symbolic than practical significance, though the importance of symbolism in the context of Kirkuk should not be underestimated. The Kurds henceforth

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‘‘controlled’’ Kirkuk to the extent that they occupied a majority of administrative and political positions the city. In this sense, Kirkuk had become a de facto ‘‘Kurdish’’ rather than Turkmen or Arab city. However, neither the mayor nor the council exercised any genuinely independent decision-making powers. As Major General Odierno explained to delegates on the day of the council elections, the US military retained the right to veto candidates, remove elected members, and overrule council decisions.45 The council also had no power to raise money and had minimal influence over the disbursement of the funding that was available. Overwhelmingly this came from one of two sources—the US military, via the Commanders Emergency Response Program (CERP), and the two main Kurdish political parties, each of which donated sizable sums of money to infrastructure projects and paid the salaries of Kurdish administrators in the city. The powerlessness of the council was inevitable because the primary purpose of its creation was not to govern the city efficiently but to put in place something broadly representative of the city’s complex ethnic mix as soon as possible in order to stabilize a potentially volatile postwar environment. In this, the council was probably counterproductive.46

Governing Iraq At the national level, the US faced similar problems but on a far larger scale. Baghdad had been comprehensively ransacked in the immediate aftermath of the war; there was no governing structure remaining; the city’s infrastructure had been dismantled by a combination of bombing, ten years of sanctions, and the extensive postwar looting; and there appeared to be no clear plan in place to deal with any of this. In terms of governance, the Pentagon’s favored approach to putting an Iraqi face on the US occupation was to rely on an interim government of Iraqi exiles. This ‘‘Leadership Council,’’ comprising seven prominent Iraqi political leaders (the so-called G-7), was to have assumed an important governing role almost immediately following the fall of Baghdad. However, the replacement of Gen. Jay Garner with Paul Bremer as viceroy in May 2003 was symptomatic of a major change in the trajectory and philosophy of the occupation. Unlike Garner, whose remit had been to supervise an immediate turnover of power to Iraqis in preparation for the withdrawal of US forces in six months’ time, Bremer’s goals were much more ambitious. They included disbanding and reconstructing the Iraqi army in its entirety, comprehensive de-Ba’thification, transforming Iraq into a free-market economy, and selecting a more representative and durable governing institution. The resultant Iraqi Governing Council was officially formed on 13 July

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2003. In keeping with Bremer’s stated concern regarding the accurate representation of all of Iraq’s communal groups, the IGC was composed of thirteen Shi’i Arabs (a mix of secular and religious), five Sunni Arabs, five Kurds, one Turkmen, and one Christian. The balance reflected prevailing Western estimates of the numerical strength of these groups in the Iraqi population rather than the estimates of the groups themselves.47 Hence, the ITF’s standard position that the Turkmens comprised between 10 and 15 percent of the Iraqi population was comprehensively rejected by the US at an early juncture.48 As a governing institution, the IGC was a powerless irrelevance. In the context of Kirkuk, however, it was important for two reasons. First, members of the IGC were to be influential in the drafting of Iraq’s interim constitution, and with five members on the council, the Kurds were well placed to ensure that their interests were protected in this document. Second, the reaction of Turkmen political leaders to their one seat on the IGC yielded revealing insights about attitudes toward, and perceptions of, ethnicity and sect within the Turkmen population. The general response of Turkmen political leaders was one of outraged disbelief at the share of seats allocated to the Turkmen community and the identity of the one Turkmen member selected. Claiming to be ‘‘shocked’’ at the decision to seat only one Turkmen, ITF executive committee member Aydin Beyatli argued that ‘‘Turkmens have the same population as Kurds. So also Turkmens should have [the] same number of representatives as Kurds.’’49 In a written statement to Bremer, delivered as part of a ‘‘mass’’ demonstration in Baghdad in August, the ITF argued that the Turkmen population, ‘‘starting from Talla’far region and ending at the southeast of Baghdad, exceeds three million people’’ and that, therefore, ‘‘justice calls for the appointment of no fewer than three members of the Turkmen in the Provisional Governing Council and a number of ministers that conforms to the ratio of the Turkmen population, to be selected from notable political figures well known to the Turkmen people.’’50 ITF officials were equally agitated by Bremer’s selection of Songhul Chapouk to represent the Turkmen community. A Sunni Turkmen woman and native Kirkuki, Chapouk’s background was in civil engineering and teaching, and she apparently drew the attention of coalition authorities while working as a translator for the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) in Kirkuk. Chapouk’s only political experience to speak of was as head of the Iraqi Women’s Organization, which is exactly the sort of background Bremer was looking for to showcase the ‘‘new’’ Iraq but which did little to endear her to most Turkmen political leaders. At a press conference to denounce the appointment, ITF head San’an Ahmad Agha characterized Chapouk, somewhat bizarrely, as a ‘‘great

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artist’’ who has ‘‘nothing to do with politics and has never participated in any political activities,’’ and he described her appointment as a ‘‘betrayal’’ of the Turkmen people.51 Beyatli concurred, dismissing Chapouk as a ‘‘translator of Americans’’ who ‘‘can’t represent Turkmens.’’52 Meanwhile, the secretary general of the Iraqi Turkmen Islamic Union, Abbas al-Bayati, issued a memorandum stating, ‘‘The Shi’is who represent 50 per cent of the Turkmeni community became immensely frustrated and distressed when they found out that they had no representative on the Council.’’53 Hence, Chapouk was deemed unrepresentative of the Turkmen community by ITF leaders because she was not affiliated with their organization and by Shi’i Turkmen leaders because she was a Sunni. The implication of the ITF’s position was that only an ITF member could adequately represent the interests of the broader Turkmen community, while the implication of al-Bayati’s position was that Sunni Turkmens could not adequately represent the interests of the Shi’i Turkmen community. Given that the ITF was an overwhelmingly Sunni-dominated operation, this basic difference in perception exposed a significant fault line that would henceforth confound the ITF’s efforts to mobilize the Turkmen community under its banner and seriously undermine its claim to being the only legitimate mouthpiece of the community. The situation did not improve for Turkmens when the list of twentyfive cabinet appointees was announced in early September. Aside from Bayan Jabr (also known as Bayan Baqir Sulagh), a Shi’i Turkmen member of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI, later renamed ISCI), who was appointed as minister of housing and construction, the only Turkmen representative in the cabinet was the new minister for science and technology, Rashad Mendan Omar. Another politically anonymous civil engineer, Omar had apparently been appointed at random from a list of fifty Turkmen candidates by Chapouk.54 With disarming honesty, Chapouk revealed to the Christian Science Monitor her method for arriving at the decision: ‘‘She read the 50 resumes she received. Then she jotted down the most promising names, closed her eyes, said a prayer, and plucked out the name of Iraq’s next minister of science and technology.’’55 By contrast, the Kurds were awarded five of the twenty-five cabinet positions, including the prestigious foreign affairs portfolio. The IGC and the cabinet were of marginal importance to the governance of Iraq. Their decisions were upheld when they coincided with the views of Bremer and ignored when they did not. Members had been handpicked by Bremer to adhere to predetermined ethnosectarian quotas that, it was assumed, accurately reflected the broader makeup of Iraqi society. The symbolic importance of these appointments was, however,

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immense, particularly to the Kurds and Turkmens. The former were evidently perceived to be one of the three ‘‘core components’’ of Iraqi society; the latter, along with Christians, were consigned to the ‘‘others’’ category. In terms of access to political power, the Turkmens effectively ceased to be a relevant factor in national politics from this point forward.

Ethnic Tensions in Kirkuk Serious security incidents in Kirkuk were few and far between during the first months of the occupation. More troubling was the tendency of political leaders, most notably those of the ITF, to exploit outbreaks of violence for political purposes. Symptomatic was the ITF’s response to the deaths of a Turkmen and his son in mid-April. According to Age newspaper, ‘‘Turkmen activists took the boy’s body, wrapped it in Turkish flags, photographed and filmed it, then paraded it before foreign journalists.’’ A foreign human rights monitor on the scene described it as ‘‘worrying’’ that ‘‘already this kid’s death is being appropriated by the Turkmen Front not only to blame the Kurds, but also as an ethnic symbol to call the Turks to come and save them.’’56 Of the relatively few incidents of violence between the city’s Turkmen and Kurdish populations, the most serious resulted from an armed attack on a Shi’i Turkmen shrine in the neighboring town of Tuz Khurmato in August. During the ensuing melee between five and seven Turkmens and three Kurds were shot dead. Shots were fired during a Turkmen demonstration the following day in Kirkuk city to protest the incident, resulting in two further Turkmen deaths. The absence of evidence indicating official (PUK) involvement in the original incident did not prevent the ITF from blaming the PUK’s peshmerga for the attack. The ITF sought to extract maximum outrage from the incident and organized a convoy to transport the bodies of the Turkmen victims to Najaf for burial. The ITF’s newspaper Turkmenali described the scene as follows: ‘‘the bodies of the martyrs were taken in a convoy to the holy city of Najaf for burial. After arriving in the city of Baghdad, the convoy went to the Palestine Hotel, where the world media is based. The bodies were shown to the international press to stress to the whole world that we do not have security in our country and live under repression.’’57 For the most part, though, the Turkmen-Kurdish conflict was limited to a war of words, steeped in inflammatory rhetoric and mutual accusations. Almost every controversial incident involving members of the two groups was either part of a vast US-Kurdish conspiracy to dominate the city and eliminate its Turkmen identity (according to ITF-related

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media) or evidence of the ITF’s Turkish links or Ba’thist sympathies (according to Kurdish-related media). The trajectory of Kurdish-Arab relations was dominated by issues of property disputes, the return of displaced Kurds to the area, and the fate of the wafideen. Despite the obvious potential for large-scale violence inherent in this scenario, incidents of violence associated with the systematic and forcible eviction of Arabs from land and property were the exception, not the norm. In the town of Khanaqin, PUK peshmerga reportedly expelled up to six hundred Arab families, comprising some four thousand individuals, according to Human Rights Watch, while in a cluster of villages built for resettled Arabs on Kurdish land just south of the city, up to two thousand Arabs were apparently forced from their homes at gunpoint by PUK peshmerga.58 In the city there were isolated instances of intimidation directed at Arab occupants of formerly Kurdish property, but little of the intense ethnic bloodletting that had been predicted by many before the war. There were several reasons for this. First, the US seems to have made sincere efforts to prevent ‘‘reverse’’ ethnic cleansing. US officials, as Human Rights Watch notes, ‘‘took aggressive steps to combat forced evictions of Arabs and other vulnerable groups . . . when U.S. troops established themselves in a particular area, they would normally institute a policy of no tolerance for ‘house jackings’ and announce that whomever [sic] occupied a certain home at the time of the arrival of U.S. troops could remain in the home until property dispute mechanisms were established.’’59 Second, the leaderships of the two main Kurdish parties had committed themselves to an orderly, legal process for the return of Kurds to Arabized land and the resolution of property disputes, and therefore they acted, for the most part, with restraint. Third, many of the resettled Arabs, particularly in rural areas, voluntarily displaced themselves during the war, leaving the land unpopulated for returning non-Arab minorities. Fourth, in Kirkuk the number of displaced Kurds whose property had been given to resettled Arabs was probably quite limited. The demography of the city had been altered through a variety of strategies, including the destruction of entire Kurdish neighborhoods, such as the Shorja district, and the expulsion of its inhabitants; the construction of new neighborhoods for resettled Arabs, such as al-Qadissiyah; and commonly, the expulsion of Kurds and other minorities from rented rather than owned property.60 None of these strategies involved giving Kurdish-owned property directly to resettled Arabs, so the issue of Arabs being violently evicted by returning Kurds did not arise. Indeed, the problem of Kurds returning to the city was primarily one of logistics rather than potential civil unrest. Many Kurdish returnees had no property left to return to, while others were instructed to wait until a dispute resolution mechanism had been estab-

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lished. Makeshift refugee centers were established throughout the city. One of the largest of these was the Shorja soccer stadium, which by early June housed over seven hundred returnee Kurds in conditions of extreme squalor. Most incidents of Kurd-Arab violence in Kirkuk during the first months of the occupation were the result of the spillover of conflicts from neighboring towns and villages. In mid-May, for example, the torching of several Arab farm villages outside Kirkuk precipitated a pitched battle between ‘‘Arab irregulars’’ and Kurds on the streets of the city, resulting in the deaths of at least ten people. By mid-summer, however, violence in Kirkuk had begun to take an ominous turn for the worse.

The Insurgency Begins Most observers trace the genesis of the insurgency in Iraq to events in Fallujah in late April 2003. During a protest demonstration in the city against the US military’s occupation of a school, US troops opened fire on the crowd, killing seventeen and wounding seventy-five. Between 1 May, the date of the officially declared end of major combat operations in Iraq, and 21 July thirty-one US troops were killed by the growing ranks of the insurgency. The first indication of organized resistance to the US presence in Kirkuk Province came in mid-May when a US convoy was ambushed in the village of Seeha on the road between Kirkuk and the Sunni Arab town of Hawija. By early June the first systematic acts of sabotage on Kirkuk’s oil infrastructure were being reported.61 Henceforth attempts to disrupt the flow of Kirkuk oil, typically by targeting the pipeline running south to the refinery at Baiji, became an almost weekly occurrence. From June to December 2003 the Iraqi Oil Ministry recorded eighty-four acts of sabotage against oil and gas infrastructure in Iraq, the vast majority of which occurred in the north. As a spokesman for the ministry put it, ‘‘the moment we report that the pipeline between Kirkuk and Jihan in Turkey has been repaired the next day we have an act of sabotage against it.’’62 The intensity of attacks against the oil infrastructure, both the export routes and the domestic distribution network, meant that by December, oil-rich Iraq was importing 40 percent of its domestic requirements from abroad. Over roughly the same period, there were also eighteen attacks on Kirkuk’s power supply. The first of these, on 9 September, severed a major electricity line serving a water-pumping station and left the entire population of the city without drinking water for three days. With relatively few troops in northern Iraq, the US lacked the necessary manpower to protect the vast Kirkuk oil fields and associated infra-

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structure. In July, therefore, the US military was forced to fall back on a tried and tested technique of the former regime—paying local tribes to protect pipelines running through their land. Early experiments with this technique were not reassuring. For example, a three-month, $6,000 protection deal with Sheikh Hatem al-Assy al-Obeidi signed on 17 July actually led to an increase in attacks on the relevant stretch of pipeline and the arrest of the sheikh.63 In an attempt to find a more durable solution to the problem, the CPA awarded a $40 million contract to the South African company Erinys to create an oil protection force under the control of the US military. While the planned, ten-thousand-strong oil police force was in the process of being recruited and trained, the US continued to rely on Arab Sunni tribes and, more controversially, Kurdish peshmerga to protect the oil infrastructure.64

The Evolving Arab-Turkmen Alliance Initially the insurgency was characterized by sporadic attacks targeting mainly infrastructure; over time, however, the growing violence of the insurgency had an important effect on ethnic relations in Kirkuk in that it increased US reliance on Kurdish security forces and increased US suspicions of other ethnicities, particularly Sunni Arabs. The US persisted in efforts to maintain a multiethnic police force, in which each ethnic group was represented roughly in proportion to its presence in the population. This approach yielded a quota system fixed by US forces whereby Kurds were to compose 40 percent of the police force, Arabs 27 percent, Turkmen 25 percent, and Christians 8 percent. When the system was introduced, the Kurds were heavily overrepresented, while Christians and Turkmens struggled to fill their respective quotas.65 Among Arab police the question was more one of reliability. As the insurgency picked up pace during the fall and early winter of 2003, suspicions (and evidence) of Arab police involvement in attacks increased accordingly. In early December, for example, US troops arrested twentyfour Arab men, including five police officers, for plotting attacks against the main US base at Kirkuk airport. This incident occurred shortly after a major military sweep in which US and Kurdish forces entered Hawija in search of ‘‘people who have attacked coalition forces.’’ The raid netted thirty-four suspected insurgents, a large number of small arms, and five rocket-propelled grenades but left behind, according to an embedded Christian Science Monitor reporter, ‘‘a legacy of bitterness, frustration, and anger among the local population.’’66 Among these was Hawija’s police chief Lt. Col. Awad al-Jabouri, who was barred from entry into the town for the duration of the raid; in addition, several of his police officers were arrested by US troops. Incidents

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such as these, of which there were many, did little to lessen tensions between Kirkuk’s Arab population and US forces. Moreover, they did much to reinforce the perception among the city’s other ethnic groups of a systematic US bias toward the Kurds, most notably in security matters. The Kurds comprised a majority in the newly instituted ‘‘civil defence force,’’ clearly outnumbered other groups in the police force, and held most of the top positions. In addition, the security force of the KRG (the Asayesh) and the interal security forces of the KDP and PUK (parastin and zanyari respectively) were operating openly in the city. Adding to Sunni Arab alienation was the ongoing process of de-Ba’thification, by which those former Ba’thists above a certain rank who had actually remained in the city were being systematically weeded out of the security apparatus and administrative positions. Kirkuk’s de-Ba’thification committee, headed by the Turkmen Irfan Kirkuki, pursued its task with a vigor similar to that of its national counterpart. All party members at the rank of team leader or higher were targeted for removal, and by early September the committee had successfully removed close to one thousand former Ba’thists from various city institutions.67 This growing alienation of Arabs and Turkmens in Kirkuk made a strategic alliance between the two communities both plausible and probable. The arrival of Muqtada al-Sadr’s representative, Abdul Fattah alMousawi, in the city helped galvanize organized anti-Kurd (and anti-US) opposition. Soon after his arrival, Musawi helped organize a protest against the flying of Kurdish flags in the city. Subsequently US forces moved in to remove the flags and were attacked with stones by Kurds in the Shorja neighborhood. In September, Musawi announced the formation of a joint Arab-Turkmen ‘‘protection force’’ to combat Kurdish ‘‘provocations’’ and a ‘‘tribal council’’ to coordinate political activities against the Kurds. The same month Turkmen political movements (thirty-four, according to Turkmen sources) staged a three-day congress in Kirkuk to elect the new head of the ITF and to plan strategies to counter Kurdish dominance in the city.68 Notably, two of the three major Shi’i Turkmen parties attended the congress, as did Musawi and a number of Sunni Arab tribal dignitaries. When asked specifically whether the presence of prominent Arab leaders signaled the formation of a Turkmen-Arab alliance against the Kurds, the newly elected ITF head, Faruk Abdullah Abdurrahman, responded, ‘‘There was an Arabization in the city, now there are attempts aimed at ‘Kurdization.’ We will never accept it, we are ready to fight an endless struggle to prevent this. There has been a rapprochement with Arabs in that.’’69 In December news that Kurdish leaders in Baghdad had submitted a bill to the Iraqi Governing Council demanding recognition of a federal Kurdistan Region, to include Kirkuk, provoked rival demonstrations.

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On 22 December approximately ten thousand Kurds marched through the streets of Kirkuk in support of federalism demands and the incorporation of Kirkuk into the Kurdistan Region. In response, Turkmen and Arab political leaders condemned the march as ‘‘provocation’’ and threatened ‘‘bloodshed and tears’’ if the Kurds persisted in their claim to Kirkuk.70 Subsequently, on 31 December, a disputed number of between two thousand and twenty thousand Turkmens and Arabs (including Musawi) demonstrated against Kurdish plans for federalism by marching through the city’s streets and surrounding the headquarters of the PUK.71 At some point shots were fired, killing five and wounding twenty of the demonstrators. Unsurprisingly, various versions of events emerged in the aftermath. According to the ITF, PUK peshmerga opened fire on a peaceful demonstration. According to Kurdish media, the demonstrators, a mix of former Ba’thists ‘‘waving pictures of Saddam’’ and extremists from the ITF, had opened fire on the offices of the PUK.72 The Kurdish version of events was generally supported by the 173rd’s Col. William Mayville.73 It was left to the Turkish Daily News to offer the most creative and perceptive interpretation of the incident. Arguing that the presence of Muqtada al-Sadr’s representative in Kirkuk had helped push Turkmens into cooperation with the Arabs, the author concluded that ‘‘it is likely that the joint Turkmen-Arab demonstration against the Kurds that sparked violence was a product of an informal and implicit alliance between Muqtada’s Turkmen Shiites and pro-Saddam Arab Sunnites.’’74 Distinguishing truth from falsehood in the context of Kirkuk is a thankless task, but by the start of the new year three emerging truths seemed difficult to dispute. First, Kirkuk was becoming more violent, in terms of both interethnic confrontations and insurgent attacks. Second, the perception among non-Kurdish groups in the city was that Kurdish domination had been achieved in collaboration with US forces. Third, organized opposition to the Kurdish takeover had begun to emerge in the form of a Turkmen-Arab strategic alliance. None of these developments boded well for the future stability of the city.

Council Refreshment The process of reorganizing local governments throughout Iraq began in late 2003 as part of the so-called ‘‘November 15 Agreement.’’ The agreement outlined a time line for restoring sovereignty to Iraq and an elaborate system for selecting members to a transitional National Assembly (NA) to which sovereignty would duly be restored in mid-2004. The building blocks of the process were the eighteen governorates. Within each of the eighteen, a fifteen-member organizing committee would be

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chosen according to a complex formula designed to afford the US considerable control over the outcome. The committees would then select the governorates’ representatives to the NA. In preparation for this, the CPA began to organize the ‘‘refreshment’’ of local government. The intention was to standardize as far as possible the compositions of governorate councils in terms of both numbers and demographic breakdown and to construct a network of lower-tier councils in each governorate to maximize representation. The template for governorate council refreshment was the ‘‘Muthanna model,’’ basically a replication of the demographic breakdown used to appoint Muthanna’s council. The formula—twelve seats to tribal representatives, twelve to political parties, twelve to members of civic organizations, and two each to women and religious dignitaries, for a total of forty—was clearly inappropriate for some governorates.75 In Kirkuk the formula was essentially ignored for fear of disrupting an already tense ethnic situation. Instead, the US military used the opportunity to increase Arab representation on the council in an effort to take the steam out of the insurgency. Twenty-member councils were elected in six of the largest Arab towns surrounding Kirkuk, and a representative from each town was then appointed to the governorate council. In addition, two Kurds and two Turkmens were appointed as part of the process. The resulting council therefore comprised thirteen Kurds, twelve Arabs (though two of the twelve were boycotting the council at the time), eight Turkmens, and seven Christians, for a combined total of forty members. The expanded council was demonstrably more representative geographically, in that eleven of its members now hailed from outside the city. It was also marginally more representative in terms of gender, as the number of women increased from one to four. However, the increase in Arab representation did not fundamentally alter the ethnic balance of power on the council. The Kurds’ own thirteen members plus the seven Christians and at least two pro-Kurdish members of other groups were sufficient to preserve their working majority and, consequently, their hold over the senior executive posts and many other important administrative positions in the city. Council refreshment, therefore, did very little to assuage the perceptions of Turkmens or Arabs regarding the Kurds’ domination of Kirkuk and the US’s complicity in this.76

Kurds Retain Control Though theoretically more powerful than its predecessor, the newly refreshed Kirkuk Council was operating in a legal gray area. Technically

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relations between Baghdad and the governorates were still governed by the Ba’thist-era ‘‘Law 159 on Governorates’’ of 1969, which, on paper, granted significant powers to local government. Until the passage of CPA order 71 in April 2004, the CPA more or less arbitrarily assigned powers to governorate councils depending on local circumstances. In Kirkuk the refreshment process was seen as an opportunity to reduce the influence of political parties (mainly the Kurdish parties) over council decisions. Thus, according to one news source, ‘‘under its new powers, the council will be able to select government department heads independent of party pressures and be able to sanction city employees serving party interests over the city’s needs.’’77 It was also hoped that giving the council a free hand to recalibrate the ethnic composition of the city’s police force would reduce Kurdish dominance and thereby ‘‘secure the rights of Arabs and Turkmen,’’ as William Mayville put it.78 The idea that the council would emerge as a political actor independent of political party pressure was naive, to say the least. To have done so would have required, at a minimum, an independent revenue source to allow the council to pay the salaries of its own employees. In the absence of this, the city’s finances, and therefore the power of patronage, remained in the hands of the CPA (via the US military) and the two Kurdish political parties. CPA order 71, on local governmental powers, clarified the legal powers of governorate councils, but only up to a point. Councils were given the power to appoint most local officials, though this power was limited in the case of the chief of police, and some veto power over federal government appointments in their governorates.79 However, order 71 contained no mention of law-making powers and provided no means for councils to raise revenues independently. Control over the largely impotent council was, therefore, a symptom rather than a source of Kurdish dominance over the city as a whole. The Kurds did, however, make some efforts to share power. The newly selected chair of the council, Tahsin Kahya, was a Turkmen, though not one aligned with the ITF, as were the long-serving deputy police chief, Turhan Abd-al-Rahman, and consecutive directors of education. The PUK’s Jalal Talabani also appeared to hold out the prospect of a more equitable division of power in the city when, during a visit to Turkey in June 2004, he proposed a system of power sharing for the city whereby ‘‘nobody was in minority status and where decisions were taken unanimously.’’80 He also reportedly raised the possibility of running in the elections, scheduled for January 2005, on a joint list with the ITF.81 At this stage the ITF, no doubt believing Turkmens to constitute a majority in the city, did not seem open to the idea of a deal based on political equality. This became obvious during the summer when Kirkuk

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was required to provide delegates to a conference organized to select the ill-fated National Council.82 The Kurds proposed a twenty-member delegation comprising five delegates from each ethnic group. Songhul Chapouk, the only Turkmen representative on the Iraqi Governing Council, described the Kurds’ proposal as ‘‘unfair, because Kirkuk is a majority-Turkmen city.’’83 As a result of these ‘‘difficulties between different ethnic groups,’’ the delegate selection process was canceled, and conference organizers had to select the Kirkuk delegation themselves. In reality, brokering a meaningful power-sharing arrangement was all but impossible, not just because there was no consensus on which group (if any) constituted a majority but also because on the most significant political issue of the time, the city’s future status, the three major ethnic groups had radically different and generally unyielding perspectives. While this issue continued to dominate the city’s politics, prospects for reaching an equitable consensus on any other issue remained remote.

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Chapter 8 The Kurds Triumphant

The Transitional Administrative Law The issue of Kirkuk’s future status came to the forefront with the signing of the interim constitution, the so-called ‘‘Transitional Administrative Law’’ of Iraq (TAL), in Baghdad in March 2004. Prior to this point, the need to reverse the former regime’s Arabization policy had been relatively uncontroversial. As long as the ‘‘reverse Arabization’’ policy was about rectifying past injustices, there was a broad consensus in its favor among most of the city’s ethnic groups. Article 58 (shown in Figure 8.1) of the TAL, however, irrevocably shifted the terms of debate. Article 58 spoke of the need to remedy the ‘‘injustice caused by the previous regime’s practices in altering the demographic character of certain regions, including Kirkuk’’ and established an imprecise mechanism for the orderly return of those displaced. The article was ambiguous on the fate of ‘‘individuals newly introduced to specific regions.’’1 Beyond this, the article (alongside sections B and C of article 53) deferred a number of important decisions until after the signing of a permanent constitution, including the resolution of gerrymandered governorate boundaries and the final status of Kirkuk.2 Section B outlined a specific process for the restoration of pre-Ba’thist boundaries, which required the three-member Presidency Council of Iraq (PC) to agree unanimously on a set of recommendations on boundary changes and for these to be submitted to the National Assembly for approval.3 However, section C of the article also outlined a three-step process leading to a final resolution of Kirkuk’s status—normalization, a ‘‘fair and transparent census,’’ and then a decision ‘‘consistent with the principle of justice, taking into account the will of the people of those territories.’’ Though the deal on Kirkuk was clearly a compromise on the part of the Kurds, in that it delayed a decision on the city’s final status until after a permanent constitution, the use of the phrase ‘‘will of the people’’ was

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(A) The Iraqi Transitional Government, and especially the Iraqi Property Claims Commission and other relevant bodies, shall act expeditiously to take measures to remedy the injustice caused by the previous regime’s practices in altering the demographic character of certain regions, including Kirkuk, by deporting and expelling individuals from their places of residence, forcing migration in and out of the region, settling individuals alien to the region, depriving the inhabitants of work, and correcting nationality. To remedy this injustice, the Iraqi Transitional Government shall take the following steps: (1) With regard to residents who were deported, expelled, or who emigrated; it shall, in accordance with the statute of the Iraqi Property Claims Commission and other measures within the law, within a reasonable period of time, restore the residents to their homes and property, or, where this is unfeasible, shall provide just compensation. (2) With regard to the individuals newly introduced to specific regions and territories, it shall act in accordance with Article 10 of the Iraqi Property Claims Commission statute to ensure that such individuals may be resettled, may receive compensation from the state, may receive new land from the state near their residence in the governorate from which they came, or may receive compensation for the cost of moving to such areas. (3) With regard to persons deprived of employment or other means of support in order to force migration out of their regions and territories, it shall promote new employment opportunities in the regions and territories. (4) With regard to nationality correction, it shall repeal all relevant decrees and shall permit affected persons the right to determine their own national identity and ethnic affiliation free from coercion and duress. (B)

The previous regime also manipulated and changed administrative boundaries for political ends. The Presidency Council of the Iraqi Transitional Government shall make recommendations to the National Assembly on remedying these unjust changes in the permanent constitution. In the event the Presidency Council is unable to agree unanimously on a set of recommendations, it shall unanimously appoint a neutral arbitrator to examine the issue and make recommendations. In the event the Presidency Council is unable to agree on an arbitrator, it shall request the Secretary General of the United Nations to appoint a distinguished international person to be the arbitrator.

(C)

The permanent resolution of disputed territories, including Kirkuk, shall be deferred until after these measures are completed, a fair and transparent census has been conducted and the permanent constitution has been ratified This resolution shall be consistent with the principle of justice, taking into account the will of the people of those territories.

Figure 8.1. Text of article 58 of the TAL

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of critical importance because it implied (strongly) that a resolution would be based on the results of a popular referendum. In return for this compromise, the Kurds got most of what they wanted out of the TAL.4 Crucially, they obtained what became known as the ‘‘Kurdish veto’’ in article 61, section C, by which the permanent constitution would be approved by a simple majority in a popular referendum unless rejected by two-thirds of voters in three or more governorates. This veto power gave Kurdish negotiators the political power to defend their gains already made in the TAL and to exert enormous leverage over the issue of Kirkuk in the permanent constitution.5 The TAL did little to soothe ethnic tensions in Kirkuk. By bluntly rejecting Turkmen demands for an immediate census in the city and postponing the census until after the effects of Arabization had been reversed, the issue of returnee Kurds (and Turkmens) and the fate of ‘‘new’’ Arabs became even more intensely politicized. Though the Kurds had ‘‘claimed’’ Kirkuk from the outset, the TAL appeared to provide a mechanism for translating numerical dominance into ownership of the city. Bluntly put, the more Kurds the Kurdish political leadership could return to the city, the greater the chance of winning Kirkuk. Henceforth the entirely justified, and broadly accepted, motive for ensuring the return of Kurds to Kirkuk—that of ‘‘righting past wrongs’’—became impossible to separate from the entirely political motive—that of ultimately incorporating Kirkuk into the Kurdistan Region. The potential for the TAL to inflame tensions in Kirkuk became immediately apparent on the day the document was signed. A spontaneous celebratory parade of, reportedly, ‘‘tens of thousands’’ of Kurds marched through the streets waving Kurdish flags and setting fire to the flag of Iraq, apparently under the mistaken belief that the TAL had assigned ownership of Kirkuk to the Kurds.6 The celebration ended in clashes with groups of Turkmens and Arabs and the deaths of three individuals. The TAL’s signing came at a time of already heightened ethnic tension. In late January around 250 Arab tribal chiefs had rallied in the city to oppose federalism and the incorporation of Kirkuk into the Kurdistan Region. According to one of the rally’s organizers, ‘‘we are here today to say we are against federalism and that Kirkuk is an Arab town.’’7 Then from late February to early March the Kirkuk offices of the ITF were ransacked twice in the space of a week, reportedly by gangs of Kurds.8 These attacks led the US military to impose a curfew on the city. In early April, Turkmen and Arab members of Kirkuk Council staged a walkout to protest perceived Kurdish dominance, leading the council chair to suspend all council activities. In this volatile context, efforts to resolve the complex issue of Kurdish resettlement only served to fuel existing tensions.

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Settling Property Disputes Throughout 2003 efforts by the CPA to establish a workable legal mechanism for resolving property disputes in Iraq had been sporadic and largely unsuccessful.9 In January 2004 the CPA approved the establishment of an Iraqi Property Claims Commission (IPCC), though the statute was not finalized until 24 June 2004. The statute established regional commissions in each of Iraq’s eighteen governorates, to comprise a judge and the directors of the governorate’s Office of Property Registry and Office of State Property. At the insistence of the Kurds on the IGC, the original (January) statute had required claimants to submit claims ‘‘to the Regional Commission where the property is located,’’ a provision that was changed by the CPA in the June statute. According to Human Rights Watch, the original provision was seen as having a ‘‘clearly political motive’’ in that it was likely designed to encourage the return of Kurds to Kirkuk in order to file claims.10 Beyond this the June statute provided highly detailed guidelines on procedural matters but was ambiguous on a number of crucial issues. On the fate of ‘‘newly resettled inhabitants,’’ for example, the statute repeated the language contained in the TAL. Hence, such people may be resettled, receive compensation from the state, and receive new property. The absence of compulsion in the language was deliberate, but it basically contradicted the consistent Kurdish position that Arabs who moved into Kirkuk as part of the Arabization process had to return to their place of origin as part of the normalization process. The statute also contained no mention of funding sources for compensating those choosing to resettle or, indeed, funding of any sort. Instead, CPA head Paul Bremer unilaterally authorized the allocation of $180 million to fund the IPCC’s work just two days prior to the handover of sovereignty to Iraq. In addition, during a visit to the city in late June, he announced the establishment of a ‘‘Kirkuk Foundation’’ with a budget of $100 million to aid in property dispute settlement. This delay in establishing and funding the IPCC had serious repercussions. After visiting Kirkuk in January and February 2004, HRW observed that, ‘‘with no visible movement towards the establishment of a mechanism, many more internally displaced persons expelled from the city by the former Iraqi government had lost patience and were returning with their families to Kirkuk.’’11 By early June the CPA was estimating that approximately one hundred thousand Arabs had already been ‘‘illegally evicted’’ by Kurds and were now being housed in IDP camps in Diyala, Salahadin, and Kirkuk.12 The document concluded, ‘‘There has been little obvious violence as yet, but significant coercion has been used and serious ethnic clashes are likely to occur if the current situation is not

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tackled soon.’’13 Even when the Kirkuk Property Claims Commission (KPCC) was up and running, the absence of funding, the lack of qualified personnel, ethnic tensions, and threats of violence made the commission’s progress agonizingly slow.14 The KPCC was headed by a Kurdish lawyer, Tahsin Hamid Yassin, and flanked by a special claims court comprising a Kurd, an Arab, and a Turkmen as judges and a legal team of twenty-eight lawyers and fourteen assistants.15 By early September 2004 the US military was estimating that over seventy-seven thousand Kurds had resettled in Kirkuk since the start of the year.16 The KPCC had received over five thousand property claims, mainly from Kurds, but had yet to issue its first ruling. Kurds suspected the US of stalling deliberately to avoid alienating Arab opinion. As a Kurdish former head of the commission put it, ‘‘I understand they don’t want us to send the Arabs back to their original places, but they don’t want the Kurds to be unhappy as well—so they just delay everything by bureaucracy.’’17 The glacial rate of the commission’s progress was deeply destabilizing. Unable to obtain legal satisfaction, frustrated Turkmen and Kurdish returnees increasingly turned to violence as a means of settling disputes, particularly in towns and villages outside the city. In formerly Kurdish towns, such as Makhmur, resettled Arabs were evicted from property and land by returning Kurds with the assistance of the KDP peshmerga.18 Without the backing of military force, returning Turkmen had few options but to await a legal resolution. In the formerly Turkmen town of al-Bashir south of Kirkuk, for example, US military officers had brokered a temporary compromise in September 2003 between returnee Turkmens and the resettled Arabs occupying their lands, pending the establishment of a mechanism for a permanent legal settlement. By mid-2004 the failure of coalition authorities to establish such a mechanism and the refusal of al-Bashir’s Arabs to leave the land had led to repeated, bloody clashes between the two ethnic groups in the town.19 Within the city the security situation steadily deteriorated during the course of the year. February witnessed Kirkuk’s first mass casualty suicide attack when a bomber detonated his payload outside a police station in the Kurdish district of Rahimawa, killing ten and wounding forty-five. The attack, the first of many suicide bombings targeting Kurdish security forces in the city, was claimed by the hitherto unknown ‘‘Mujahedeen Brigades of Iraq’’ and was just one of the 503 terrorist attacks recorded in Kirkuk during the first six months of 2004, according to official figures.20 Political assassinations also increased dramatically during the course of the year, and although members of all ethnic groups were targeted, the burden appeared to fall disproportionately on Turkmen polit-

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ical leaders. The list of prominent Turkmen officials targeted for assassination during 2004 included two leading ITF officials (January); the head of the ITF (March); an official of the National Turkmen Party (May); a leader of the Turkmeneli Party (July); Kirkuk’s Turkmen director of education, Ibrahim Ismail (August); and a leadership member of the Turkmeneli Party (October). Other important political figures assassinated during the year included Ghazi Talabani, cousin of Jalal Talabani and security chief at the Northern Oil Company, and Sheikh Khadem al-Hani, head of the ‘‘Shiite Council of Kirkuk,’’ one of the few organized movements representing the interests of Kirkuk’s Shi’i Arab population. The governor was targeted for assassination twice during 2004, though he survived both attacks. The epidemic of assassinations led to the suspension of all council activities in May out of concern for the security of members. There was no clear pattern to the assassinations other than that all targets were in positions of political authority, but this only added to the atmosphere of interethnic paranoia in the city.

An Interim Government for Iraq As violence escalated dramatically throughout Iraq during April and May 2004, the CPA struggled to engineer a face-saving compromise on the restoration of sovereignty to Iraq.21 The former Algerian foreign minister Lakhdar Brahimi was drafted in as part of a UN team to help impart some international legitimacy to the selection of an Iraqi interim government to which a fig leaf of sovereignty could be restored. For the US, the goal was to appoint a ‘‘strong’’ government that would actively and enthusiastically endorse the sorts of military actions, such as the abortive siege of Fallujah, that the US deemed necessary to crush the insurgency. Further, the US sought a prime minister to head up the government who would be a reliable ally and via whom the US could exert control over the transition process. The former CIA asset and Ba’thist official Iyad Allawi was ideal on both counts. The selection of the largely ceremonial president proved more controversial. The US’s preferred candidate, Adnan Pachachi, was an internationally respected moderate, liberal democrat and thus the ‘‘perfect face’’ for the position.22 In a rare display of defiance, however, the IGC selected the relatively unknown Sunni Arab Ghazi al-Yawer for the post. The Kurds, meanwhile, were incensed that the position had not been awarded to a Kurd. In a strongly worded joint letter addressed to President George W. Bush, Talabani and Barzani complained that since ‘‘Iraq is a country of two nationalities . . . it seems reasonable that the Arabs get one of the top jobs (of their choice) but then the other should go to a Kurd.’’ The letter further castigated the CPA for trying to ‘‘derecog-

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nize’’ the KRG in favor of a federal system based on the eighteen governorates during TAL negotiations. In addition, the letter requested that the TAL be officially recognized as binding law in the forthcoming UN Security Council Resolution (UNSCR). Otherwise, the letter threatened, the KRG ‘‘will have no choice but to refrain from participating in the central government and its institutions.’’23 When UNSCR 1546 was eventually adopted on 8 June, it pointedly refrained from mentioning either the TAL or the Kurdistan Region.24 When sovereignty was officially restored to the new Iraqi Interim Government (IIG) on 30 June, therefore, the legal status of the TAL, including article 58 and the Kurdish veto, was ambiguous at best. By way of compensation, the Kurds were allocated several powerful ministerial posts, including one of the two vice presidents (Rowsch Shaways, KDP), deputy prime minister for national security (Barham Salih, PUK), and foreign minister (Hoshyar Zebari, KDP). Overall the Kurds claimed five of the twenty-six ministerial portfolios, while the Shi’is dominated with fifteen posts. Once again the Turkmen community was comprehensively marginalized. The community’s only representative in the IIG was the political unknown Rashad Mendan Omar, who continued as science and technology minister. The reactions of most Turkmen political leaders were predictably negative. The Iraqi Turkmen Islamic Movement issued a statement implying that the continued marginalization of the Turkmens might force the community to ‘‘take up arms and stain our hand with the blood of the Iraqis.’’ The statement further demanded that ‘‘for the sake of practicing democracy, justice and equality,’’ one of the two vice presidents or the deputy prime minister and three ministerial portfolios should be allocated to the Turkmens ‘‘because this is consistent with the size and population of the Turkmens, who are more than three millions.’’25 As it transpired, however, the favorable representation of Kurds relative to Turkmens in the IIG did not translate into concrete action on article 58. Confronted with a drastically deteriorating security environment in the latter half of 2004, Prime Minister Allawi’s priorities lay elsewhere, and his only meaningful contribution to resolving the Kirkuk issue was to establish an official committee to implement article 58, to which he appointed the communist Hamid Majid Musa as chair.

Run-up to Elections Among the many complex issues that shaped the run-up to the January 2005 federal and provincial elections, the debate that aroused the most controversy in Kirkuk concerned the demand by the two Kurdish parties for a delay in the governorate election until the implementation of arti-

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cle 58 of the TAL and the related issue of whether or not returnee Kurds would be permitted to register and vote. This issue arose initially in October when it became clear that the IIG was either unable or unwilling to implement any part of article 58 of the TAL. Following a meeting between Barzani and Talabani on 17 November, the PUK’s media spokesman announced that the two leaders ‘‘agreed that elections should not take place unless the government addresses (the) Kurds’ problems first according to article 58 which ensures Kurds’ normalization in Kirkuk.’’26 Essentially the Kurdish leaders were demanding a delay in order to maximize their chances of winning the election and, thereby, maintaining control of the city. At various stages the Kurds’ also invoked security concerns as a reason to postpone the election. This was never a particularly convincing argument for the Kurds to make, but it did help forge a temporary alliance of convenience between the Kurds and those other Iraqi, mainly Sunni Arab, parties that also supported delay. In fact, at a November meeting that brought together most of Iraq’s major political factions in the Kurdish resort town of Dukan, there appeared to be a consensus among participants that the elections should be delayed throughout Iraq as a result of the deteriorating security environment. However, a postponement of national elections was clearly not in the best interests of either the Kurds or the major Shi’i factions. The areas in which security was likely to be a significant factor in depressing turnout were predominantly populated by Sunni Arabs, so low turnout in these areas would increase representation for other groups, given the nature of the electoral system being used. The Kurds, therefore, took the line that while national elections should proceed on schedule, those in Kirkuk should be postponed. The ITF remained unconvinced by the logic of the Kurdish argument, responding, ‘‘we declare our rejection of this request on the grounds that the security conditions in the city of Kirkuk are conducive to allowing the elections to be held. Hence, failure to implement Article 58 of the interim State Administration Law does not constitute a strong enough justification to postpone the election of the governorate council.’’27 Iraq’s Higher Election Commission (HEC) apparently concurred with the ITF’s position. On 12 December the HEC handed down a ruling that rejected the Kurds’ request for a delay in the Kirkuk election. This officially ended any prospect of Kirkuk being normalized prior to an election, but it also raised doubts about whether returnee Kurds, of whom there were approximately one hundred thousand by the end of 2004, would be eligible for voter registration in the Kirkuk governorate.28 Moreover, the body with the power to adjudicate on voter eligibility, the ten-member Kirkuk Election Commission (KEC), included six Arabs, two Turkmens, an Assyrian, and a Kurd. An early decision of the

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KEC was that those Arabs who had already left Kirkuk would be allowed to return to the governorate to cast their vote. Fearing the deliberate exclusion from voter rolls of returnee Kurds, the Kurdish leadership launched a series of scathing attacks on the KEC’s integrity. In midDecember, Kurdish members of the Kirkuk Council dispatched a letter to the PC listing their grievances with the composition of the KEC. The letter accused the head of the KEC, Yahya Hadidi, of being a ‘‘remnant of the deposed Ba’th regime’’ who is ‘‘infamous for his hostility towards Kurds’’ and accused the deputy head of being a member of the ITF who ‘‘promotes deliberate anti-Kurd attacks.’’ The letter concluded with a threat that, ‘‘if the elections in Kirkuk are not postponed and Article 58 of interim Iraqi State Administration Law is not implemented, we will boycott the elections in Kirkuk.’’29 The prospect of a Kurdish boycott of the Kirkuk governorate elections (though not the national elections) was essentially a direct threat to the legitimacy of the election results. Rather than risk further inflaming already tense ethnic relations in the city, the IIG brokered a deal with the Kurdish leadership whereby, in Jalal Talabani’s words, ‘‘the 108,000 people who were denied the right to vote now have regained this right. The registration period has been extended from five to 10 days. Every Kurd, or Turkmen, who holds a Kirkuk-issued birth certificate can vote without the need to register.’’30 For their part, the Kurds accepted the right of resettled Arabs to register and vote. While the deal was clearly aimed at placating the Kurds, in so doing, it also provoked a furious response from the ITF. The head of the Turkmeneli Party, Riyad Sari Kahya, bluntly summarized the ITF’s opinion of the deal, stating that ‘‘the elections have become a sham. For everyone knows which sides . . . will win the elections. . . . Today, there is an electoral scandal in Kirkuk.’’31 After a brief flirtation with the possibility of launching its own boycott, the ITF settled on a policy of participation ‘‘in order to safeguard the Iraqi territorial integrity,’’ combined with a stated refusal to accept the legitimacy of the Kurdish vote in Kirkuk.32

The Party Lists In early December the two Kurdish leaders officially announced the formation of the Kirkuk Brotherhood List (KBL) to run candidates in the governorate elections. The KBL was similar, though not identical, in composition to the Kurdish list (the Democratic Patriotic Alliance of Kurdistan [DPAK]) assembled for elections at the federal level. In a press conference to announce its formation, Jalal Talabani characterized the KBL as a ‘‘bunch-of-flowers concept’’ in which all the governorate’s ethnicities were represented. Thus, the list was not Kurdish, in Talabani’s

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view, but Kurdistani because non-Kurds were also represented.33 This was technically true though somewhat misleading, as the list was clearly dominated by Kurdish parties. In addition to the two major parties, also included on the twelve-party list were the increasingly popular Kurdistan Islamic Union (KIU), the Kurdistan Communist Party (KCP), as well as the smaller Kurdistan Toilers’ Party, and a number of minor Kurdish parties. In terms of ethnic diversity, the Turkmens were represented in the form of the Turkmen People’s Party and the Iraqi Turkmen Union Party; Christians got representation via the Assyrian National Party; and several Arabs ran on the list as independents. There was also gender diversity as almost one-third of the list’s candidates were women. Though not perhaps the multiethnic ‘‘bunch of flowers’’ claimed by Talabani, the Kurds were the only ethnic group to make a significant effort to incorporate other ethnic parties into an alliance. Among Turkmen parties, most of those that had not aligned with the KBL formed the Front of Iraqi Turkmens (FIT), a coalition distinct from, though dominated by, the ITF. In addition to the ITF’s four core parties—the National Turkmen Party, the Turkmeneli Party, the Independent Turkmen Party, and the Islamic Turkmen Movement—the list included the Al-Wafa Movement for Iraqi Turkmens and the Turkmen Justice and Salvation Party.34 When announcing the FIT’s formation, the head of the ITF, Faruk Abdullah Abdurrahman, claimed that ‘‘since the parties represented in this list constitute 95 per cent of Turkmen society,’’ the front was set to win at least twenty-five seats in the NA.35 The problem with this assessment was that the FIT was primarily, though not exclusively, an alliance of Sunni Turkmen parties. As Abdurrahman noted, the sectarian split among Turkmens was approximately fifty-fifty, though this was a source of dispute, and the most influential Shi’i Turkmen political party, the Islamic Union for Iraqi Turkmens, ran separately from the front’s list in Kirkuk as part of the Islamic and Turkmen Coalition (ITC) and as part of the United Iraqi Alliance (UIA) at the national level.36 The situation for Arab parties was more complex. At the national level, Arab Sunni political parties mostly adhered to the influential call of the Association of Muslim Scholars (AMS) for an electoral boycott. The AMS made an exception for Kirkuk, however, going so far as to issue a religious edict specifically ordering followers in the governorate to vote. This did not prevent one of Kirkuk’s major Sunni Arab blocs, the United Arab Front, from withdrawing six days before the election in protest at the HEC’s decision to allow displaced Kurds to vote. This left two significant Arab Sunni parties on the ballot—the Iraqi National Gathering (ING) and the Iraqi Republican Assembly (IRA). The resettled Arabs, most of whom were Shi’is, had lacked organization and a

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political voice since the fall of Saddam and had no significant party representing their interests on the ballot. Certain of the component parties of the mostly Shi’i Arab UIA, such as the SCIRI and al-Da’wa, maintained a presence in Kirkuk but appeared to have gained little traction among the city’s Shi’i population. In the end, these parties were folded into the Islamic and Turkmen Coalition.37 The major Christian party to participate in the Kirkuk governorate election, other than those included in the KBL, was the Assyrian Democratic Movement, which ran both locally and nationally as the National Rafidain List (NRL).38 The electoral system used for the January 2005 elections, both federal and local, was a form of party-list proportional representation (PR) that allocated seats in the various parliaments in proportion to a party’s share of the vote.39 The major reasons for adopting a PR system were logistical (it could be implemented without a census and without needing to draw constituency boundary lines) and political (all ethnosectarian groups would stand a reasonable chance of being represented).40 Aside from the standard objections to the use of a PR-based system, the major drawback to its use in the context of Iraq in 2005 was its sensitivity to turnout.41 Low turnout among Sunni Arabs (or any other group) would translate into reduced representation in the body (the NA) charged with drafting Iraq’s permanent constitution.42 This was also an important consideration in multiethnic governorates, such as Kirkuk, where control of governorate councils was at stake. Despite the threats of insurgent groups to wash the streets with blood on election day, the election in Kirkuk was largely incident free. This was due mainly to the stringent security measures adopted in Kirkuk, as in all Iraqi cities, which included a complete ban on vehicular traffic. The violence surrounding the Kirkuk vote was mostly of the rhetorical kind, with entirely predictable accusations of voter fraud circulating freely in the election’s immediate aftermath. It took less than a day after the vote for the ITF to issue its first official letter of protest to the HEC. Included among a laundry list of accusations were ‘‘multiple vote casting by numerous voters,’’ ‘‘allowing votes of dead people,’’ and ‘‘illegal electorate registration and voting.’’43 In Hawija, meanwhile, Sunni Arab politicians claimed that only nineteen of the designated thirty-eight polling stations in Hawija district had actually opened and that nearly all of the registered Arab population (some ninety-five thousand individuals) had been denied the opportunity to vote due to a shortage of ballot papers. As with the ITF, the real point of contention for Sunni Arab political leaders was the decision to permit over one hundred thousand returnee Kurds to register and vote. This meant that, in the words of one prominent Arab tribal leader, ‘‘the result of the election was fixed before it even began.’’44 More serious

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Table 8.1. Results for Kirkuk Governorate Elections, January 2005

Vote

Vote Percentage

Seats on Kirkuk Council

237,303 73,791 43,635 12,678 12,329 1,851 1,554 17,751 400,892

59.1 18.4 10.8 3.1 3.1 0.4 0.4 4.4 100

26 8 5 1 1 0 0 0 41

Party Kirkuk Brotherhood List Front of Iraqi Turkmens Iraqi Republican Assembly Islamic and Turkmen Coalition Iraqi National Gathering Turkmen National Movement National Rafidain List Others Total

Source: http://www.ieciraq.org/English/Frameset_english.htm.

allegations were voiced by Christian parties, who complained of widespread ‘‘irregularities and lockouts’’ and claimed that Assyrian turnout in Kirkuk and Mosul had been drastically reduced by a ‘‘pre-election terror campaign by warlord Masoud Barzani.’’45 Ultimately, though all claims of voting irregularities were (theoretically) investigated, the absence of in-country international observers on the day of the election made it almost impossible to verify claims independently. While it is highly unlikely that the election in Kirkuk passed off without any irregularities, it is also unlikely that voter fraud occurred on a scale sufficient to alter the results of the election dramatically.46

Election Results On 13 February the HEC certified the election results for the NA, the eighteen governorates, and the Kurdistan Regional Assembly. In Kirkuk, the results broke down as seen in Table 8.1. Despite the widespread Arab and ITF condemnation of Kurdish vote rigging and electoral manipulation, the performance of the mainly Kurdish KBL—nearly 60 percent of the vote and a clear majority of seats on the council—was not wildly at odds with what might have been expected. The number of Arab (and Turkmen) voters who stayed away from the polls either through fear of possible violence or out of respect for the Sunni Arab boycott at the national level was probably quite sizable. At the same time, the greater organizational prowess of the two Kurdish parties and the relative security of Kurdish-dominated neighborhoods in the city almost certainly maximized Kurdish turnout. A moderate magnification of Kurdish voting strength was, therefore, unsurprising.

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The elections were a depressing experience for the NRL. The NRL’s fifteen hundred votes in the Kirkuk governorate election were not enough to secure any representation in the council. In neighboring Ninevah governorate, the list’s forty-six hundred votes were significantly below expectations, though sufficient to obtain one seat on the council. Nationally the major source of votes for the list was out-of-country voters, who supplied over one-half of its total votes.47 This was sufficient to elect one representative to the NA—the head of the ADM, Yonadem Kana— but left the NRL facing the uncomfortable reality that of the six Christian members of the NA, four had been elected as part of the Kurds’ national list, DPAK. The electoral performances of the two major Sunni Arab blocs, the ING and the IRA, were almost certainly adversely affected by low turnout among Sunnis, due either to threatened violence or to the Sunni boycott at the national level. It is impossible to know for certain which of these two factors had the most effect. However, in the December 2005 national elections, at a time when Kirkuk was arguably more violent than it had been in January but when Sunni Arabs were actively encouraged to vote, the vote for Sunni Arab parties in Kirkuk was more than twice what it had been in January 2005. The IRA elected five members of the Kirkuk Council on a vote that was almost three times what it received nationally.48 This implies that many IRA supporters adhered to the AMS’s exhortation to boycott nationally while participating in Kirkuk. The ING received just over twelve thousand votes in the Kirkuk governorate election, enough to secure one seat on the Kirkuk Council. Similar to those of the IRA, supporters of the ING largely deserted the party for the national election.49 The most puzzling aspect of this pattern of results concerns the electoral behavior of Kirkuk’s (presumably large) Shi’i Arab population. The most plausible recipient of Kirkuk’s Shi’i Arab vote in the national election was the UIA, but the UIA received only nineteen thousand votes from the Kirkuk governorate. With no obvious party in the race to represent their interests in the governorate elections, other than perhaps the Islamic and Turkmen Coalition, it seems likely that most of the Shi’i Arab population had already left Kirkuk, did not register to vote, or simply stayed away on polling day.

The Turkmen Front Melts Down The most striking story of the January election, however, was the dismal performance of the Turkmen Front, both locally and nationally. In the Kirkuk governorate election, the front managed only eight seats on a vote of fewer than seventy-four thousand. This proved to be the high

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point of the governorate elections for the front. In the Ninevah and Diyala governorates, both of which contained sizable Turkmen populations (according to the front, at least), the front’s performance secured it no seats at all on councils.50 The only other governorate council on which the front gained seats was Salahadin’s, and this was largely due to the extremely low turnout among Sunni Arabs.51 At the federal level, in the election for the National Assembly, the front polled just over 1 percent of the vote nationwide, enough to secure three seats in the assembly.52 After specifically ruling out a boycott, urging its supporters to ‘‘show the strength of the Turkmens,’’ and claiming that the Turkmen Front represented ‘‘95 percent’’ of Turkmen society, the front’s only recourse to explain this dismal performance was to claim massive electoral fraud on the part of the Kurds. Two alternative explanations, both more plausible but neither particularly palatable to the front, were that the front had seriously overestimated the size of Kirkuk’s Turkmen population and that the front did not represent anything close to 95 percent of Turkmen society. There is clearly truth in both explanations. If all the votes for Turkmen parties in Kirkuk (treating all those for the Islamic and Turkmen Coalition as Turkmen votes) are aggregated, the combined vote is less than one hundred thousand. Of these votes, the Turkmen Front obtained three-quarters, but the aggregate Turkmen vote was still less than one-quarter of the total vote in Kirkuk. Low turnout might also provide part of the explanation for the dearth of support for Iraqi Turkmen parties, and this certainly appeared to be a factor in out-of-country voting.53 The most distressing possibility for the Turkmen Front, however, was that Turkmen voters had voted for non-Turkmen lists, including the various Kurdish lists. Turkey’s foreign minister, Abdullah Gul, diagnosed the front’s failings in the following way: ‘‘It is said that the number of Turkmens who voted for the Turkmen Front were less than those who voted for the Kurdish and Shiite lists. Isn’t this strange? The Iraqi Turkmen Front failed to attract the support of intellectual Turkmen. It failed to include them in their lists.’’54 The front’s election performance was dire enough to force a major reappraisal of Turkey’s strategic posture in northern Iraq. Henceforth, ‘‘Turkey modified its stance towards its kin in Iraq, all but abandoning the ITF and instead redoubling efforts to influence developments in Kurdistan through intertwining economic ties and warm relations with Kurdish leaders.’’55 Initially at least, the front appeared willing to tone down the bellicosity of its rhetoric and accept that its implacable hostility toward Kurdish ambitions had failed to yield tangible electoral benefits. In the aftermath of the election, a chastened head of the Turkmeneli Party, Riyadh Sari Kahya, conceded that the ITF would no longer oppose the constitutional recognition of

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an autonomous Kurdish region as part of an Iraq-wide federal system. He further called for a ‘‘serious dialogue with the Kurdish leadership’’ over the future status of Kirkuk, suggesting that Kirkuk could become a ‘‘separate federal entity’’ to be ‘‘administered by Kurds, Turkmen and Arabs.’’56 Many of the front’s senior leaders were also surprisingly sanguine about the selection of a Kurd (Jalal Talabani) as president of Iraq in late March. The head of the front, Faruq Abd-al-Rahman, went so far as to issue a public statement addressed to the ‘‘honourable Jalal Talabani’’ in which he congratulated Talabani and wished him ‘‘the best and success’’ on behalf of the Turkmen people.57 It was clear, however, that the front’s strategy of confrontation had not only failed to garner popular support but had also opened up dangerous fissures within the movement. In early March a senior member of the Turkmeneli Party’s leadership council and founder member of the ITF, Abdul Qadir Bazirgan, characterized the front’s decision not to run for election as part of the Kurdish list as a ‘‘tactical error,’’ and he criticized the front’s leadership for slavishly following dictates from Ankara. Intrafront tensions came to a head at the Turkmen Front’s fourth conference from 22 to 24 April when the entire Erbil branch of the front, headed by Bazirgan, withdrew from the conference and split off from the party. In subsequent interviews, Bazirgan delivered withering critiques of the ITF’s relationship with Turkey, dismissing the front as a ‘‘plaything’’ of Turkey and arguing that it had become ‘‘only a tool in the hands of a foreign party.’’58 Bazirgan was also clearly angered by the front’s exclusive focus on Kirkuk at the expense of the organization’s Erbil branch (which Bazirgan headed) and the futility of the front’s strategy of confrontation against the Kurds.59 In essence, the fourth party conference exposed a deep fault line between Turkmen political leaders operating within the Kurdish-controlled region and those outside. For the former, the front’s staunchly anti-Kurdish line was a dangerous liability, as was evident in the front’s paltry electoral returns outside Kirkuk; for the latter, meanwhile, confronting the Kurds in Kirkuk (and elsewhere) was the centerpiece of their campaign strategy.

Kurdish Triumph Overall, the elections at all levels were an unambiguous triumph for the Kurds. At the national level, the DPAK won seventy-five seats in the NA with a vote share of close to 26 percent of the total. At the governorate level, the various Kurdish Lists won majority control over Ninevah and Kirkuk, a plurality of seats on a highly fragmented Salahadin Council, and a significant presence on the Diyala Council.60 Alongside the

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three Kurdish-dominated governorates, in which the two major parties ran separately, these results gave the Kurds majority control over five of Iraq’s eighteen governorates. The two most obvious explanations for the success of the various Kurdish parties were the extremely high turnout among Kurdish voters and the Sunni Arab boycott. The three Kurdish-dominated governorates enjoyed the highest turnout rates in the country due to the relative security of the Kurdistan Region, the wellhoned organizational skills of the two major parties, and the obvious enthusiasm with which the Kurdish people embraced their democratic moment.61 At the national level, this allowed the Kurds to play a pivotal role in the formation of the new government and, therefore, to exert a decisive influence over the drafting of the permanent constitution. At the governorate level, majority Kurdish control over the councils of ethnically diverse Ninevah and Kirkuk created problems. In Ninevah, the Kurds controlled over three-quarters of the seats on the council, and yet even the most ardent of Kurdish nationalists would not deny that across the governorate as a whole, Sunni Arabs comprised a decisive majority of the population. In deference to this demographic reality, Kurdish council members opted not to exploit their numerical dominance, voting to allow an independent Sunni Arab, Duraid Mohammed Kashmula, to continue serving as governor.62 In Kirkuk, however, the Kurds proved less willing to cede control.

Forming a Council The KBL’s twenty-six elected members of the council represented a reasonable cross-section of the list’s constituent parties. The PUK, as the dominant Kurdish party in Kirkuk, claimed seven of the seats, the KDP five, and the KIU and the KCP three each. Also represented were the Kurdistan Toilers’ Party, the National Assyrian Party, the Turkmen People’s Party, and the Iraqi Turkmen Union Party (one seat each), along with four independents.63 In ethnic terms, the breakdown of the KBL’s twenty-six elected representatives was twenty Kurds, three Arabs, two Turkmens, and one Christian. With a clear majority of seats on the council, the KBL could, theoretically, elect a governor and govern without the support of other parties. In practical terms, however, the legitimacy of Kurdish rule depended on brokering some sort of mutually acceptable power-sharing arrangement with other ethnic factions. The immediate problem for Arab and Turkmen political leaders was that entering into an agreement with the Kurds would imply tacit acceptance of the validity of the election results. This did not seem imminently likely. The day after the official certification of the results, the front’s Jamal Shan

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described the results as ‘‘a conspiracy against the Turkmens and Arabs,’’ while the Iraqi Republican Grouping’s Sheikh Abdul-Rahman Munshid Asi called the election ‘‘not honest’’ and predicted that it would lead to ‘‘civil war in Kirkuk.’’64 For the Kurds, the election results definitively demonstrated the ‘‘Kurdishness’’ of Kirkuk, or, as Talabani put it, Kirkuk’s ‘‘Kurdistani’’ identity.65 Of course, it was precisely the disputed identity of the city that constituted the major source of controversy among the ethnic groups, and from this perspective, the elections settled very little. In their acrimonious aftermath, the KBL inevitably struggled to craft a power-sharing formula that could satisfy all parties. The Arab factions pushed for positions of power to be shared in proportion to population percentages and not on the basis of the election results. The Turkmen bloc was, apparently, equally unwilling to see positions distributed on the basis of demonstrated electoral strength. Tahsin Kahya, the sole Islamic and Turkmen Coalition representative on the Kirkuk Council, claimed, ‘‘it is our right to occupy certain posts.’’66 On one level, this was a basic disagreement about the nature of power sharing, with the Kurds pushing for an arrangement that would recognize their right, earned at the ballot box, to control the primary positions of power in the government, and the Arabs and Turkmens demanding that power be shared as if the elections, in their view fraudulent, had not taken place. Hence, the Kurds claimed the positions of governor and council president, and they offered deputy governor and assistant to the president positions to the other lists. On a deeper level, however, the dispute reflected a far more fundamental division over the city’s future status. As KBL council member Mohamed Kamal put it, ‘‘we do not offer the key posts to those who do not recognize the city as a Kurdish city and those who do not cooperate in implementing article 58.’’67 Adding further complexity to the situation was the friction between the two major Kurdish parties on a range of issues, from the identity of the Kirkuk governor to the division of power between the two at the regional level.68 The upshot was a gridlocked political process. From the council’s first official meeting on 1 March to 29 March, there were twenty-two separate meetings among the city’s various groups, but no consensus emerged on how to divide up power. By mid-March the KDP and PUK had managed to agree that the independent Abdul Rahman Mustafa should stay on as governor, but by the end of March there was still no functioning government in Kirkuk. At a 29 March council meeting, scheduled to elect the three positions of executive power (governor, deputy governor, and council president), the representatives of the Arab bloc and the ITF stormed out to protest the Kurds’ alleged intransigence over the distribution of posts. Accord-

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ing to PUK news sources, by early May the two main Kurdish parties had reached agreement on the allocation of executive positions. The independent Mustafa was to stay on as governor, with the pro-Kurdish Turkmen Irfan Kirkuki as acting deputy governor, the PUK’s Rizgar Ali as council president, and a KDP representative as city mayor. On 9 May the KBL issued an ultimatum in the form of a memorandum to the other lists, calling for a ‘‘final serious and broad dialogue for the sake of Kirkuk’’ but threatening that if no positive response was received within three days, the KBL considered it ‘‘its right to form the Kirkuk council and administration as the higher interests of the governorate demand.’’69 On 12 May the Turkmen bloc reiterated its demand to control the position of deputy governor, and the Arab bloc issued a ‘‘strongly-termed statement’’ calling for a further delay in the formation of the Kirkuk government.70 With little apparent prospect of consensus emerging, on 21 June the KBL unilaterally reelected Abdul Rahman Mustafa as governor and the PUK’s Rizgar Ali as council president. On the instructions of the two Kurdish leaders, the KBL left open the positions of deputy governor and two ‘‘assistants’’ to the governor, to be filled at a later date by representatives of the other ethnic groups. Nearly six months after the election, therefore, Kirkuk finally had a government of sorts; but it was not a government that could govern effectively and still less one that was recognized as legitimate by most of Kirkuk’s non-Kurdish groups. Though technically the KBL’s clear majority on the council enabled it to govern without the votes of other parties, the refusal of council members from the Turkmen and Arab blocs to participate in voting, or increasingly even to attend council meetings, denied the government the legitimacy it needed to govern effectively over non-Kurdish neighborhoods of Kirkuk. This basic dynamic was to cripple governance in the province for the next two and one-half years.

Who Governs Kirkuk? In the absence of an effective provincial government that enjoyed the support of all ethnicities, the most important decisions that needed to be made in Kirkuk continued to be made elsewhere. So blurred and convoluted did lines of authority become that it was difficult to determine who, if anyone, governed the province in any given issue area. Until the approval of a permanent constitution, the provisions of the TAL and the CPA’s ‘‘Order on Local Government’’ continued to shape the division of power between Baghdad and the governorates. Article 25 of the TAL assigned certain ‘‘exclusive’’ powers to the federal government, and article 57 reserved all other powers for the governorates. On the key

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issue of budgetary control, the governorates were almost totally dependent on the Iraqi government for funding. While governorate councils were, theoretically, empowered to ‘‘increase their revenues independently by imposing taxes and fees’’ (according to article 56, section A), it was simply unrealistic at this stage to expect governorates to have the administrative resources and infrastructure in place to perform this function. This meant that Kirkuk continued to rely almost exclusively on Baghdad, the two Kurdish parties, and, to a lesser extent, US reconstruction grants for its sources of income. In turn, this enabled the central government to retard the implementation of article 58. The return of large numbers of Kurds to the province required the construction of new housing and a major investment in Kirkuk’s dilapidated infrastructure, but according to Kurdish politicians, the money allocated by the Iraqi government was intentionally inadequate to meet these needs. As Nasrin Barwari, Iraq’s Kurdish minister of municipalities and public works, explained, ‘‘Many promises have been made in this respect. Previously Bremer promised to allocate 100m dollars for Kirkuk. This was not carried out. Ja’fari promised 50m dollars. This did not materialize either. . . . The solution for this is that we insist on the sum that has been promised . . . because the needs of Kirkuk are extremely numerous. The issues of water plant, sewage, drainage, roads, reconstruction and building residential houses all require a lot of money.’’71 Instead, the annual budget for Kirkuk was fixed at a paltry 726 million dinars (approximately $500,000), which proved entirely inadequate to prevent the province’s decrepit infrastructure from further deterioration. A Kurdish visitor to Kirkuk in April 2005 painted a grim picture of life in the city: ‘‘The services usually offered by the local government are meager and very primitive. There are still power cuts and in some areas there is very little supply of drinking water. The roads and streets are full of holes and ditches that make driving very hazardous. There is no sewage system in Kirkuk, making it one of the dirtiest places on earth. Rubbish is virtually everywhere as every street and every corner is used by everybody as a dumping ground.’’72 Another source of ambiguity within the TAL that led to periodic friction between Kirkuk’s Kurdish-dominated council and the central government concerned the power of appointment. Specifically, the existing legal framework left unclear whether the power to appoint or dismiss, for example, a governorate police chief lay with the governorate council or with the Interior Ministry in Baghdad.73 In December 2005, for example, Iraq’s Interior Ministry reportedly issued a decree to ‘‘transfer, dismiss or retire’’ a number of Kurdish police officers from Kirkuk and Diyala, including the head of intelligence in Kirkuk, and the chief of the traffic police, Col. Rizgar

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Najim Khattab.74 There was also considerable controversy over the Kirkuk Council’s efforts to dismiss the Turkmen head of the Kirkuk General Directorate of Education, Sen Omer Mubarek. Meanwhile, the education directorate as a whole remained dominated by Turkmen. Of the directorate’s thirty high-ranking positions, twentysix were filled by Turkmens, a statistic that provoked considerable resentment among the Kurdish population.75 The other critical institution that proved immune to Kurdish access was the Northern Oil Company (NOC). The TAL gave the transitional Iraqi government exclusive power over the management of natural resources, a power which plainly entailed direct control over appointments and dismissals at the NOC. As of early 2005 the NOC was still dominated at all levels by Arabs. Of its eleven thousand employees, indeed, some eight thousand were Arabs and only five hundred were Kurds.76 The NOC and the education directorate were anomalous, however, and in most other key areas the Kurds increased their dominance. This was especially true in the security sphere. Within the regular police force a reasonable ethnic balance prevailed, with the Kurds comprising approximately 40 percent of the force, but the various institutions conducting counterterrorist operations were all Kurdish controlled. This was most obviously the case with the intelligence agencies of the two major Kurdish parties (the Asayesh), which became increasingly active in the city as the insurgency gathered pace. It was also true of a five-hundred-strong antiterror unit, the Emergency Services Unit, which was multiethnic in composition but was headed by a PUK-affiliated Kurd, Col. Khattab Abdullah Arif. The undeniable benefit of relying on reliable, experienced, and efficient Kurdish forces to combat terrorism was that major incidents of violence remained relatively rare in Kirkuk, despite its large Sunni Arab population and worsening ethnic tensions.77 Targeted assassinations and roadside bombings continued with disturbing frequency, but the city’s only mass casualty suicide bombing during 2005 took place on 14 June outside a bank in a mainly Kurdish district, killing twenty and wounding eighty-six. Apparently, though, there was a steep price to be paid for the effectiveness of the Kurdish-led security forces’ counterterrorism tactics.. The danger of relying primarily on Kurdish forces to conduct antiterror operations was that such operations inevitably targeted members of other ethnic groups—principally Arabs but also Turkmens. This unavoidably stoked ethnic tensions in Kirkuk. The situation was further exacerbated in June when the Washington Post published excerpts from a leaked US State Department cable that implicated Kurdish security forces in a variety of extrajudicial practices, such as illegal detentions, secret transfers, and forced abductions. According to the cable, these

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activities were part of a ‘‘concerted and widespread initiative’’ by the two Kurdish parties ‘‘to exercise authority in Kirkuk in an increasingly provocative manner’’ and had ‘‘greatly exacerbated tensions along purely ethnic lines.’’78 The extent of these practices was not clear. By mid-2005 the US military had recorded 180 cases of extrajudicial abduction, while Arab and Turkmen political leaders placed the figure at over 600. The problem was less the use of the tactics, which were fairly standard counterinsurgency practice throughout Iraq during 2005, than the fact that they were being used (mainly) by police from one ethnic group at the expense of other groups. Regardless of the effectiveness of such tactics in reducing violence levels in Kirkuk, therefore, their side effect was to sharply intensify ethnic tensions within the governorate.

A Transitional Government for Iraq At the national level, the January elections left the Kurds ideally placed to influence the contents of the permanent constitution. Although the United Iraqi Alliance controlled an absolute majority of the seats in the National Assembly, article 36 of the TAL required a two-thirds vote in the NA to seat the three-member PC. A unanimous agreement among PC members on the candidate for prime minister then empowered the successful candidate to form a government, subject to the approval of a majority of the NA. In practice, this meant that any incoming government had to have the support of two-thirds of National Assembly members, which made the participation of the Kurds all but a mathematical necessity. A two-thirds majority of NA members was 183 of 275, so technically a government could have been formed without the participation of the Kurds. However, this would have required the inclusion of almost every other faction represented in the assembly, including Iyad Allawi’s Iraqi National List (INL). On most issues of importance the INL had positions that were diametrically opposed to those of the UIA, so while it was mathematically possible, this configuration of political forces was highly implausible. Hence, the inclusion of the Kurds in government was politically, if not mathematically, indispensable. The Kurds duly exploited their position as kingmakers in the process, presenting the UIA with a lengthy series of demands that included the post of president and the speedy implementation of article 58. By March 2005 the UIA had apparently agreed to Kurdish demands over Kirkuk, and on 7 April, Jalal Talabani assumed office as Iraq’s first-ever Kurdish head of state.79 Though the post of president was largely ceremonial, winning it was an important symbolic victory for the Kurds because of the message it conveyed about their position in the new, binational political order in Iraq.80 When the government of new Iraqi prime minister Ibrahim al-

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Jaafari was sworn in on 3 May, a further nine Kurds were included as ministers in the thirty-seven-member council of ministers.81 The Shi’i Turkmen community was represented by the new minister for housing and construction, Jasim Muhammed Ja’far. Born in Tuz Khurmato, Ja’far was the deputy head of the Islamic Union of Iraqi Turkmen (IUIT), a Shi’i Turkmen party that had run on the UIA’s slate nationally. The Sunni Turkmen community—basically the ITF—was overlooked for representation on the council. Despite their being well placed in terms of access to political power and, more specifically, access to the committee charged with drafting the permanent constitution, the Kurds’ hopes for a harmonious and productive relationship with the new prime minister receded almost immediately. During the swearing in of the new government, al-Jaafari pointedly neglected to articulate the phrase ‘‘democratic and federal’’ Iraq when taking his oath of office. Worse still from a Kurdish perspective, al-Jaafari made no mention of Kirkuk or the implementation of article 58 in the course of his speech to the NA laying out his government’s priorities for the transitional period. This omission, clearly intentional, did not escape the attention of the Kurdish leadership or the media.82 The protracted delay in the formation of the new government left little time for the Iraqi Transitional Government to fulfill its primary function, namely, drafting a new constitution. On 10 May the National Assembly appointed a fifty-five-member committee to draft the constitution. The composition of the committee reflected almost perfectly the distribution of seats in the assembly. Consequently, the UIA’s 51 percent of the seats translated into twenty-eight places on the committee, while the Kurdish Alliance’s 27 percent seat share was enough to secure fifteen places. With a total of forty-three committee seats, these two lists were obviously in a position to dominate the substance of the new constitution. Only two Sunni Arabs, one representing the UIA and the other Allawi’s INL, made it onto the committee.83 One representative of the Iraqi Turkmen Front was also included, meaning that for the first time the front was actually overrepresented on an important national political institution.84 The most obvious problem with the committee was the absence of credible Sunni Arab representation, a problem that threatened to undermine the legitimacy of the entire process.85

The Constitutional Referendum During the latter part of 2005, the Kirkuk issue was inevitably dominated by developments at the national level—specifically the drafting of a permanent constitution (by 15 August), a referendum to approve or reject the resulting draft (scheduled for 15 October), and new national elec-

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First: The Executive Authority shall undertake the necessary steps to complete the implementation of the requirements of all subparagraphs of Article 58 of the Transitional Administrative Law. Second: The responsibility placed upon the executive branch of the Iraqi Transitional Government stipulated in Article 58 of the Transitional Administrative Law shall extend and continue to the executive authority elected in accordance with this constitution, provided that it accomplishes completely (normalization and census and concludes with a referendum in Kirkuk and other disputed territories to determine the will of their citizens), in a period not to exceed the 31st December 2007.

Figure 8.2. Text of article 140

tions to follow by 15 December. The most significant of the many serious problems that dogged this process, the absence of Sunni Arabs from meaningful participation, was addressed by drafting an extra fifteen Sunni Arabs, deemed to represent the interests of the broader community, onto the constitutional committee. The committee was supposed to operate on the basis of consensus, but most of the decisions on controversial issues were taken by a small group of Shi’is (mainly SCIRI) and Kurdish leaders behind closed doors.86 Consequently, when finally presented to the assembly, the draft represented a confused and awkward series of compromises between Iraq’s Kurdish and Shi’i Arab communities that largely ignored the serious concerns of the Sunni community. Foremost among these was the system of federalism articulated in the draft constitution, particularly the mechanism by which governorates could amalgamate into larger regions.87 Equally controversial was the division of power between the federal government and the regions with respect to the oil and gas sector. Article 112 appeared to characterize the management of oil and gas as a shared power, while article 115 gave priority to regional law over federal law in cases of dispute over shared powers.88 Moreover, article 112 limited the federal government’s involvement to the management of ‘‘present fields,’’ meaning that the management of future fields was a power reserved for the regions. Also of significant concern, and not just to Iraq’s Arab Sunni population, was the part of article 140 that dealt with Kirkuk (see Figure 8.2). The article required Iraq’s executive authority (to be determined after the December elections) to implement all provisions of the TAL’s article 58 and established a deadline of 31 December 2007 for the successful completion of the three-stage (normalization, census, and refer-

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endum) process to determine Kirkuk’s future status. In concrete terms, Kurdish political leaders now had a mechanism (a popular vote) and a constitutionally mandated timetable for the integration of Kirkuk into the Kurdistan Region. The only real attempt to assuage Sunni Arab concerns was the lastminute inclusion of article 142, which allowed amendments to the constitution for a period of up to four months after the seating of the new government. This temporary amendment procedure was marginally less onerous than the standard process for amendment outlined in article 126, but it was also subject to a ‘‘Kurdish veto.’’89 Since the draft had the backing of the two Kurdish parties, the UIA, and Grand Ayatollah Ali alSistani, the only plausible way for Sunni Arabs to prevent its approval was to exploit the TAL’s ‘‘Kurdish veto’’—a provision included in the TAL at Kurdish insistence whereby the draft would fail if rejected by twothirds of voters in three or more governorates. Though rejection was virtually guaranteed in the heavily Sunni governorates of Anbar and Salahadin, given the dearth of accurate census data in Iraq, it remained unclear whether Sunni Arabs, along with other groups such as the ITF and the ADM, could muster enough votes to cross the two-thirds threshold in three governorates.90 In the event, the ‘‘no’’ vote triumphed in three governorates—Anbar, Salahadin, and Ninevah—but failed to reach two-thirds of the vote in the latter. In most other governorates voters approved the draft by overwhelming margins.91 The Kirkuk vote was closer than most. Of 542,000 participating voters, over 340,000 (approximately 63 percent) voted in favor of the draft, while just over 200,000 (37 percent) voted against it. Overall, over 140,000 extra voters participated in the October referendum than had voted in the January election, a figure that reflects both the greatly increased participation of Sunni Arabs and a significantly larger pool of eligible voters. It is clear from these results that the Kurds were not the only ethnic group to have voted in favor of the draft. Based on the January election results and those of the subsequent December election, the Kurds could probably have mustered in the region of 260,000 votes at the time of the referendum. This means that approximately 80,000 ‘‘yes’’ votes were cast by non-Kurds, and the most likely source of these was Kirkuk’s Shi’i population (both Turkmen and Arab). More broadly, the referendum was significant because it set in motion a constitutionally mandated process by which demographic strength could be translated into ‘‘ownership’’ of Kirkuk by means of a popular vote within a specified time line. At one stroke, the interminable debates about the true identity of the city would be settled decisively at the ballot box by simple weight of numbers. For the two Kurdish parties, the challenge was to return enough

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Kurds to the governorate in time to win a simple majority vote in December 2007. Demographically, this required the return of ‘‘Arabized Kurds’’ to Kirkuk and the relocation of resettled Arabs to their governorate of origin; geographically, it required the restoration of Kirkuk’s preBa’thist administrative boundaries by reattaching several Kurdish-dominated districts. Logistically, these were immensely complex tasks, and they had to be accomplished in short order and in the face of determined opposition from almost every other political faction in Iraq. The Kurds’ stated commitment to the normalization of Kirkuk through orderly, legal means became captive to a process that was extremely susceptible to intentional delay and disruption. The excruciatingly slow deliberations of the Kirkuk Property Claims Commission, for example, continued to yield negligible results. By the beginning of 2005 the commission had received over ten thousand claims but had reached decisions in only twenty-five cases.92 Nearly a year later the KPCC had resolved just over twenty-five hundred of the more than thirty-five thousand cases submitted, the vast majority from Kurds, and the Iraqi government had yet to provide any financial resources to compensate returning Kurds or departing Arabs. Frustrated by the glaring inefficiencies of the legal process and, as many Kurds saw it, the deliberate efforts of the al-Jaafari government to obstruct normalization, the two Kurdish parties increasingly acted outside the framework established by the TAL to change Kirkuk’s demography on the ground. Turkmen and Arab political leaders had long accused the Kurdish parties of illegally relocating non-Kirkuki Kurds from the Kurdistan Region to Kirkuk and even of bringing non-Iraqi Kurds into the city, charges that the Kurdish parties had consistently denied. By late 2005, however, the Kurds had clearly lost patience with the process and were openly and defiantly taking matters into their own hands. Symptomatic in this respect was the highly organized project orchestrated by the PUK in the town of Alu Mahmoud, twenty miles north of Kirkuk city. As reported by the Washington Post, the PUK had seconded engineers to the town to begin the construction of new subdivisions of concrete houses and were offering five thousand dollars, delivered in installments, to each repatriated Kurdish family. Kirkuk’s PUK-affiliated council president, Rizgar Ali, reasoned, ‘‘I can sit around with my hand out waiting for the federal government or I can spend the money myself . . . I’m not going to wait around for Jafari [sic] to sign a piece of paper. That time is gone, where the central government rules.’’93 The American military estimated the number of Kurds relocated to Kirkuk during 2005 at ‘‘tens of thousands’’ and the total number since the fall of Saddam at between 85,000 and 350,000.94 Arab and Turkmen political leaders consistently came out with numbers in the 300,000–400,000 range. Such politically

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motivated estimates were, of course, impossible to verify or refute. The most accurate guide to Kirkuk’s demographic makeup was provided by the results obtained for the various parties across the two elections in 2005. Of these two, the 15 December national election, in which parties representing all ethnic groups actively participated, was probably the more accurate yardstick.

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Chapter 9 The Kurds Denied

The December 2005 Election The December federal election differed from that of January in at least three key respects. First, unlike in January, when international monitors had been forced to observe the elections from the relative safety of Jordan, the December election was monitored in-country by up to thirteen hundred international observers. This meant that voting irregularities could be investigated and adjudicated with some degree of speed and credibility. The results of the December election were, therefore, generally ‘‘cleaner’’ and more reliable than those of January. Second, the enthusiastic participation of at least two major Sunni Arab blocs, the Iraqi Accord Front (IAF) and the Iraqi National Dialogue Front (INDF), meant that all of Iraq’s significant ethnicities were competing in December. Third, the electoral system, though still based on proportional representation, was modified for the December election to make the results less sensitive to voter turnout. Instead of the single, countrywide electoral district, the new system essentially treated each of Iraq’s eighteen governorates as separate districts. Each governorate was allocated a share of seats in the new council of representatives on the basis of the number of registered voters in the governorate.1 This meant that governorates would elect a set number of representatives regardless of the level of voter turnout within the governorate.2 Within each governorate, seats were awarded to parties in proportion to their share of the popular vote. On the basis of its 576,000 registered voters at the time of the January 2005 election, Kirkuk was awarded nine seats. Other than the addition of the two significant Sunni Arab blocs, the major participants in the December election were similar to those in January.3 In the context of the struggle for Kirkuk, the results of the December election were important for two reasons. First, they would determine the weight of Kurdish representation in the council of representatives

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and the government, and, hence, the capacity of Kurdish leaders to exert pressure on other factions to push ahead with the implementation of article 140. Second, the participation of all major ethnicities and the demonstrated propensity of Iraqis to vote along lines of ethnosectarian identity meant that the election results would provide the most accurate snapshot to date of the relative numerical strength of Iraq’s various ethnic groups, both within Iraq as a whole and on a governorate-bygovernorate basis. Essentially, the election was a rough and ready census that would reveal Kirkuk’s ethnic makeup for the first time since 1957.

Election Results Table 9.1 presents a breakdown of voting in Kirkuk for the major factions that competed in the December national elections. For comparative purposes, the votes obtained by these factions in the January national election are also shown. The data shown in Table 9.1 provide a clear illustration of the dramatic impact of increased Sunni Arab participation in the December election. Nearly 200,000 more voters participated in the December election than had voted in January, and the majority of these votes went to one of the three Sunni Arab blocs. In terms of raw numbers, the Kurdistan Alliance (KA) also increased its vote total by over 75,000. In contrast, the UIA, the ITF, and the INL actually lost votes between the two elections, despite an overall increase of approximately 115,000 in the number of registered voters in Kirkuk over the period.4 Even more striking was the impact of Sunni Arab participation on the vote shares of the other parties. The ITF’s percentage share of the vote, for example, declined by over seven points. Meanwhile, despite gaining more than 75,000 additional votes in the December election, the vote percentage of the Kurdish list declined by nearly six points, from a comfortable 59 percent in January to a marginal majority of 53 percent in December. Beyond the hard data, any discussion of these results is necessarily speculative, but it is worthwhile nonetheless. For example, a reasonable case can be made that these results provide a rough but highly suggestive indicator of the numerical presence of each ethnic group in Kirkuk’s population. With voter turnout recorded at 86 percent and with only the INL (and to a lesser extent the UIA and the KA) offering a serious nonethnic voting option, it seems reasonable to assume that most of Kirkuk’s eligible population voted and that voters generally chose parties on grounds of ethnic identity. Under these assumptions, these results did not provide much comfort to Kirkuk’s Turkmen population. The one avowedly ethnic Turkmen party, the ITF, polled under 11 percent of the vote. The major Shi’i Turkmen party, the Islamic

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65.6 —

Iraqi Turkmen Front

Iraqi Accord Front

397.2

Total

595.4

40.6

1.7

13.1

19.7

27.0

34.7

63.7

82.1

312.8

Votes (December, in 000s)

1.7 4.9 5.6 0.2 11.3

ⳮ0.1 ⳮ9.3 Ⳮ0.8 ⳮ4.1

—

Ⳮ21.2

Ⳮ34.7

18.4

59.1 —

Ⳮ75.8 Ⳮ82.1 ⳮ1.9

Vote % (Jan.)

Difference in Votes (in 000s)

6.8

0.3

2.2

3.4

2.9

5.9

10.9

14.0

53.4

Vote % (Dec.)

ⳮ4.5

Ⳮ0.1

ⳮ3.4

ⳮ1.5

Ⳮ1.2

Ⳮ5.9

ⳮ7.51

Ⳮ14.0

ⳮ5.7

Difference in Vote %

Sources: http://www.ieciraq.org/English/Frameset_english.htm; http://middleeastreference.org.uk/iraq051215results.html.

44.7

Others

0.9

22.4

Iraqi National List

National Rafidain List

19.8

United Iraqi Alliance

6.8

—

Iraqi National Dialogue Front

Reconciliation and Liberation

237.0

Kurdistan Alliance

PartyVotes (January, in 000s)

Table 9.1. Results for January 2005 and December 2005 National Elections in Kirkuk

9

0

0

0

0

1

1

1

1

5

Seats in Council (Dec.)

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Table 9.2. Results for December 2005 Federal Elections Party

Seats

Seat %

Votes (in 000s)

Vote %

United Iraqi Alliance Kurdistan Alliance Iraqi Accord Front Iraqi National List Iraqi National Dialogue Front Kurdistan Islamic Union Reconciliation and Liberation Upholders of the Message (Risalyun) Iraqi TurkmenFront Al-Rafidain List List for the Iraqi Nation (Mithal al-Alusi) Yazidi Movement for Progress and Reform

128 53 44 25 11 5 3 2 1 1 1 1

46.5 19.3 16 9.1 4.0 1.8 1.1 0.7 0.4 0.4 0.4 0.4

5051.1 2642.2 1840.2 977.3 500.0 157.7 129.8 145.0 88.0 47.3 32.2 21.9

41.2 21.7 15.1 8 4.1 1.3 1.1 1.2 0.7 0.4 0.3 0.2

Source: http://middleeastreference.org.uk/iraq051215results.html.

Union of Iraqi Turkmens (IUIT), participated as part of the UIA, but the UIA polled only 19,700 votes in Kirkuk, equivalent to just 3.4 percent of the total vote. For the Kurds, meanwhile, these results were a mixed blessing. They indicated that by December 2005 the Kurds were, by some distance, the largest single ethnic group in the Kirkuk governorate. Whether this numerical dominance was sufficient to constitute a majority of the population was a critical but open question in light of the looming vote on Kirkuk’s future status. The most plausible interpretation of the Kurdish vote total is that by December 2005 the Kurds comprised either a large plurality or a small absolute majority of Kirkuk’s population.5 At the federal level, the involvement of two credible Sunni Arab blocs had a pronounced impact on the distribution of seats in the council of representatives and, therefore, on the overall balance of political power. Table 9.2 provides results for the December 2005 elections across all of Iraq. Together, the two new Sunni Arab blocs polled just under 20 percent of the vote, enough for the IAF to claim forty-four seats and the INDF 11. Consequently, despite polling nearly one million extra votes compared with January 2005, the UIA’s share of the vote declined by seven percentage points. This drop in vote percentage translated into a net loss of twelve seats and, ultimately, the loss of majority control over parliament. In terms of seats and vote percentage, the KA also suffered losses due both to widespread Sunni Arab participation and to the performance of the KIU, which ran separately from the KA and succeeded in gaining over 150,000 votes and five seats.6 This was another deeply disappointing performance for the ITF. As the only credible party run-

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ning under an explicitly ethnic Turkmen banner, the ITF polled fewer than 90,000 votes across Iraq as a whole, and as in January, Kirkuk governorate provided the vast majority of the ITF’s votes. With less than 0.2 percent of the vote in Erbil and approximately one-third of 1 percent in Diyala, the ITF essentially ceased to be a credible political force outside the confines of Kirkuk. In Ninevah the ITF did not even run its own candidates, opting instead to form an electoral alliance with the IAF. Thus, while several candidates of Turkmen extraction were elected to the council of representatives via the lists of other blocs, the ITF itself obtained only one seat in the chamber. In January massive fraud on the part of the Kurds had been blamed by Turkmens for the ITF’s poor performance, but the December elections were relatively closely monitored by international observers from an array of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) as well as by nearly 400,000 accredited Iraqi observers. Of the total 1,985 complaints received by the Independent Electoral Commission for Iraq (IECI), 58 were deemed potentially serious (‘‘red’’ complaints),7 and 8 percent of these came from Kirkuk. None, however, was upheld by the IECI. Moreover, a system of pre- and postelection audits revealed just seven ‘‘irregularities at polling stations’’ out of a total 1,488 polling stations in Kirkuk.8 The election in Kirkuk was not without controversy. Some four days prior to the election, the IECI reported that it was examining an unexpected surge in voter registration in the governorate,9 and on the days surrounding the vote, the ITF complained that the travel ban, supposedly in place across Iraq for the election’s duration, was being openly violated by the Kurds. Somewhat implausibly, an ITF spokesman described ‘‘hundreds of thousands of people’’ flowing into Kirkuk from the Kurdistan Region to vote illegally in the election.10 Overall though, this was probably as clean an election as could be expected, given prevailing conditions in Iraq. A UN elections official confirmed the elections to be ‘‘in accordance with international standards’’ and further asserted, ‘‘you cannot but conclude that these were transparent, credible and good elections.’’11

Forming a Government of National Unity In purely mathematical terms, the KA lost political power between the two elections of 2005, but in some ways its bargaining position relative to other groups was strengthened. Although the UIA was comfortably the largest political bloc in the council of representatives, the depth of its internal divisions became evident from the moment negotiations began on its nominee for prime minister. Meanwhile, the Kurds, excepting the defection of the KIU, continued to present a coherent, unified

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face during negotiations on the formation of a government of national unity. Though it was possible mathematically to meet the two-thirds majority requirement for the formation of a new government without the support of the Kurds, to have excluded the Kurds from a government of national unity was politically impossible. The Kurdish leadership was, therefore, able to play a constructive role as a ‘‘broker’’ between the various blocs, thereby demonstrating its commitment to the cause of Iraqi unity. Among the early ‘‘red lines’’ imposed by the Kurds was the inclusion of the IAF and Allawi’s INL in any unity government,12 but the primary concern of the Kurdish leadership was to obtain concrete guarantees regarding the implementation of article 140 from any incoming government. As Talabani put it, ‘‘The Kurdish Coalition has no demands except those which are known by everyone regarding the need to implement Article 140 of the constitution.’’13 This brought the Kurds directly into conflict with, most obviously, the two Sunni Arab blocs but also with certain factions within the UIA. This conflict played out initially in the form of a complex and lengthy struggle to agree on a nominee for prime minister. In the absence of consensus, on 12 February 2006 an internal UIA election saw al-Da’wa’s Ibrahim al-Jaafari prevail over SCIRI’s Abdul Mehdi by the narrowest of margins (sixty-three to sixtyfour).14 Al-Jaafari’s largest single bloc of votes came from the Sadrists, and shortly prior to the vote, al-Sadr had reportedly threatened to pull his followers out of the UIA if Mehdi were chosen above Jaafari.15 AlSadr’s decision to back Jaafari in preference to Mehdi was partly born of the long-standing animosity between SCIRI and the Sadrist movement, but it was also because al-Jaafari was politically closer to al-Sadr on issues of concern. Prior to the vote, al-Sadr had presented al-Jaafari with a fourteen-point political program that included a timetable for the withdrawal of US troops, postponing the creation of autonomous federal regions, and a tough stand against Kurdish claims on Kirkuk. According to the Sadrist representative Bahaa al-Aaraji, ‘‘we saw that Jaafari was closer to implementing this program.’’16 Both the IAF and the INL were opposed to al-Jaafari’s nomination, though for different reasons; but it was the Kurds who spearheaded the attack against al-Jaafari, based primarily on his reluctance to make serious efforts to implement article 58 of the TAL.17 As a Kurdish representative and former member of the IGC put it, ‘‘Jaafari has been the prime minister for the last year. The Kurds have always had a problem with him . . . not implementing Article 58.’’18 AlJaafari did little to endear himself to Kurdish sentiment when he made an unexpected visit to Turkey in late February, apparently without first informing President Talabani, to meet with Prime Minister Recip Tayyip

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Erdogan of Turkey and discuss the future status of Kirkuk (among other topics).19 Subsequently, in March a report appeared in the PUK-backed newspaper Chawder that al-Jaafari had met with ‘‘former Ba’thist officials’’ (Saleh al-Mutlaq, head of the INDF, and Misha’n Juburi, the leader of the Reconciliation and Liberation Bloc) and assured them ‘‘that he will never allow the return of Kirkuk to the Kurdistan [Region].’’20 While the Kurds were not alone in opposing al-Jaafari’s nomination, their refusal to enter into a government under his leadership was the decisive blow to his prospects. In mid-April, after two months of equivocation, al-Jaafari indicated his willingness to step aside. His replacement, al-Da’wa’s Nuri al-Maliki, proved at least minimally acceptable to all factions, and the new government of national unity was approved by the council of representatives on 20 May 2006, albeit with temporary appointees to the defense, interior, and oil portfolios. Positions in the new thirty-seven-member cabinet were allocated more or less proportionally to blocs participating in the governing coalition.21 The KA’s allocation of six portfolios included the important posts of deputy prime minister (the PUK’s Barham Salih), and foreign minister (the KDP’s Hoshyar Zebari). Overall, the two Kurdish parties split the KA’s allocation on a fifty/fifty basis.22 Jalal Talabani retained his post as president of Iraq and with it the power to veto unilaterally any piece of legislation inimical to Kurdish interests.23 As core components of the unity government and in possession of some key positions of political power, the Kurds were well placed at the federal level to advance their interests on the issue of Kirkuk. By contrast, the one representative from the ITF, though technically part of the unity government, was overlooked for a cabinet position. The one ethnic Turkmen in the cabinet, youth and sports minister Jasim Muhammed Ja’far, was a Shi’i Turkmen member of the IUIT and had been elected as part of the UIA. The political marginalization of the Turkmens, specifically the ITF at the national level, was by this stage almost complete.

Internationalizing the Kirkuk Issue With no obvious means to exercise influence over politics at the national level and only a limited capacity to obstruct the course of events on the ground in Kirkuk, the ITF’s only real remaining option was to foster the involvement of external forces in the struggle to prevent the implementation of article 140. The most obvious source of support was Turkey, but the relationship between Ankara and the Kurdistan Region had, by 2006, grown increasingly complex. The burgeoning economic links between the two—worth over one billion dollars a year by this point—

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made overt confrontation a potentially costly strategy for both sides. Additional complexities included the upcoming (2007) parliamentary and presidential elections in Turkey and an apparent civilian/military split within the Turkish state over whether to recognize and talk directly with the KRG’s President Barzani. Based on a second dismal electoral performance by the ITF, however, it was clear that relying on the ITF to advance Turkish interests within Iraq was a losing, even counterproductive, strategy. Citing unnamed Turkish officials, the mass-circulation Turkish newspaper Milliyet claimed that the government recognized that ‘‘the Turkmens do not form a homogenous bloc’’ and that ‘‘by appearing to be ‘too close’ to Ankara the Iraqi Turkmen Front might even have harmed the unity of the Turkmens.’’24 Meanwhile, the influential Turkish Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research issued a scathing indictment of the government’s ‘‘Turkmen policy’’ in April. According to the report, ‘‘Failure of the Iraqi Turcoman Front (ITF) model is evident now and insistence on the model would do nothing but weaken Turcomans further.’’25 Describing the Iraqi Turkmen community as ‘‘excessively divided’’ and Sunni Turkmen in particular as ‘‘constantly divided instead of getting unified,’’ the study recommended a strategy of diplomatic engagement and concluded that ‘‘Turkey cannot sustain its current policy towards Turcomans due to the political conditions and realities in the new Iraq . . . Turkey should develop a different/ new policy or model for Turcomans.’’26 In response to the evident failure of the ITF to become a credible political force in Iraq, the Turkish government adopted a more nuanced, less confrontational strategy on the issue of Kirkuk. In public, the statements of Turkish officials were measured and studiously noninflammatory. For example, after a review of the Iraq situation in the immediate aftermath of the December elections, Turkey’s powerful National Security Council (MGK) issued the statement that ‘‘sensitive issues such as Kirkuk should be resolved in a way that will be acceptable to all Iraqis.’’27 In terms of solutions to the Kirkuk problem, Turkey offered a number of proposals, such as greater UN involvement in the issue and, implausibly, allowing the entire Iraqi population to vote on the future status of Kirkuk.28 The closest the Turks came to a concrete, constructive proposal for dealing with the situation was to try and broker a prereferendum deal among all relevant Iraqi factions to change the substance of the referendum question. The idea was to replace the option of Kirkuk joining the Kurdistan Region with a question on a special status for Kirkuk, on the understanding that, ‘‘if the Turkmen[s], Kurds, and Arabs all agree on a formula, such as a special status for Kirkuk, and if this formula is put to a public vote, the result may be a resounding yes, but if the people

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Table 9.3. Insurgent Attacks per Day, Selected Governorates

Governorate

February– June 2005

August 2005– June 2006

February– May 2006

Baghdad Anbar Salahadin Ninevah Diyala Kirkuk Basra Dohuk

20.3 12.3 8.0 10.4 3.1 3.1 1.2 0.1

21.0 23.3 13.8 8.5 5.4 4.7 1.1 0

28.9 22 13.7 7.6 8.3 4.3 2.0 0

May– August 2006

Average (February 2005– August 2006)

Ranking

30.3 31.1 15.5 10.3 14.5 4.8 2.4 0

25.1 22.1 12.8 9.2 7.8 4.2 1.7 0.03

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 18

Source: Iraq Index: Tracking Variables of Reconstruction & Security in Post-Saddam Iraq. 2007. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 21 December: 27 (http://www.brookings.edu/ saban/⬃/media/Files/Centers/Saban/Iraq%20Index/index20071221.pdf ).

are asked whether they want to be part of the Kurdish Region, the result would be divisive.’’29 Under the terms of article 140, a vote on Kirkuk’s special status would have been permissible because the article did not specify the nature of the question to be put to voters. However, the constitutional feasibility of the proposal did not make it any more politically acceptable to the Kurds. Aside from this effort, most of Turkey’s energies were devoted to ensuring a delay in the referendum date. The ITF retained its utility to Turkey, not as a vehicle for the exertion of direct influence over Iraqi politics but as a convenient justification for Turkey’s interference in what was, indisputably, an internal issue for Iraqis themselves to resolve. Turkey’s stated intent to protect ‘‘fellow nationals’’ against Kurdish oppression, and to prevent the ‘‘ethnic domination’’ of Kirkuk was a problematic argument for the Turks because it required making precisely the sort of ethnic distinction between Turks and Kurds that they had long sought to deny in their own country. For its part, the ITF maintained a steady flow of accusations against the Kurds in Kirkuk, accusing them of ‘‘atrocities’’ and ‘‘massacres’’ and urging Turkish military intervention.30

Violence Intensifies Compared with the majority of Iraq’s governorates, Kirkuk had become a violent place by the beginning of 2006. Table 9.3 presents comparative data on the number of insurgent attacks per day in selected governorates. Between February and May 2006 the governorate suffered an average

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of 4.3 insurgent attacks per day, which made Kirkuk the sixth most violent governorate in Iraq over the period.31 In February, US army intelligence officer Greg Ford spoke of a ‘‘spike’’ in violence since the December election targeting all ethnic groups. In January 2006 alone, according to Ford, Kirkuk experienced twenty-five assassinations or assassination attempts.32 Compared with Dohuk, which averaged zero attacks per day, Kirkuk was a dangerous place, but relative to governorates such as Anbar, averaging twenty-two attacks per day, Kirkuk was a haven of peace and tranquillity. Kirkuk was also significantly less violent than other governorates of equivalently mixed ethnicity, such as Ninevah and Diyala. From June 2006 on, insurgents unleashed a two-month campaign of mass-casualty bombings. On 12 June a coordinated wave of suicide attacks and remotely detonated explosives in various parts of the city killed twenty-two and wounded forty-three others; July saw six car bombings, the largest of which detonated on 23 July, reportedly killing more than a hundred people.33 The intensity of attacks increased into the fall, with sixteen car-bomb attacks recorded in September alone. In an attempt to stem the tide of violence, Kirkuk city was placed under curfew for the duration of a major security crackdown—Operation Security Key—that involved over fourteen thousand Iraqi army troops surrounding the city, while police conducted search operations inside. In addition, a trench was dug around the southern approaches to the city for more effective control over points and entry and exit. The operation netted 150 suspected insurgents and a large quantity of arms, but its general impact on violence levels was minimal. Barely a week after the operation ended, seven car bombs exploded in the city on the same day, killing fourteen and wounding seventy-two. According to USmilitary figures, by the end of October the city had been hit by twenty suicide bombs and sixty-three roadside bombs since August.34 Understandably, most Western news sources linked the upsurge in violence in Kirkuk to ‘‘growing ethnic tensions’’ in the run-up to the article 140 referendum. There were clearly tensions among the various ethnic groups in Kirkuk regarding the proposed referendum, and as one US army officer put it, the insurgents were adept at ‘‘using both their terrorist tactics as well as propaganda and information campaigns to try and keep things stirred up . . . to reinforce ethnic tensions.’’35 However, most of the violence perpetrated in Kirkuk was not driven by ethnic hatred. The majority of bombings in Kirkuk were claimed by fairly wellknown insurgent groups such as Ansar al-Sunnah and the 1920 Revolution Brigades, and their targets were, overwhelmingly, the city’s security forces rather than a specific ethnic group.36 That the majority of casualties from these attacks were Kurdish forces and the perpetrators were

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Table 9.4. Police Deaths as a Percentage of Total Deaths in Iraq’s Nine Most Violent Governorates, May 2003–October 2006 Governorate

Police Deaths

Civilian Deaths

Total

Police Deaths as % of Total

Diyala Kirkuk Salahadeen Anbar Babil Ninevah Karbala Basra Baghdad

409 187 239 235 160 259 31 63 715

1,861 1,005 1,452 2,514 1,739 1,572 1,031 1,768 28,154

2270 1,192 1,691 2,749 1,899 1,831 1,062 1,831 28,869

18 16 14 9 8 7 3 3 2

Source: Iraq Index: Tracking Variables of Reconstruction & Security in Post-Saddam Iraq. 2006. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 29 October: 22 (http://www.brookings.edu/ saban/⬃/media/Files/Centers/Saban/Iraq%20Index/index20071029.pdf ). Brookings cites as a source for some of its data ‘‘Iraq Body Count: War Dead Figures.’’ 2006. BBC News Online, 23 October. Note: The figures for total deaths are significantly lower than most estimates because the data are adapted from Iraq Body Count, which requires a death to be confirmed by two independent media sources. This almost certainly results in a serious undercounting of total deaths but does not affect the relative balance between police and civilian deaths across governorates.

predominantly Sunni Arab insurgents was less a function of ethnicity than the simple fact that the security forces were dominated by Kurds. Table 9.4 below provides data on the balance between police and civilian deaths in the nine most violent governorates in Iraq over the May 2003 to October 2006 period. As the data in the table indicate, aside from Diyala, Kirkuk had the highest percentage of police deaths to total deaths of any of Iraq’s most violent governorates over the period—far higher, certainly, than many other mixed governorates such as Ninevah and Baghdad. Hence, while Kirkuk was certainly dangerous, it largely avoided the explicitly sectarian violence that consumed Baghdad in the months following the bombing of the al-Askari mosque in February 2006. In December 2006 the newspaper Guardian summarized the situation succinctly: ‘‘in Kirkuk . . . there is only an insurgency. Ethnic war has not broken out.’’37 The surprise, indeed, for many observers was that Kirkuk had largely avoided the bloody ethnosectarian convulsions of other mixed cities in Iraq in the face of relentless provocation by insurgent groups. As had mostly been the case since April 2003, tension among ethnic groups continued to be expressed rhetorically rather than through actual physical violence. Leading the charge in an escalating war of words were various Turkmen political leaders. In March 2006 the ITF’s

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Ankara office issued a statement calling on the US to ‘‘find a solution and put an end to the Kurdish atrocities’’ committed against Turkmens.38 In January 2007 a senior Turkmen leader was predicting an imminent massacre of Kirkuk’s Turkmen population by over 100,000 armed peshmerga, apparently part of an implausibly large 400,000 peshmerga force that had been moved into place in the city,39 while by July a prominent Turkmen leader in Kirkuk was openly accusing the Kurdish parties of direct complicity in mass-casualty suicide bombings against Turkmen targets in the town of Tuz Khurmato.40 At the same time, the ITF’s estimates of the number of Kurds imported into Kirkuk increased at an exponential rate. Prior to the December elections, most ITF estimates were around the 300,000 mark; this number had increased to 600,000 by the beginning of 2007 and subsequently to 650,000 newly registered Kurdish voters.41 These figures were plainly absurd, but they served their purpose because they could not be definitively disproved by the Kurds in the absence of a census. For their part, Kurdish leaders mostly refrained from inflammatory rhetoric. With article 140 seemingly moving inexorably toward implementation, the Kurds had every incentive to diminish rather than fire up ethnic tensions within Kirkuk. At the same time, several of the actions of Kurdish leaders were undeniably provocative and, therefore, counterproductive to overall Kurdish aims. In this category falls President Barzani’s decision to ban the flying of the Iraqi flag on the territory of the Kurdistan Region from 1 September 2006. Though Barzani’s justification for the decision was not without merit, the move provoked a firestorm of controversy and provided invaluable ammunition to those seeking to obstruct the Kurdish drive for Kirkuk.42 Likewise, though there was little evidence to support the more outlandish claims of critics that the Kurdish parties were shipping Kurds from neighboring countries into Kirkuk to boost Kurdish numbers ahead of the referendum, there were credible reports of the parties pressuring Kurds expelled from Kirkuk to return home, sometimes against their will.43 There were also continued concerns about the counterinsurgency tactics of Kurdish security services and their documented record of human rights infringements.44

Deadlock in the Governorate Council On the political level, relations among parties in the governorate council remained fractious. In mid-April, Agence France Presse offered a relatively optimistic snapshot of a ‘‘local government learning to work together’’ and quoted Turkmen member Tahsin Kahya as saying, ‘‘as a council we continue to do our best to keep meeting and dealing with

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each other and trying to solve our problems.’’45 Even more upbeat was US major Victor Vasquez, who claimed, ‘‘when I got here, you couldn’t get these guys to agree the sky is blue . . . now they can agree in a unanimous vote on projects and priorities.’’46 Other observers were less impressed with the extent of interethnic cooperation on the council. The International Crisis Group, for example, spoke of ‘‘deadlock’’ in the council and claimed that while Arabs and Turkmen members ‘‘participate in council decisions, they usually absent themselves during a vote so as not to legitimate the result.’’47 From about May 2006 on, the exact status of Turkmen and Arab council members at any given moment was unclear. In May, for example, a coalition of Arabs on the council reportedly suspended their participation, claiming the rights of Kirkuk’s Arabs were being neglected. By October, Arab members were once more threatening to boycott council proceedings because of ‘‘daily raids on the houses of the shaykhs and notables of the Al-Ubayd tribe and the terrorization of their families in the city.’’48 This threat was apparently not carried out; on 16 November the Arab bloc once again announced the suspension of its participation in council proceedings, arguing that the council was ‘‘unfairly dominated’’ by Kurdish members.49 Turkmen members, meanwhile, began their official boycott of the council on 10 October 2006, apparently in response to the ‘‘absence of just members in the Article 140 Commission.’’50 According to Kurdish officials, however, the boycott by Arab and Turkmen members was less than sincere. Council chair Rizgar Ali, for example, claimed that ‘‘it is only the weekly meetings that they do not attend: they get salaries and privileges. The war some of them fight is only for privileges. Some of them attend committee meetings, too, but they do not attend the weekly meetings so that his excellency’s participation in the Governorate Council meetings will not become public.’’51 The simultaneous boycott of the council by both Arab and Turkmen blocs reflected a confluence of strategic interests in that both blocs were staunchly opposed to the implementation of article 140, and both resented the perceived Kurdish monopolization of positions of power in the governorate. Beyond shared grievances, however, the two blocs agreed on little else. Specifically, they were unable to agree on which bloc would claim the position of deputy governor. It was, as one American official (rather patronizingly) put it, ‘‘like having one chocolate bar that you can’t divide and giving it to two kids to decide over.’’52 The endless squabbling over the administrative division of spoils had little practical effect on the day-to day governance of Kirkuk because the council had almost no independent decision-making authority. Following the passage of the constitution, Kirkuk had technically become one of the ‘‘governorates

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that are not incorporated into a region,’’ but the precise powers according such entities awaited legal definition. Article 121, section five of the constitution had granted regional governments the power to organize internal security forces but had not extended this right to governorates. Technically, therefore, the Kirkuk police force remained under Baghdad’s control. The Iraqi Ministry of the Interior maintained ethnic quotas for the police force and, apparently, the power to dismiss Kirkuk’s chief of police.53 In September 2006 the US military transferred security responsibility for all areas of the governorate outside the city of Kirkuk (and the town of Hawija) to Iraqi forces.54 Though heavily stacked with Kurdish peshmerga, the Iraqi army and national guard forces were technically under the command of the Ministry of Defense in Baghdad. With coalition forces retaining overall security for Kirkuk city and Hawija, the government of Kirkuk appeared to have no real power in the security realm. Likewise, the Iraqi government retained appointment power in several key areas and control over the size of the governorate’s budget. The budgets allocated were generally meager and delivered late and in installments.55 Starved of central government funding and without an independent source of revenue to draw upon, Kirkuk’s government was unable to make significant progress in reconstructing the city’s dilapidated infrastructure. The vast majority of the major infrastructure projects undertaken in the city were funded and controlled by either the US, through the Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) program, or by the two major Kurdish parties.56 In neither case did the local government have much control over the outcome. The tendency of the two parties to bypass the governing structures of Kirkuk and intervene directly in matters of governance was a growing problem that further undermined the authority of elected officials. Referring to the two parties’ efforts to help reconstruct the governorate, Kirkuk’s governor expressed both gratitude and frustration: ‘‘they have tried to rehabilitate most of the villages. They have asphalted the roads and covered the alleys inside Kirkuk with cement. With regards to sports, education and the university they have offered their support. However, if it had been through us, it would have been better because we are better familiar with the problems and the people bring their demands to us.’’57 Parts of the Kurdish media were less charitable. The Kurdistan Communist Party’s weekly Regay Kurdistan, for example, accused the KDP and PUK of ‘‘monopolizing the reconstruction process’’ in Kirkuk and of requiring recipients of financial aid to sign up for party membership. US officials tried without much success to reduce the influence of political parties, particularly the two main Kurdish parties, over political

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life in Kirkuk. In July 2006, for example, the US consular office in the city threw its weight behind the establishment of an ‘‘opposition front’’ of Kurdish parties designed to provide some sort of counterweight to the dominance of the two main parties.58 Somewhat predictably, this effort came to nothing. Attempts by the US military to expunge party influence from the Kirkuk police force were similarly ineffective.59 The blunt truth was that most of the money flowing into Kirkuk came from either the PUK or the KDP, and the vast majority of Kurdish administrative officials, with the notable exception of the governor, were affiliated with one or other of the parties, as was the bulk of the security forces. Removing or reducing the influence of the two parties was not only impossible but also potentially counterproductive, in that the two parties were about the only cohesive decision-making institutions present in Kirkuk.

The Article 140 Committee In return for supporting the al-Maliki government, the two Kurdish parties had obtained a written guarantee that article 140 would be implemented fully. Unlike al-Jaafari, al-Maliki explicitly committed himself to this in an August 2006 speech laying out the agenda of the new unity government. Item 22 of his thirty-four-point program committed the government ‘‘to the implementation of article 140 of the constitution’’ and established concrete deadlines for the completion of each of the three stages. Normalization procedures, to include ‘‘returning towns and villages that were originally part of Kirkuk,’’ were to be completed by 29 March 2007 and the census by 31 July, with the referendum to follow on 15 November. In June, meanwhile, al-Maliki took the first concrete steps toward the establishment of a committee to oversee the implementation of article 140.60 Almost every aspect of the 140 Committee (known officially as the Committee to Implement Article 140 of the Constitution), from its very existence, to its membership, to its activities, was shrouded in controversy. The initial composition of the 140 Committee is seen in Table 9.5. Viewed in purely ethnic terms, the composition of the committee appeared well suited to its task. Its ethnic blend—three Arabs, three Kurds, two Turkmens, and a Christian—seemed to reflect the demographic complexion of Kirkuk with reasonable accuracy.61 There were two glaring omissions, however: the lack of representation for Kirkuk’s Shi’i Arab population and the absence of a Sunni Turkmen (or more precisely, an ITF) representative. The latter omission was not accidental since the Kurds assumed, accurately, that the presence of an ITF representative would create an obstacle to the swift implementation of the

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Minister of interior, IG Independent/UIA

Minister of environment, IG

Minister of extraregional affairs, KRG

Member, Kirkuk Council

Member, Kirkuk Council

Minister of youth and sports, IG

Member, Kirkuk Council

Member of Kirkuk Council, 2003–5

Jawad al-Bulani

Nermin Othman

Mohammed Ihsan

Babaker Sadiq Kakarash

Tahsin Kahya

Jasim Muhammed Ja’far

Muhammed Khalil alJubouri

Ashur Yelda

Chaldo-Assyrian

Sunni Arab

Shi’i Turkmen

Shi’i Turkmen

Kurd

Kurd

Kurd

Shi’i Arab

Sunni Arab

Ethnicity/Sect

Resigned February 2007, withdrew resignation April 2007

Resigned November 2006

Offered resignation April 2007? PM rejectedi

Resigned March 2007

Notes

Sources: International Crisis Group. 2007. ‘‘Iraq and the Kurds: Resolving the Kirkuk Crisis.’’ Crisis Group Middle East Report No. 64, 19 April: 4–5; authors’ interviews with various members of the Article 140 Committee. i Author interview with Tashin Kayha, Brussels, June 24, 2008.

ADM

Iraqi Republican Assembly

Iraqi Turkmen Islamic Union/UIA

Iraqi Turkmen Islamic Union

PUK/KBL

KDP

PUK/Kurdistan Alliance

National Democratic Party/INL

Minister of justice, IG

Hashem al-Shibli (Committee Chair)

Political Affiliation

Position

Name

Table 9.5. Article 140 Committee, Initial Membership

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article. This was of particular concern as the committee’s decision were supposed to be taken on the basis of consensus. The lack of ITF representation on the committee provoked a ‘‘sit-in’’ protest by eight of the nine Turkmen members of the Kirkuk Council. As council member Ali Mahdi explained, ‘‘There is no balance in the formation of the committee and the Turkmen representative in the committee is not elected by the Turkmen parties and movements.’’62 The wisdom of excluding the ITF from participation was even questioned in parts of the Kurdish media. While rejecting the ‘‘extremism’’ of the ITF, for example, the weekly Aso argued, ‘‘we still realize that, without them, the settling of the current disputes will not take place naturally. We do not want the Turkmen Front to be neglected and then provoked.’’63 The ITF’s immediate concerns were addressed in October when alMaliki unilaterally decided to add two members to the committee. Ahmad al-Baraq, the secular Shi’i Arab head of the Iraq Property Claims Commission and former member of the IGC, was an uncontroversial addition. The inclusion of Anwar Beyreqdar, a Sunni Turkmen member of the ITF’s executive committee and leader of one of the ITF’s component parties (the Turkmen Justice Party), was less well received by the Kurds, however. Barzani’s envoy to the 140 Committee, Qadir Aziz, complained, ‘‘we have objections against adding a Turkmen because they are against the implementation of Article 140 . . . and adding a new Turkmen member will obstruct the implementation of the article.’’64 In deference to Kurdish concerns about the number of Turkmens on the committee, Jasim Muhammed Ja’far submitted his resignation on 22 November. Though controversial, the ethnosectarian composition of the committee turned out to be among the least of its problems. Initially the work of the committee appeared to be moving ahead at a reasonable pace. The committee held its first meeting in late August, formed five subcommittees to deal with various aspects of article 140, and established time lines for the completion of each of the three stages (normalization, census, and referendum) of implementation.65 The Iraqi government initially provided $2 million to cover the administrative expense of the committee, with the promise of an additional $200 million to cover compensation costs for those leaving and returning to the ‘‘disputed territories.’’66 By mid-December, therefore, the KRG’s prime minister, Nechirvan Barzani, was sounding optimistic about prospects for the speedy implementation of article 140. Referring to a recent meeting with al-Maliki in Baghdad, Barzani stated, ‘‘I am very pleased with the attitude of the Prime Minister and the head of the commission. . . . They all emphasize that this is a constitutional article that needs to be implemented. . . . In fact, what I have seen in Baghdad shows their insistence to implement the arti-

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cle.’’67 This was probably the high point of Kurdish optimism for the punctual implementation of article 140.

The Committee’s First Decisions The first four decisions handed down by the 140 Committee should not have generated excessive controversy if, as the rhetoric suggested, there was a broad consensus among groups about those aspects of article 140 that sought to rectify the policies of the former regime.68 The four decisions allowed those forcibly displaced from Kirkuk between July 1968 and April 2003 to return (with compensation of land and ten million dinars), reinstated all those dismissed from jobs in the Kirkuk administration by the previous regime, provided compensation of twenty million dinars and land for resettled Arabs to leave Kirkuk, and annulled all land transfers made to resettled Arabs as part of the Arabization campaign.69 As Mohammed Ihsan subsequently made clear, these decisions applied not just to Kirkuk but also to all other disputed areas ‘‘from Khanaqin to Sinjar.’’70 The major controversy surrounding these decisions was whether resettled Arabs had a choice about leaving or were compelled to do so. The Arabic language used in the original document suggested compulsion, but this was reportedly not the language agreed on by committee members when the decisions were approved.71 The statements of Kurdish officials further confused the issue. When asked about the decision during an interview with Al Jazeera, Muhammed Ihsan stressed their voluntary nature, stating, ‘‘The decision is not compulsory, but optional. The Kurds, who were deported from these areas, will not be forced to return to their homes, and the Arab newcomers will not be forced to return to their original areas.’’72 However, barely a week later Rizgar Ali condemned as ‘‘chauvinists, remainders of the (dissolved) Ba’th Party, and terrorists’’ all those opposing the decisions, and he claimed, ‘‘We can’t say that just Arabs must leave Kirkuk, but any family that was settled in the city must return to their original areas.’’73 The decisions provoked furious responses from many quarters. Article 140 Committee member Muhammed Khalil, who had, presumably, signed off on the original version of the decisions, threatened to resign from the committee unless the decisions were amended, claiming, ‘‘We reject these new decisions and consider them forced migration.’’74 The Association of Muslim Scholars, an influential Sunni Arab religious organization associated with the IAF, condemned ‘‘the process of ethnic cleansing by certain political parties in the Kirkuk Governorate.’’75 On 9 February up to one thousand Sunni and Shi’i notables gathered for a conference in Kirkuk under the slogan ‘‘The Iraqism of Kirkuk

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and the Unity of Iraq’’ to protest the decisions and threatened that their implementation would provoke armed resistance from Kirkuk’s Arab population.76 In a similar vein, a spokesman for the ITF warned that ‘‘issuing a decision such as this one at a time like this will lead to a clash between the nationalities,’’ while Muqtada al-Sadr’s Kirkuk representative pledged, ‘‘we will not leave Kirkuk by force or without force. . . . if the Kurds try to force us out of the city, then there will be dangerous reactions against them.’’77 In addition to controversy over the substance and language of the decisions, there was also confusion as to their legal status. The Kurds claimed that committee decisions had the force of law and did not require the prime minister’s signature to enter into force, but there was no way for the Kurds to act on the decisions without the cooperation of the Iraqi government. It took until 29 March for the council of ministers to endorse the four decisions, a delay that was understandable given the violent crisis that engulfed the capital in the aftermath of the al-Askari Mosque bombing in late February and the controversial nature of the decisions themselves but that nonetheless aroused the hostility of Kurdish officials.78 On 31 March committee head Hashem alShibli issued his resignation shortly after announcing the government’s endorsement of the decisions.79 When discussing the decision, al-Shibli made clear that ‘‘there will be no coercion and the decision will not be implemented by force.’’80 This statement should have helped ease the concerns of those who feared the compulsory deportation of Arabs, but in practice it did little to diminish the strength of opposition to the implementation of article 140.

Turkish-Kurdish Tensions Escalate By the beginning of 2007 and with the implementation of article 140 moving ahead, albeit at a glacial rate, Ankara was confronted with the very real possibility of Kirkuk falling under Kurdish control by the end of the year. Turkey’s options were limited, however. Direct military intervention was implausible for a number of reasons; the ITF lacked the political power to block article140’s implementation; and the US, the one power that could exert real influence over the Kurds, continued to adhere to its ‘‘hands-off ’’ policy with respect to the Kirkuk issue. Adding to the complexity of the strategic environment for the Turks, the PKK, operating out of bases in Iraqi Kurdistan, launched a series of attacks against Turkish targets beginning in May 2007, including a suicide bombing in Ankara on 22 May that killed eight and wounded over one hundred. Elections to the Grand National Assembly (July 2007) and for the presidency (April 2007) made it politically risky for Turkish politi-

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cians, particularly those of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), to adopt a conciliatory line on Kirkuk for fear of appearing ‘‘soft’’ on the Kurdish issue and being outflanked on the right by the revitalized, ultranationalist National Action Party (MHP) of Turkey.81 In a similar way, engaging in a war of words with Turkey allowed Kurdish leaders to demonstrate their nationalist credentials. Turkey’s furious reaction to Barzani’s decree ordering the lowering of the Iraqi flag initiated an increasingly belligerent series of exchanges between Erbil and Ankara. A September 2006 visit to the Kurdistan Region by a delegation from the Turkish National Assembly, ostensibly designed to soothe tensions, had achieved precisely the opposite effect. On his return to Ankara, the prominent AKP MP Turhan Comez derided the achievements of the Kurds in insulting terms and argued that the referendum ‘‘should absolutely not be held since it will trigger civil war.’’82 Prime Minister Erdogan adopted similar language in a January 2007 statement in which he argued that ‘‘a great civil war will start in Kirkuk’’ if the referendum were allowed to proceed and that Turkey ‘‘cannot watch Iraq from the bleachers like spectators.’’83 The same month the ‘‘Kirkuk 2007’’ conference was hosted in Ankara by the Turkish Global Strategy Institute. Iraqis of all ethnicities and sects were invited, with the pointed exception of the Kurds, who were asked to submit their views in writing. The conference was condemned by Kurdish leaders and the Iraqi government as an unwarranted interference in Iraq’s internal affairs. Tensions increased in February when the head of the Diyarbakir branch of the pro-Kurdish Democratic Socialist Party (DTP) of Turkey was charged with ‘‘inciting ethnic hatred’’ for saying, ‘‘we will view an attack against Kirkuk as an attack against Diyarbakir.’’84 Subsequently, Barzani issued his own thinly veiled threat, stating, ‘‘Turkey is not allowed to intervene in the Kirkuk issue and if it does, we will interfere in Diyarbakir’s issues and other cities in Turkey.’’85 In response, Turkey’s minister of state, Kursad Tuzman, warned that ‘‘those who are not friends of Turkey are destined to feel Turkey’s iron fist.’’86 Beyond the rhetoric, Turkey intensified its diplomatic push to gain support for postponing the referendum. The government’s latest plan for settling the Kirkuk issue was unveiled to a closed session of the National Assembly in January. It involved amending the constitution to postpone the implementation of article 140 and establishing UN control over Kirkuk for a ten-year period.87 The fatal flaw with this proposal was that the Kurds had de facto veto power over the constitutional amendment process and would certainly block any attempt to change article 140.88 Turkey’s best chance lay in convincing the US to pressurize the Kurds to accept a post-

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ponement, but the US was itself caught in a difficult predicament with respect to Kirkuk.

The Evolving US Position on Kirkuk Until the beginning of 2007, the US had maintained, for the most part, a consistent ‘‘hands-off ’’ approach to the implementation of article 140. The US position—that the Iraqi constitution should be implemented in full and that the future of Kirkuk should be determined by Iraqis themselves without external interference—was maintained even after the publication of the Baker-Hamilton Report of the Iraq Study Group in December 2006. Recommendation 30 of the report described Kirkuk as a potential ‘‘powder keg’’ and called for a delay in the referendum and ‘‘international arbitration . . . to avert communal violence.’’89 The report provoked a hostile reaction from Kurdish politicians, and its recommendation on the issue of Kirkuk was completely ignored by President Bush when he announced his new ‘‘surge’’ strategy for Iraq early in the new year.90 In mid-January the US ambassador to Turkey, Ross Wilson, reiterated Washington’s unaltered stance, saying that Kirkuk’s future ‘‘should be determined by the Iraqis themselves.’’91 Less than a week later, the US undersecretary of state, Nicholas Burns, visited Ankara to convey a similar message.92 The first indication of a subtle but important shift in the US position came in April 2007 when a senior US State Department official reiterated the country’s standard position on the implementation of article 140 but stressed that any outcome ‘‘should be one that takes into account the worries of all parties.’’ The same official also hinted at a shift in policy regarding the possibility of postponement, stating, ‘‘We don’t have a position on the timing, we don’t weigh in on that. We don’t have to express whether it has to be by December 31 or not.’’93 Then in July former US ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad published an op-ed in the New York Times calling for the involvement of the UN in resolving the Kirkuk issue. A new UN envoy to Iraq should, in Khalilzad’s words, ‘‘be empowered to help resolve the status of Kirkuk and disputed internal boundaries.’’94 By August the US position, according to new ambassador Ryan Crocker, was that it was ‘‘highly improbable’’ that the referendum could be held before the December deadline.95 By late summer, therefore, the Kurds had become almost completely isolated in their insistence on implementing article 140 according to the specified time line.

Article 140 in Doubt Although it was not until fairly late in the process that the Kurdish leadership officially accepted the inevitability of postponement, the imple-

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mentation of article 140 was never close to being on schedule. By the time the council of ministers approved the 140 Committee’s first four decisions on 29 March, only two days remained before the deadline expired for the first stage of a three-stage process. With the normalization stage of the process making minimal progress, the July deadline for the second stage (the census) was also missed.96 In fact, it was not until August that al-Maliki finally appointed a new head of the 140 Committee to replace al-Shibli.97 The new head, Science and Technology Minister Ra’id Fahmi Jahid, was a senior member of the Iraqi Communist Party and had been elected to the National Assembly as part of the INL. The interminable delay in appointing al-Shibli’s replacement and the apparent reluctance of the relevant Iraqi government ministries to cooperate with the 140 Committee led many Kurds to conclude that the Iraqi government had reneged on its constitutional commitment. President Barzani made clear his dissatisfaction with the committee’s progress in late July, accusing the government of ‘‘procrastination’’ and warning that ‘‘if clause 140 is not implemented, then there will be a real civil war.’’98 At the same time, Barzani’s rhetoric had begun to shift in tone by as early as June. Speaking in Dohuk on 19 June, Barzani stressed his opposition to postponement ‘‘through a political decision,’’ but he also conceded that ‘‘if the postponement is for a short time, and due to technical and not political reasons, the Kurdistan [Region] parliament can make a decision on that.’’99 Barzani’s willingness to distinguish between ‘‘technical’’ and ‘‘political’’ reasons for delay was important because it opened up space for an eventual compromise.100 The truth was that by the end of the summer the remaining technical obstacles to the implementation of 140 were formidable. Tens of thousands of outstanding property claims in Kirkuk were still awaiting legal resolution, tens of thousands of people needed to be transferred into or out of Kirkuk complete with relevant documentation, and the four districts of Kirkuk detached by the former regime needed to be reattached to the governorate.101 In turn, this required a unanimous decision by the presidency council. In addition, these technical obstacles had to be overcome not just for Kirkuk but also for all the other so-called ‘‘disputed territories’’ covered by article 140.102 Viewed from this perspective, Ryan Crocker’s assessment that a punctual referendum was ‘‘highly improbable’’ was something of an understatement. Efforts to implement 140 continued, however, regardless of the apparent inevitability of its delay. In late September the Kurdish deputy head of the 140 Committee, Narmin Othman, claimed that ‘‘around 2,000’’ resettled Arabs had agreed to accept compensation and return to their places of origin, and that most of the provisions of article 140 had been implemented.103 According to Othman, a ‘‘full census in

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the Kirkuk Governorate,’’ to be conducted by the Ministry of Planning, was due to begin in mid-November.104 However, by mid-November it was clear that even the normalization process was grinding to a halt. By this point thirty-six thousand requests had been received from Kurds and Arabs for compensation, of which only one thousand had been processed.105

An Arab-Kurd Deal With the article 140 process at a virtual standstill, a welcome and unexpected breakthrough in Kirkuk politics occurred in early November with the announcement of a new power-sharing deal between the KBL and the Arab Iraqi Republican Assembly (IRA). According to the terms of the deal, positions of power in the governorate were to be allocated on the basis of equality. Each of the three main ethnic groups was to receive 32 percent of the administrative positions in Kirkuk, with a 4 percent share reserved for Christians. The agreement covered appointments at all levels, from the directors of the various directorates down to low-level workers. The KBL also agreed to appoint Arabs to the posts of deputy governor and deputy head of the judiciary council. After the terms of the deal were thrashed out, the five IRA members of the council retook their seats on 4 December, thus officially ending their year-long boycott of the council. The US State Department’s Howard Keegan described the deal as ‘‘important’’ but also a ‘‘small step in a long reconciliation.’’106 Strategically the deal was important for the Kurds because it fractured the Turkmen-Arab alliance of convenience that had held firm since November 2006. This was, in part, a straightforward ‘‘divide and conquer’’ strategy by the Kurds that left the Turkmen bloc outside the council in stubborn isolation. Despite being offered precisely the equal power-sharing arrangement they had long demanded, the Turkmen bloc refused to end its council boycott, with one Turkmen official insisting that Kirkuk’s problems ‘‘cannot be resolved by compensating one side while marginalizing another.’’107 According to Keegan, the deal represented tacit approval by the Arab bloc of the Iraqi constitution, including article 140, but there was clearly no explicit commitment. Within a month the Arab bloc was once again calling for the suspension of the 140 process and threatening to boycott the council in protest at the Kurds’ failure to implement the terms of the deal.

No Friends but the Mountains The year that should have ended with the triumphant reclamation of the ‘‘Kurdish Jerusalem’’ was a difficult one politically for the Kurds. As

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the year progressed, the Kurds became increasingly isolated in their quest to implement article 140. In January the UN’s periodic report on human rights in Iraq warned of a ‘‘looming crisis’’ brewing in Kirkuk and identified as a ‘‘major concern from a human rights point of view . . . the deterioration of the situation in Kirkuk, particularly with respect to the rights of minorities, both Arab and Turkmen.’’108 The release in April of the latest in a series of reports on the situation in Kirkuk by the influential International Crisis Group was symptomatic of a steady erosion of sympathy for the Kurds within the international community. The report criticized the Kurds’ push for a referendum as ‘‘illconceived’’ and reiterated an earlier recommendation that Kirkuk should be assigned special status as a ‘‘stand-alone federal region’’ complete with equitable power-sharing arrangements for the governorate’s major communities.109 Then in July, Human Rights Watch released a report that accused Kurdish internal security forces of engaging in widespread abuses, including torture and denial of due process. Until 2007 most Western journalists had depicted the Kurdistan Region as a relative oasis of security, prosperity, and democratic norms. By mid-2007 a different narrative was emerging that focused on human rights violations and the corruption and nepotism of the Kurdish administration. By the end of the year major US media outlets were describing the Kurds as ‘‘overreaching’’ with respect to oil deals and Kirkuk.110 On both issues, indeed, the Kurds faced increasingly serious opposition from almost all sides of the domestic political spectrum. On the question of oil, the Kurds had begun signing contracts with foreign companies for the exploration, development, and production of oil in the Kurdistan Region as early as 2004.111 By the end of 2007 the KRG had concluded deals with more than twenty international oil companies and had passed its own hydrocarbons law in August. These contracts, which bypassed the Iraqi Oil Ministry, were declared ‘‘illegal’’ by Oil Minister Hussein alShahristani, though on what grounds was not made clear.112 Further, Shahristani threatened to ban any company signing contracts with the Kurds from any future oil deals with the federal government and to prevent the use of Iraqi pipelines to transport the oil produced. In their defense, the Kurds pointed to article 111 of the constitution, which granted control over everything other than ‘‘present fields’’ to the regions rather than the federal government. In tandem with article 115, which allocated to the regions ‘‘all powers not stipulated in the exclusive powers of the federal government,’’ the Kurds had a powerful case under constitutional law that the deals were in accord with both the spirit and letter of the constitution.113 In the absence of a federal hydrocarbons law, however, both the definition and identity of ‘‘present fields’’ awaited legal resolution.114

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For the Kurds, there was the additional issue of whether oil fields located in the ‘‘disputed territories’’ fell under the jurisdiction of the KRG as part of the Kurdistan Region.115 The Kurds’ desire to push ahead unilaterally with the development of oil fields within its region earned them few allies, but the extent to which the Kurds had alienated other factions became evident only in January during negotiations over the federal budget. The Kurds had entered negotiations determined to receive compensation from the federal government to cover the costs of peshmerga deployments outside the region but ultimately faced a bitter struggle even to maintain their 17 percent share of the federal budget.116 More disturbing for the Kurds was the emergence of a loose alliance, known as the National Understanding Project (NUP), that united a variety of Sunni and Shi’i political blocs in opposition to Kurdish demands on oil, the budget, and Kirkuk.117

The Demise of Article 140 Locked in an acrimonious battle in Baghdad just to preserve the existing level of funding for the Kurdistan Region, Kurdish leaders were in no position politically to force the Kirkuk issue.118 Barely a week before the expiration of the article 140 deadline, UN special envoy to Iraq Stefan De Mistura proposed a delay of six months in the implementation of 140. The deal was subsequently endorsed by a large majority of the Kurdish parliament in late December. Far from clarifying the issue, however, the deal merely introduced new layers of complexity. It was not clear, for example, whether missing a constitutionally mandated deadline thereby nullified the article concerned, as many opponents of 140 argued. Likewise, the legal status of an unofficial of the De Mistura proposal to (effectively) alter the terms of a constitutional article was shrouded in ambiguity. In comparable cases involving missed constitutional deadlines, such as that of article 142, recourse had been sought by a vote in the council of representatives to extend the deadline. However, any attempt to extend article 140 via parliamentary vote would certainly have failed, such was the opposition to its implementation. The solution, to which Kurdish leaders were reluctantly forced to agree, was to submit the article to adjudication by the federal supreme court. In preparation for its submission, Prime Minister al-Maliki suspended the work of the 140 Committee on 4 February. At this point a solution to the issue of Kirkuk along the lines of article 140 became, if not impossible, then highly implausible.

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Part IV The Future of Kirkuk Dimensions of Compromise

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Chapter 10 The Struggle for Kirkuk Problems of Process

Article 140 was drafted to resolve a complex problem—the future status of Kirkuk and other disputed territories—and its failure does nothing to eliminate the original problem. If a viable solution is to be found to a problem of immense significance to Iraq, it is important to understand why article 140 was apparently incapable of providing this. The interaction of multiple factors contributed to the failure of article 140, among them the sheer legal and logistical complexity of the process, the growing strength of opposition to 140 at the federal level, the diminishing political influence of the Kurdish parties, and, arguably, a flawed strategy on the part of Kurdish leaders. The decisive factor, however, was the wording of the article. This suggests, in turn, that article 140 is not the appropriate vehicle for the Kurds to accomplish their goals.

The Legal and Logistical Complexities of Article 140 On paper, the provisions of article 140 seemed straightforward: those deported or expelled by the previous regime were to be restored to their homes and property; those individuals ‘‘newly introduced to specific regions’’ were to be resettled back to their places of origin with land and money in compensation; and a remedy was to be found for the unjust manipulation of governorate boundaries by the former regime. Collectively, these provisions constituted the ‘‘normalization’’ stage of the 140 process, and the completion of this stage was required prior to a permanent resolution ‘‘of disputed territories, including Kirkuk.’’ Leaving aside for the moment the difficulties associated with the subsequent two stages and the fact that these terms applied not just to Kirkuk but to all disputed territories (however defined), the implementation of just the first stage in the process raised technical and logistical complexities that

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would have taxed the most efficient of bureaucratic structures. Of the four elements involved in the process—the return of the (mainly Kurdish) deported, the resettlement of the (mainly Shi’i Arab) ‘‘newly introduced,’’ the resolution of property claims, and the restoration of Kirkuk’s pre-Ba’thist administrative boundaries—Kurdish authorities had significant control over only the first of these. The return of deported Kurds began almost as soon as Kirkuk fell to coalition forces. The majority of returning Kurds did not have homes to return to in the city, and so the issue of property disputes did not arise. In the former Kurdish towns and villages outside the city, this was also not a significant problem because in most cases the resettled Arabs had already left before the arrival of former Kurdish residents. The logistical issues associated with the influx of tens or perhaps hundreds of thousands of Kurds concerned the provision of basic necessities such as housing, electricity, medical care, and access to an adequate sewage system. In turn, this required a major overhaul of Kirkuk’s already dilapidated infrastructure, and the finances for this were never made available by the US or Iraqi government. The inadequacy of the budgets allocated to Kirkuk by the federal government meant that the only meaningful improvements to the governorate’s infrastructure were bankrolled by the KRG, via the two Kurdish parties, and latterly by the US under the Provincial Reconstruction Team program. Despite these difficulties associated with the return of displaced Kurds, however, in terms of completing the normalization stage of article 140, they presented few problems administratively. The Kurdish parties controlled the relevant directorates in the governorate and were, therefore, able to allocate land to returning Kurds who needed it, while most of those returning were coming from Kurdish-controlled governorates, thus minimizing problems with the transfer of documentation. The fate of the so-called wafideen presented an altogether more formidable logistical challenge. In the first instance, it was necessary to distinguish different categories of wafideen. Many had been resettled in neighborhoods specially constructed by the former regime to facilitate the city’s Arabization, others had directly displaced the original residents, and still others owned property that had changed hands multiple times since the deportation of the original owner. There was also the controversial question of whether wafideen would be forced to leave or their departure was voluntary. The compensation for those opting to leave required a political decision to determine the amount of compensation, which was not endorsed until March 2007, and the allocation of the requisite funds for this purpose, which did not materialize until late summer 2007. Consequently, the process of issuing checks to departing Arab families did not begin until 30 September 2007. Beyond this, the

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process required the active cooperation of administrators in the governorates of origin in order to transfer documents of residence, such as ration cards, and to allocate land to returnees. In most cases bureaucrats in these governorates were neither equipped nor inclined to facilitate the implementation of article 140.1 The process also required the passive acquiescence of certain Iraqi government ministries, such as the Ministry of Interior, and often this was not forthcoming.2 The settlement of property disputes entailed complexity of a different order of magnitude. Although the administrative machinery had been put in place by CPA order as early as June 2004, the sheer number of disputed cases (approximately fifty thousand in Kirkuk alone) and the convoluted procedures that had to be followed to resolve cases meant that almost no progress had been made by the time work on article 140 was suspended. Indeed, Kirkuk Council president Rizgar Ali estimated that by the end of December 2007, less than 6 percent of Kirkuk cases had been resolved. Aside from the absence of adequate funding and the lack of qualified administrators to staff the property-claims bureaucracy, the major problem with the process was that it prioritized fairness and transparency over efficiency. According to the CPA’s June statute, each individual disputed claim required the preparation of a case report by the relevant regional commission summarizing the factual basis of the case, the legal issues involved, the parties’ arguments, and a recommendation made by a legal adviser to the commission. The commission’s subsequent decision could be appealed within sixty days to the appellate division located in Baghdad, where the appellate division clerk’s office was required to prepare another case report to present to the appellate court for final adjudication. The process was thorough and fair but was clearly not equipped to deliver timely decisions on the scale that was needed to implement the normalization stage of article140 within the time allotted.3 Under ideal circumstances, with a well-oiled, experienced bureaucracy and with the enthusiastic cooperation of politicians and bureaucrats at all levels of government, it might have been possible to complete the normalization process in the time available under article 140. However, Iraq was a failed state in the midst of a civil war; its bureaucracy was deeply corrupt and riddled by factional infighting, and, fatally for the Kurds, it was staffed at all levels by bureaucrats who were increasingly hostile to Kurdish designs on Kirkuk.

The Growing Strength of Opposition to Article 140 At the governorate level there was, initially at least, an apparent consensus on the need to rectify the crimes of the previous regime among Kir-

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kuk’s various ethnic groups. To the extent that this involved facilitating the return of Kurds and Turkmens to properties from which they had been forcibly expelled, the two groups shared a common interest. Beyond this, the Kurds faced almost blanket opposition to their efforts to translate numerical superiority into permanent control over Kirkuk. The Turkmen-Arab alliance that began to emerge in mid-2003 was negative in the sense that its sole rationale was a shared rejection of Kurdish efforts to dominate the governance of Kirkuk and a common determination to prevent, by whatever means, the implementation of article 140. However, the strength of local opposition to article 140 was only indirectly important. The Turkmen-Arab boycott of the governorate council denied the Kurds the legitimacy they needed to govern effectively, but the council had so few tangible powers anyway that this was of marginal importance. The boycott did have an impact on the way the struggle for Kirkuk was perceived by the outside world. The strength and unity of opposition to Kurdish plans for Kirkuk convinced many that the blame for political gridlock lay mainly with the Kurds. By this line of reasoning, the Kurds’ reluctance to share power equitably with other ethnicities undermined the legitimacy of their case for the future absorption of Kirkuk into Kurdish territory. Moreover, the common Turkmen-Arab refrain that the implementation of article 140 would result in a ‘‘civil war’’ was accepted uncritically by most of the Western media, and thus the prospect of violence became an important part of the argument against proceeding with a referendum.4 The influence of local opposition increased over time as its organization improved. In the immediate aftermath of the war, Kirkuk’s Arab population was in disarray. Over time, as Arabs were targeted with increasing vigor by Kurdish security forces and the removal of resettled Arabs (whether voluntary or forced) assumed an air of inevitability, Kirkuk’s Arab population mobilized to defend their cause. The Arab Consultative Council (ACC), formed in 2006, united a variety of mainly local Arab parties and factions (such as the Iraqi Republican Assembly) with national Arab movements, such as Saleh al-Mutlaq’s Iraqi Front for National Dialogue and followers of Muqtada al-Sadr and representatives of Shi’i tribes in line for removal under article 140. Importantly, this powerful interest group sustained its transsectarian unity even in the face of horrendous levels of sectarian violence elsewhere in Iraq after February 2006. Though the ACC lacked formal political power, it provided an important symbol of Arab unity against Kurdish ambitions in Iraq and a vital bridging point between local and national Arab movements.5 The presence of Muqtada al-Sadr’s followers in the city served a similar function. While al-Sadr was generally unsuccessful in his efforts

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to gain a foothold for his Mahdi Army militia in Kirkuk, his representatives played an important political role in mobilizing resistance to the Kurds at both local and national levels.6 The major effect of organized opposition to the Kurds at the local level was to facilitate the involvement of external forces, both national and international, in the Kirkuk issue. Arab parties at the national level, both Sunni and Shi’i, had an interest in protecting the rights of Arabs in Kirkuk against Kurdish oppression, and Turkey awarded itself the right to intervene to defend fellow ‘‘nationals’’ in the same way. At the national level, the trend toward more organized opposition to the Kurds followed the same trajectory as at the local level. After boycotting the January 2005 elections, the Kurds’ major adversaries on the Kirkuk issue, the Sunni Arab parties and Muqtada al-Sadr, effectively ruled themselves out of involvement in drafting the permanent constitution. Therefore, a Kurdish-SCIRI alliance was left to dominate both the drafting process and the substance of the finished product. Though SCIRI’s leaders were never enthusiastic about the Kurds incorporating Kirkuk into the Kurdistan Region, they were prepared to sign off on article 140 as part of a larger deal that allowed SCIRI to pursue its goal of a nine-province Shi’i region in the south and assigned significant power over the oil and gas sector to the regions. The participation of Sunni Arab parties and al-Sadr in the December 2005 election had an important impact on the balance of political power in Baghdad. The two Sunni parties emerged from the election in control of 55 seats in the council of representatives, while Sadr’s bloc was allocated 29 of the UIA’s total 128 seats (along with the 2 seats of the separately elected, Sadr-affiliated Upholders of the Message). Added to these, Fadilla (14 seats), al-Da’wa–Iraqi Organization (12 seats), and the Iraqi National List (25 seats) all opposed the Kurds on the issue of Kirkuk with varying degrees of intensity. The December 2005 elections, therefore, produced a parliament in which, for the first time, a latent majority of representatives opposed the implementation of article 58/ 140.7 Further, the formation of the government of national unity that included most of these factions placed opponents of 140 in positions of power. The normalization phase of article 140 required the active cooperation of various Baghdad ministries, including the Ministries of Interior and Trade, and in both cases these ministries were controlled by factions or individuals that displayed, at best, limited enthusiasm for delivering Kirkuk to the Kurds. Implementing 140 according to the specified time line would have required the dedicated cooperation of all entities involved in the process, and the problem for the Kurds was that even those factions that were not adamantly opposed to 140 had few incentives to devote the neces-

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sary time and resources to implementing a procedure that remained deeply unpopular among the broader Arab population in Iraq. It was a classic no-win situation for most Arab politicians involved in the process (including Prime Minister al-Maliki), and so the easiest option was to do nothing. This emerging body of unified Arab opposition to the Kurds in the council of representatives was dangerous in other ways. The loose alliance of ‘‘nationalist’’ factions that began to emerge in 2006 gelled around hostility to a variety of issues of core concern to the Kurds, including federalism, control over the hydrocarbons sector, and, latterly, the Kurds’ share of the federal budget. By late 2007, therefore, the Kurds faced assaults on multiple fronts, of which Kirkuk was just one, from an increasingly assertive nationalist bloc in the council of representatives. The strength of opposition to article 140 in the council also eliminated that possibility of using the legislative process to extend the deadline when it expired in December 2007.8 In the safe knowledge that the council would not approve an extension, the Kurds were forced to rely on a UN-backed agreement of dubious constitutional validity.9 This places the future of article 140 on very shaky ground and (nominally) in the hands of the federal supreme court. Alongside the crystallization of opposition at local and national levels, the Kurds faced predictable hostility from neighboring states. The only point on which all states in the region were in agreement with respect to Iraq was on the need to prevent the disintegration of Iraq into its constituent ethnosectarian elements. The fear was that the Kurds’ acquisition of Kirkuk and its associated oil fields would serve as a catalyst for Kurdish independence, a move that would throw into doubt the survival of Iraq as a coherent territorial entity. Turkey had more at stake than most. Along with Iran and Syria, Turkey had the additional concern of the potential spill-over effect of an independent Iraqi Kurdistan on their own restive, and oppressed, Kurdish populations. Ankara’s professed concern for the plight of its oppressed ethnic brethren in Kirkuk was never convincing, but it played well to a domestic audience.10 The problem for Turkey was a lack of viable options. As long as the Kurds adhered to a constitutionally defined process, there was no plausible justification for a Turkish military intervention to prevent Kurdish control of Kirkuk. Moreover, any military excursion into the very heart of northern Iraq would be senselessly risky, and because of this, any threat to intervene lacked credibility.11 Turkey’s influence was, therefore, somewhat limited. Primarily, it was expressed through the exertion of diplomatic pressure on the US to delay the scheduled referendum and the mobilization of international opinion against the implementation of article 140.12 Rhetorically, Turkish officials helped to perpetuate the image that the implementation of

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140 would tip Iraq into full-scale civil, and potentially regional, war and that the Turks would have no option but to intervene in such an event. The impact of Turkish diplomatic pressure on the calculations of the Bush administration with respect to Kirkuk is not easy to gauge, but in truth, the strategic calculation for the US was not difficult. On the one hand, the Kurds had actively participated in Operation Iraqi Freedom, unlike the Turks, and were still the US’s only reliable allies in Iraq in the fight against insurgents.13 On the other hand, the US risked alienating every other group in Iraq, and every state in the region if it threw its full weight behind the implementation of 140. In the end, the US did nothing. At no point was it official US policy to oppose the implementation of 140, but the US made no real effort to actively support the process. The problem for the Kurds, therefore, was not just the growing strength of opposition to article 140 but also the absence of positive support from any other source.

Flawed Strategy of Kurdish Leaders? The failure of the Kurdish leadership to deliver Kirkuk to an expectant Kurdish population provoked a bitter reaction in certain parts of the Kurdish media. The diaspora media was particularly vicious in its criticisms of the two Kurdish parties. The Kirkuk failure merged with longstanding complaints among the diaspora against the corruption, nepotism, incompetence, and latent authoritarianism of Talabani and Barzani to create scathing indictments of Kurdish leadership. The indigenous Kurdish media provided a more balanced, nuanced, and probably accurate assessment. Most of the blame was leveled at successive Iraqi governments for their failure to act on article 58/140 in a timely manner or, in the case of Prime Minister al-Jaafari, for his deliberate efforts to sabotage the process. The Kurdish leadership did not emerge blameless, however. In general, criticisms of the Kurdish leadership fell into one of three categories: first, that the two parties had prioritized narrow partisan interests at the expense of reclaiming Kirkuk; second, that Kurdish leaders had failed to capitalize on the Kurds’ position of political power at the federal level to force a solution to the issue; and third, that insufficient attention had been paid to the details of the 140 process, in particular to the wording of the relevant articles. There was clearly some validity to the first of these critiques. Kirkuk was a prize too important not to provoke rivalry between the two parties. As many media commentators and even Kurdish officials observed, each party’s efforts to strengthen its influence in Kirkuk at the expense of the other made it extremely difficult for the Kirkuk government to govern effectively and undoubtedly squandered resources that might otherwise

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have been more productively used.14 The staunchly independent newspaper Hawlati was particularly scathing regarding the two parties’ efforts in Kirkuk, arguing, ‘‘as much as they are busily engaged in rallying people haphazardly round themselves, they have not yet been able as much to build ten mud houses for the returning refugees of that city.’’15 However, it is less clear that this rivalry had any direct bearing on the collapse of the article 140 process. A more serious accusation was leveled at Jalal Talabani in mid-2006 by the Hewler Post. Complaining that since becoming president of Iraq, Talabani had devoted all his time ‘‘to defending Sunni Arabs, complimenting Shi’is, [and] kissing the eyes of leaders, ministers and ambassadors,’’ the Post accused Talabani of working to protect the interests of the PUK at the expense of the Kurds. Specifically, the Post suggested that the reason why Talabani had failed to exploit his position on the presidency council to restore Kirkuk’s pre-Ba’thist boundaries was that this would require Sulaimaniya to cede Chamchamal to Kirkuk. ‘‘If this had been done,’’ according to the Post, ‘‘then the number of voters for the PUK list would have been decreased in Suleymaniah administrative border, but the number of voters in Kirkuk would have been increased. Therefore, any changes in the administrative borders of governorates [were] not in favour of the PUK at that time.’’16 More important than the accuracy of this accusation, which was categorically denied by PUK officials, was the fact that the Post clearly considered it plausible that Talabani was prepared to sacrifice Kirkuk for the interests of the PUK. The most penetrating Kurdish media critiques, however, focused on the strategic failings of Kurdish leaders, particularly on their apparent reluctance to exploit the Kurds’ position of political strength at the national level to put pressure on the Iraqi government to implement article 140. Hawlati, for example, questioned the eagerness of Kurdish leaders ‘‘to unify the lines of Shi’is and Sunnis in Iraq’’ and their willingness to prop up a government ‘‘which some of their own media accuse of not ratifying many decisions related to article 140.’’17 The PUK-funded Chawder suggested that the Kurdish leadership ‘‘never had a well-devised plan for the restoration of Kirkuk. . . . The predominance of party political mentality and the carelessness of Kurdish political power about the return of Kirkuk and other Arabized areas to the Kurdistan region have been clear to everyone.’’18 Barzani’s personal envoy on article 140, Qadir Aziz, accused ‘‘the Kurdish side’’ of failing to capitalize on key moments, such as the immediate aftermath of the war, to push the case for Kirkuk more aggressively and of failing to use ‘‘its strong position and weight in Baghdad to put great political and legal pressure on the authorities in Baghdad.’’19 These criticisms appear reasonable but underestimate the extent to

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which Kurdish leaders did try to use the Kurds’ political power to force the 140 issue and overestimate the range of viable options at their disposal. On the first point, Kurdish leaders used their bargaining power to secure a vague but important commitment on Kirkuk in the TAL and then subsequently demanded and obtained a written guarantee from Prime Minister al-Jaafari that article 58 would be implemented. When alJaafari failed to honor this guarantee, the Kurds were the prime movers behind the rejection of his nomination for prime minister a second time around, and they made their support for the government of national unity under al-Maliki conditional on a written agreement to implement article 140 in full. Al-Maliki then made public his government’s commitment to 140 in the speech announcing his agenda. In the summer of 2007 Kurdish leaders did threaten to withdraw from the government unless serious efforts were made on the Kirkuk issue, and at the time a Kurdish withdrawal would certainly have caused the collapse of the government.20 The subsequent problem for the Kurds was that a withdrawal from the government before the departure of several important factions would not necessarily have forced the government to collapse. As originally formed, the government of national unity controlled 240 of the council of representative’s 275 seats, meaning that the Kurdistan Alliance’s 53 seats were not mathematically necessary for the government to sustain its majority. After the withdrawal of these factions, the problem was somewhat different. A Kurdish withdrawal would certainly have resulted in the government’s collapse, but by this point a nationalist bloc was emerging in the NA that opposed the Kurds on almost every issue of importance. This opened up the possibility, theoretically at least, of an alternative government, formed without Kurdish participation, that was inherently inimical to Kurdish interests. Therefore, a withdrawal from government over the implementation of 140 risked denying the Kurds access to positions of power without necessarily producing any positive effect on the Kirkuk issue. Thus, the threat to withdraw was not the powerful political weapon it might have appeared. The alternative option, short of a unilateral declaration of independence, was the threat to withdraw from the political process entirely. Deployed at the appropriate moment, the withdrawal of Kurdish parties from the political process would certainly have triggered a political crisis and might well have produced the desired response from the Iraqi government on the Kirkuk issue. The optimum time to have used this threat was between the elections in January 2005 and the approval of the permanent constitution in October 2005. During this period Sunni Arabs had withdrawn entirely from the political process, and had the Kurds done the same, there would have been no process to speak of. The key

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calculation for Kurdish leaders to make over this period was whether Kurdish interests were better served by threatening to derail the political process entirely or by participating in the process of drafting a constitution that would, potentially, codify Kurdish interests on a permanent basis. The real problem was that the threat to withdraw lacked credibility because of the high costs associated with following it through. The critical weakness in the Kurds’ position was always the Kurdistan Region’s dependence on oil revenues from the central government for more than 90 percent of its budget. Prior to this, the overwhelming share of the budget had been provided under the UN-administered oil-for-food program. As an autonomous entity, therefore, the region had never been close to economic self-sufficiency. A withdrawal from the political process would have placed in jeopardy nearly all of the funds needed to keep the Kurdistan Region functioning.21 Moreover, it would have deprived the two parties of the money to pay the salaries of most of the region’s employees, including the peshmerga.22 With hindsight, Kurdish leaders may have erred in their calculation, but at the time it appeared as though the Kurds could achieve all of their goals (short of outright independence) through a constitutional process that they were in a position to influence decisively. The basic strategic decision made by Kurdish leaders at the outset was that the Kurdistan Region would not be a viable independent entity for the foreseeable future. A push for immediate independence would have been opposed by every state in the region; by the US, which had pledged to maintain Iraq’s territorial integrity; and by the rest of Iraq. The seizure by force of Kirkuk and its oil fields, which would presumably have had to accompany any declaration of independence, would not have helped the Kurds to survive economically. While the Kurds could have used control over Kirkuk oil to deny it to the rest of Iraq and to Turkey, they did not have the capacity to refine or export the oil without the cooperation of others. The alternative was to remain part of a democratic, decentralized Iraq that would allow the Kurds to retain their security forces and to govern themselves with little or no interference from the central government. Moreover, as part of a larger unit, the region would enjoy a guaranteed share of the national oil wealth and the protection of internationally recognized borders. Another part of the calculation was that once it became generally recognized that the Kurds were committed to a future inside Iraq, the major objection to the Kurds’ reclamation of Kirkuk would dissipate. Despite ample evidence that the commitment of Kurdish leaders to remain part of Iraq (with certain caveats) was genuine, it was clearly insufficient to convince many. Obviously it is impossible to provide definitive proof of

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this commitment. However, during the authors’ interviews with numerous Kurdish leaders from both major parties, a clear and consistent pattern emerged. None of the leaders believed that independence was a viable option for the foreseeable future, and all believed it to be in the best interests of the Kurdish people to remain part of Iraq.23 Beyond anecdotal evidence, there is a pattern of behavior. Kurdish leaders had made clear that they reserved the right to declare independence under certain conditions. The restoration of an Arab dictator in Baghdad, the imposition of religious law on the Kurdistan Region, the failure to adhere to the terms of the constitution, and the outbreak of a full-scale Sunni-Shi’i civil war were all deemed sufficient grounds for separation. However, when the latter appeared to be erupting after February 2006, far from using this as a convenient pretext for independence, Jalal Talabani was instrumental in bringing Iraq back from the brink. Talabani has, in fact, devoted significant time and energy to reconciling Shi’is and Sunnis in Iraq. Moreover, the Kurds have committed peshmerga to help the security situation in Baghdad (and Fallujah) on several occasions. As noted above, the Kurdish media has not been slow to criticize Talabani for focusing his energies on Sunni-Shi’i unity, so it would be difficult to conclude from this that Kurdish leaders were actively looking for an excuse to claim independence. The standard perception among Iraqi Arabs, Turkmens, Turks, and even much of the Western media was that the Kurds wanted to control Kirkuk because it offered a resource base for an economically viable independent Kurdistan. In its assumption that possession of Kirkuk would provide the springboard for an immediate secession, this perception was inaccurate.24 The basic strategic calculations made by Kurdish leaders with respect both to Kirkuk and to the future of the Kurdistan Region can certainly be criticized, but they were calculations based on a realistic assessment of the strengths and vulnerabilities of the Kurdish position. The more problematic decisions were tactical and related to the wording and substance of article 140 in the permanent constitution. In simple terms, once Kurdish leaders had successfully negotiated the transplant of the TAL’s article 58 into the constitution and secured a mandated time line for the process, they assumed that the major battle had been won. Too much faith was placed in the sanctity of the constitutional process, and too little attention was paid to the wording of the article. Along with some rudimentary problems, such as the imprecision of the language used, there was the more fundamental problem that the article, even if implemented in full, could not provide the Kurds with what they wanted, which was Kirkuk and a defined border with the rest of Iraq.

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Problems with Article 140 Article 58 of the TAL was important because it established the broad outlines of a resolution to the issues of Kirkuk and the disputed territories. Though detailed in some respects, it was more a statement of principles than a concrete plan of action, and this was probably appropriate at the time. The Kurds were prepared to compromise on Kirkuk to secure other gains, such as the constitutional recognition of the Kurdistan Region in its prewar boundaries, the right to control security in the region, and the use of Kurdish as an official language, for example. Hence, a final resolution to the issue was deferred until after the ratification of a permanent constitution. Article 140 transplanted most of the language of article 58 into the permanent constitution but included three important clarifications. First, it established a deadline of 31 December 2007 for completion of all three stages of the process. Second, it replaced the vague term ‘‘will of the people’’ with the unambiguous term ‘‘referendum.’’ Third, it charged the ‘‘executive authority elected in accordance with this Constitution’’ with the responsibility to implement the process within the specified deadline. Beyond these clarifications, however, the text of article 58 remained largely intact in the permanent constitution. Following the ratification of the constitution, including article 140, in October 2005, the Kurds acquired a seemingly unimpeachable argument for reclaiming Kirkuk. Rival claims regarding the history, culture, and demography of Kirkuk became of secondary importance relative to the argument that nearly 80 percent of Iraqis had just approved a document that mandated the Iraqi government to resolve the issue of Kirkuk and the disputed territories by 31 December 2007. In short, article 140 had to be implemented on time because the constitution required it. This seemed to vindicate the Kurdish strategy of resisting the forcible reclamation of Kurdish-populated territories in favor of pursuing a peaceful, constitutional process to achieve the same ends. In founding their argument on a point of constitutional principle, however, the Kurds laid a series of legal land mines for themselves. For example, with reference to the normalization process, article 58, section C of the TAL states, ‘‘The permanent resolution of the disputed territories, including Kirkuk, shall be deferred until after these measures have been completed.’’25 This language was intentional and, on one level, made perfect sense for inclusion by the Kurds. If a census and referendum were to be held before the completion of normalization, as the ITF pushed for, there was no guarantee that the Kurds would have the numbers necessary to win a referendum. Certainly at the governorate level the restoration of districts removed from Kirkuk by the former regime would

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greatly increase the proportion of Kurds in Kirkuk relative to other ethnic groups.26 However, normalization was by some distance the most complex part of the process. Just one part of the process, the resolution of property disputes, of which there are tens of thousands still outstanding, will require years to resolve, but according to any plausible interpretation of the constitution, there could be no census and no referendum until these property disputes are resolved. The Kurds’ insistence on the inclusion of a deadline in article 140 was similarly counterproductive. Though article 58 delayed a resolution to the problem of the disputed territories until after the approval of a permanent constitution, the article did require Iyad Allawi’s transitional government and its successor, al-Jaafari’s interim government, ‘‘to act expeditiously’’ on normalization. However, by the end of al-Jaafari’s tenure, almost no progress had been made on implementing the article, and the Kurds suspected, probably accurately, that the absence of progress was intentional. Without a deadline, the Kurds faced the prospect that opponents of the article, of whom there were many, could delay its implementation indefinitely, thus negating the article’s provisions by default. The inclusion of a constitutionally mandated deadline seemed a logical solution to the problem of intentional delay because it would require the government to implement the article or risk violating the constitution.27 This approach was rational but suffered from three major flaws. First, the deadline was optimistic, to say the least. To have come close to meeting the deadline would have required cooperation from all involved parties at all levels of government and a governing structure that was capable of quick, decisive action. In reality, the implementation of article 140 was strongly opposed by many important factions, and Iraq was a failed state. Second, the deadline effectively set a target date for opponents of the article’s implementation. Opponents now knew they needed only to delay the implementation until 31 December 2007 in order to throw the whole process into legal jeopardy. Given the complexities of the process itself, this was a fairly straightforward task. Third, it was never clear what would happen to the article if the deadline were missed. In similar cases, such as the numerous deadlines missed by the constitutional review committee, extensions of dubious constitutional validity had been granted by a vote in the council of representatives. This was always an implausible option for the Kurds because of the strength of opposition to article 140 in the council. A missed deadline, therefore, risked derailing the process entirely, leaving the Kurds with no constitutional or legal mechanism in place for reclaiming Kirkuk.28 More problematic was the failure of Kurdish negotiators to separate the issue of Kirkuk from that of other disputed territories. Article 58/

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140 did not define the phrase ‘‘disputed territory,’’ which meant that, technically, any dispute over territory in any part of Iraq was covered by the article. This was most obviously a problem with respect to article 58, section B of the TAL, which outlined the procedure for ‘‘remedying the unjust changes’’ to administrative boundaries made by the previous regime. In the case of Kirkuk, these changes included the annexation of four Kirkuk districts—Chamchamal, Kalar, Kifri, and Tuz—to neighboring governorates in order to reduce Kirkuk’s proportion of Kurdish (and Turkmen) residents relative to Arabs. To remedy these districts required changes to the boundaries of three other governorates, Salah al-Din (Tuz), Diyala (Kifri), and Sulaimaniya (Kalar and Chamchamal). The problem was that the Ba’thist regime had juggled endlessly with administrative boundaries, more often than not for the ‘‘political ends’’ referred to in the article. Map 9 illustrates the scale of the administrative boundary manipulations perpetrated by the Ba’th regime. Entire governorates, such as Anbar, Dohuk, and Salah al-Din, were created by the Ba’th regime, while the territories of others—Karbala, for example—had huge tracts of land shaved off. In fact, of the nineteen governorates that comprised Iraq’s administrative map in 1970, barely a single governorate escaped surgery of some sort during the Ba’th era. Because the article failed to separate Kirkuk’s boundaries from those of other governorates, the restoration of Kirkuk’s boundaries became part of a potentially endless round of dispute resolutions. Under the TAL, the political process outlined in the article to resolve these disputes required the three-member presidency council to agree unanimously to a set of recommendations to be submitted to parliament, presumably for a vote, though this was not specified. The three-member council contained a Sunni Arab (the Iraqi Islamic Party’s Tariq al-Hashimi), a Shi’i (SCIRI’s Abdul al-Mahdi), and a Kurd (the PUK’s Jalal Talabani), each of whom had veto power over recommendations. Hence, the resolution of Kirkuk’s boundary issues became contingent on the settlement of other, often prickly, boundary disputes involving southern governorates. According to Kurdish officials, the Anbar-Karbala boundary was particularly contentious because it pitted the interests of a predominantly Sunni Arab governorate, controlled (nominally) at the governorate level by the Iraqi Islamic Party, against those of a Shi’i governorate controlled by SCIRI.29 Resolving this particular dispute would involve detaching a huge tract of (potentially oil-rich) land from Anbar and restoring it to Karbala. For al-Hashimi to have signed off on this would have been politically (and perhaps literally) fatal.30 Al-Mahdi, meanwhile, was unwilling to proceed with resolving the Kirkuk boundary unless other boundary issues of concern to the Shi’is were also addressed as part of the same process. Thus, the restitution of Kirkuk’s pre-Ba’thist boundaries, an

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Map 9. Changes to governorate boundaries of Iraq, 1970–2005. Comparison of these maps of governorate boundaries, at three points in time, illustrates the extent of boundary manipulation during the Ba’th Party era. Compiled by the authors from various maps made available by the Gulf2000 Project at gulf2000.columbia.edu.

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issue that was relatively clear-cut and straightforward to resolve, became hostage to Iraq’s broader political struggles. The most serious problem with the substance of article 58/140, however, was the discrepancy between the mechanisms established to resolve territorial disputes and the nature of the territory the Kurds sought to reclaim. In simple terms, the census/referendum process was not the appropriate vehicle to resolve both Kirkuk and the other disputed territories simultaneously. The problem lay with the diverse nature of the territory disputed. In addition to Kirkuk and the four gerrymandered districts, there were four other categories of territory under dispute. Potentially the easiest to resolve were those territories, such as the districts of Aqra and Sheikhan in Ninevah, that fell within the territory of the Kurdistan Region as governed since 1991 but which lay outside the three recognized Kurdish governorates. These territories were ‘‘disputed’’ in the technical sense, but not in the sense of being claimed by rival parties. A similar category comprised territories, such as Makhmur, that were part of one of the three Kurdish governorates (Erbil in this case) but that fell outside the established borders of the Kurdistan Region. Here too there was little in the way of dispute about the ‘‘Kurdishness’’ of the territory. More problematic were territories such as Khanaqin (Diyala), Mandali (Diyala), and Badra (Wasit), which lay outside the recognized borders of the Kurdistan Region and formed part of other governorates. Sinjar, however, was probably in a category of its own in terms of the difficulties it created. Like Khanaqin, Mandali, and Badra, Sinjar was geographically part of a non-Kurdish governorate (Ninevah) and lay outside currently configured Kurdish borders, but the incorporation of Sinjar into the Kurdistan Region added a new layer of complexity to the situation due to lack of geographical contiguity between the Sinjar district and the rest of the Kurdistan Region. Separating the two was the heavily Turkmen district of Tal Afar. The likely outcome of referenda at the district level in Tal Afar and Sinjar, therefore, is that the latter votes to join the Kurdistan Region, the former votes to stay part of Ninevah, and the Kurds acquire a territory to which their only geographical access is through ‘‘hostile’’ territory.31 A similar dilemma would confront the Kurds to the east if Badra voted to join the Kurdistan Region and Baladrooz (Mandali’s district) voted against joining. Badra would then be left geographically isolated from the rest of the Kurdistan Region. Though accurate information as to the demographic breakdown of either Baladrooz or Badra is very difficult to obtain, it is implausible that either district contains a Kurdish majority. If referenda were held at the district level, therefore, the Kurds would likely lose them in both places.

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This points to a fundamental problem with article 58/140. The article establishes a census/referendum mechanism resolving all of the problems associated with disputed territory and yet fails to identify the administrative level at which these are supposed to take place. At the city/town level, it is possible that the Kurds could win favorable votes in all of the disputed territories (except, probably, Kirkuk), but the net result would be a series of Kurdish-controlled enclaves administratively under the control of the KRG but geographically separated from the Kurdistan Region. At the district level, the Kurds could win in Sinjar and perhaps Khanaqin but would probably lose Mandali, Badra, and, again, Kirkuk. Only at the governorate level, and assuming the detached districts had been reattached, would the Kurds definitely win a vote in Kirkuk, but at this level everything else (other than Makhmur) would be lost.32 Assuming that the referenda need to be conducted at the same administrative level, the unfortunate conclusion for the Kurds is that they cannot reclaim both Kirkuk and the other disputed territories simultaneously through the mechanism outlined in article 140. There are two ways around this problem. First, referenda can be held at different administrative levels depending on the territory in question. To the extent that Kurdish leaders have grappled with this problem, this tends to be the line of argument adopted. One Kurdish official claimed, for example, that the ‘‘internal rules’’ of the 140 Committee made it possible ‘‘to conduct the referendum on different levels. It could be conducted on the basis of administrative units of the districts and subdistricts belonging to Kirkuk Governorate; it could be conducted at the level of the center of the governorate, that is, the city of Kirkuk; or it could include all areas about which there is a dispute.’’33 The essence of this argument is that the appropriate administrative level to hold a census and referendum is that in which the Kurds have a majority and can win the vote. This is not an argument that is likely to convince many of those who oppose Kurdish intentions; moreover, it is difficult to square with the wording of the article, which refers to a ‘‘fair and transparent’’ process and a resolution consistent with the ‘‘principle of justice.’’ The second way to address this problem is to separate the Kirkuk issue from that of the resolution of other disputed territories. For Kurdish purposes, the former is best resolved through a referendum at the governorate level as Kurdish leaders clearly intended when the article was originally negotiated. The other disputed territories form part of the broader issue of where to locate the boundary line between the Kurdistan Region and the rest of Iraq. The map produced by Kurdish officials illustrating what the Kurds claim to be ‘‘disputed territory’’ attempts, in fact, to define the borders of the Kurdistan Region in ethnic terms. Hence, the border does not consistently adhere to administrative

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boundaries, whether governorate or district, but instead follows the contours of concentrations of the Kurdish population. This means that in some places the line divides up governorates (Diyala and Ninevah, for example), in others it bisects districts (Baladrooz and Tal Afar), and in still others it adheres to established administrative boundaries. A referendum is not the appropriate mechanism to legitimize an ethnically defined boundary drawn with the express purpose of maximizing the proportion of the target ethnicity and minimizing all other populations, for the obvious reason that the outcome of the vote is preordained by design.34 This is tantamount to the Kurds unilaterally imposing a shared boundary on the rest of Iraq, and it seems highly implausible that such a boundary will be perceived as legitimate by anyone other than the Kurds. If the goal is boundary delineation, then a legitimate outcome requires the participation of all parties to the dispute. This suggests the need for a boundary resolution panel of some sort that includes representatives of the KRG, the Iraqi government, and perhaps the affected governorates, together with a mechanism for arbitration if the parties fail to agree. The problem for the Kurds is that article 140 provided for none of this.35 The broader problem with article 140 was that the basic mechanism it established to resolve the status of territory could be used either to reclaim Kirkuk or to claim other disputed territories, but not both simultaneously. Moreover, if the goal was to define a boundary with the rest of Iraq that enjoyed a minimum of legitimacy, then it seems clear that article 140 was not the appropriate vehicle for achieving this goal. If legitimacy is not a concern, then the Kurds have the capability and resources to simply occupy the disputed territories and declare the boundary unilaterally. However, a key part of the rationale behind the strategic decision to follow a constitutionally defined path to resolving the problem of disputed territories was to impart legitimacy to the final resolution. Opponents of Kurdish land claims would no doubt continue to protest vigorously, but the force of their arguments would be greatly diminished if the process itself adhered to constitutional and legal norms. Additionally, any land grab by the Kurds would certainly face a hostile reception in Baghdad and would likely lead to a cut-off in central government funding for the Kurdistan Region. This means either that article 140 will have to be drastically amended to allow the Kurds to settle all issues of disputed territory or that entirely new processes will have to be negotiated that separate out the Kirkuk issue from that of defining the boundary of the Kurdistan Region.

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Chapter 11 The Struggle for Kirkuk Problems of Final Status

Predicting the course of events in Iraq is a thankless task, even perhaps a fool’s errand. In the context of Kirkuk, this inherent unpredictability is magnified by the complexity and intensity of the issues at stake. The future of Kirkuk is of interest to parties at the local, national, regional, and international levels of analysis, and events at any one of these levels have the potential to shape Kirkuk’s future in fundamental ways. The death of Ayatollah Sistani, for example, would have no direct link to the Kirkuk issue. However, if this tipped Iraq into a full-scale sectarian civil war, the Kurds have made it clear that they reserve the right to secede and would almost certainly look to take all or part of Kirkuk and the disputed territories with them.1 Similarly, an outbreak of hostilities between the KDP and PUK, though unlikely, might well result in the Kurds losing indefinitely their chance to ‘‘reclaim’’ Kirkuk as the heart of Kurdistan. Viewed from this broad perspective, predicting the outcome of a process that can be affected by an almost infinite number of variables at multiple levels of analysis seems futile. However, while acknowledging that there are ‘‘knowable unknowables’’ with respect to Kirkuk, and even ‘‘unknowable unknowables,’’ speculating on the possible parameters of a resolution to Kirkuk’s disputed status is still worthwhile. After all, though there may be multiple potential resolutions, not all of these are equally plausible. Specifically, the Kurds are no longer in a position to achieve all of their goals with respect to Kirkuk through legal and constitutional means. At the same time, to deny Kurdish leaders a settlement that they can sell to the Kurdish population is a recipe for disaster in northern Iraq. The most plausible outcome, therefore, is some sort of compromise between the maximal position of the Kurdish leadership and the rejectionist posture of those who oppose Kurdish ‘‘ownership’’

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of Kirkuk. This is an obvious but important point that merits elaboration.

The Costs of Losing Article 140 Technically, at the time of writing, article 140 is still alive and kicking, though its prognosis looks increasingly grim. After the failure of the Iraqi government to implement the three stages of article 140 by 31 December 2007, the fate of the article is in the hands of the higher judicial court. A largely anonymous political actor in Iraq, the court is a holdover from the days of the TAL and comprises nine members under the stewardship of the presiding judge Midhat al-Mahmud. The court was appointed during the premiership of Allawi and is, therefore, dominated by secularists, technocrats, and probably nationalists, rather than partisan appointees.2 In practical political terms, this means that the court, if and when it hears the case, is unlikely to rule in favor of the Kurds on the continued validity of article 140.3 In the meantime, Prime Minister al-Maliki has suspended the work of the 140 Committee, several members have withdrawn from the committee, and most factions, other than the Kurds, consider the article to be dead and buried.4 The legal status of the six-month extension of the deadline, negotiated at the last minute by UN envoy de Mistura, is questioned by many. The deal could be interpreted, technically, as a constitutional amendment. The mechanism used to extend other constitutionally mandated deadlines was a vote in the Iraqi parliament, but this was not an option for the Kurds because of the strength of opposition to article 140 in the council of representatives.5 Hence, the Kurds were forced to submit to the judgment of the court. However, the court is actually deciding whether the extension is constitutional, which means that by the time the court issues its decision, the extended deadline will have expired in any case. The likelihood that article 140 can be resurrected in anything like its current form is, therefore, remote. The deeper problem for the Kurds is how to replace article 140 with a new process that has legal standing. The involvement of the UN in negotiations may impart some international legitimacy to a deal on a new process, but any deal will still have to be endorsed either by the council of representatives or as part of the ongoing article 142 process. It is all but unthinkable that the council or the constitutional review committee will sign off on a deal that is merely a replication of article 140. Hence, Kurdish leaders are in a very difficult position. The status quo is that no broadly accepted legal or constitutional mechanism is in place for the Kurds to reclaim either Kirkuk or the other disputed territories. Establishing a new process that is generally perceived as legiti-

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mate will, therefore, require a Kurdish compromise, if for no other reason than that their fall-back position (the status quo) is no process at all. The problem with the prevailing status quo is that it does not resolve anything. Article 140 may be ‘‘null and void,’’ in the words of one ITF official, but the problem of defining the status of Kirkuk and the disputed territories did not evaporate as a result. The status quo, moreover, is unsatisfactory to all parties. The two Kurdish parties maintain de facto control over the security forces and many of the directorates; the government in Baghdad, meanwhile, controls the size of Kirkuk’s budget and retains power over the dismissal of certain officials. In other respects, the most powerful presence in Kirkuk city is the US military; but in reality, the governance of Kirkuk is ad hoc and anarchic. There is tension between the governorate council and the government in Baghdad; between the two Kurdish parties striving for influence in the city; between Kurd, Arab, and Turkmen political leaders throughout the governorate; and even between the Kurdish governor and the Kurdish council president.6 In the meantime, Kirkuk faces violence on a daily basis, its infrastructure continues to deteriorate, and the growing army of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Kirkuk lacks access to all but the most basic of services.7 In this context, any resolution to Kirkuk’s status, whether as a ‘‘governorate not incorporated into a region,’’ as a stand-alone region, or as part of the Kurdistan Region, that helps to clarify who is supposed to be responsible and accountable for dealing with these problems would be an improvement over the status quo. The status quo is also not conducive to power sharing. Kurdish efforts to cut power-sharing deals with the Arab and Turkmen blocs on the Kirkuk Council will not foster harmonious ethnic relations among political leaders because the major barrier to cooperation, which dwarfs all others in terms of significance, is a fundamental disagreement over Kirkuk’s future status. Unless and until this issue is resolved, meaningful powersharing arrangements cannot function effectively because Arab and Turkmen leaders will inevitably use whatever power they have to prevent Kirkuk from joining the Kurdistan Region.

The Costs of Alienating the Kurds Perhaps the only thing worse than the status quo is that a resolution could be reached on Kirkuk’s future status without the consent of the Kurds. Given the strength of opposition to the Kurds on the Kirkuk issue, it is not difficult to imagine a scenario in which Iraq’s Arabdominated political institutions are used to formulate a resolution that is then imposed on the Kurds through entirely legal or constitutional

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means. Once the constitutional review committee completes its task, for example, the mechanism for amending the constitution reverts to that outlined in article 126 of the constitution. Under this procedure, amendments can be ratified by a two-thirds vote in the council of representatives and a simple majority in a popular referendum. To block a proposed amendment in the council that, say, prohibits Kirkuk from joining an established region requires ninety-two votes, and the Kurds control only fifty-eight.8 It is, therefore, numerically possible for opponents of the Kurds to resolve the Kirkuk issue without requiring Kurdish agreement; to do so, however, would be gravely destabilizing for Iraq. Kurdish leaders have invested large amounts of effort, money, and reputation toward securing a favorable resolution on the Kirkuk issue. Both could no doubt sell a compromise deal to a restive Kurdish population, but neither could plausibly sell a unilaterally imposed solution that is inimical to Kurdish interests. On a deeper level, a nonnegotiated solution would raise important questions about the wisdom of future Kurdish participation in the state of Iraq. To date, Kurdish leaders have pursued a political strategy—that of securing maximum autonomy but within the borders of Iraq—that has put them at odds with the majority of their own population.9 Constitutional guarantees were viewed as a safeguard against the resurgence of a powerful Arab-dominated government at the center, and article 140 was in many ways the litmus test of this strategy. The fate of article 140 demonstrates that the integrity of the constitution is questionable and that, realistically, the ‘‘guarantees’’ embodied in its provisions are somewhat less than guaranteed. If an adverse resolution to the Kirkuk issue is simply imposed on the Kurds, it is difficult to see how Kurdish leaders could continue to pursue an obviously failed strategy. One plausible outcome, therefore, is that the Kurds would unilaterally delineate the border of the Kurdistan Region, to include certain disputed territories and all or parts of the Kirkuk governorate.10 Clearly, this would not be positive for the future stability of Iraq.11 Less dramatic options for Kurdish leaders would include withdrawing from the al-Maliki government or bringing the entire article 142 process to a halt. Both options carry risks for the Kurds, but either would probably be sufficient to throw the political situation in Iraq into chaos until elections in December 2009. The broader point is that it is in the interests of those who oppose the Kurds on the issue of Kirkuk to find a compromise position that Kurdish leaders can accept and plausibly sell to their population. For the Kurds and for those who oppose the Kurds, therefore, some form of compromise deal on Kirkuk seems both desirable and inevitable. What, then, might the parameters of such a compromise look like?

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Suggestions for Compromise The dearth of scholarly literature on the contemporary struggle for Kirkuk means that serious, systematic analyses of the options available for a resolution are few. Overwhelmingly the recent literature on Kirkuk is composed of either anecdotal accounts of the city’s history or explicitly partisan tracts penned (mainly) by Kurdish or Turkmen scholars to further the claims of their respective groups to ownership of Kirkuk.12 The problem with this body of literature is not necessarily a lack of scholarly rigor; indeed, several recent studies are meticulous in their documentation of evidence. The problem in all cases is that this evidence is marshaled in the service of ‘‘proving’’ an argument whose outcome has been predetermined.13 Unsurprisingly, Turkish/Turkmen scholars prove that Kirkuk is, and always has been, a Turkmen city, while Kurdish writers demonstrate why Kirkuk is, and always has been, a Kurdish city. Consequently, the possibility of a compromise on the future status of Kirkuk is almost never entertained. The few journal articles on Kirkuk follow a similar pattern. The winter 2007 issue of Middle East Quarterly contained truncated versions of both Kurdish and Turkmen arguments for ownership of Kirkuk. The Kurdish case, authored by the prolific Kurdish lawyer Nuri Talabany, concluded with a call to allow the scheduled article 140 referendum to take place; the Turkmen case, penned by the Turkish diplomat Yucel Guclu, argued for international intervention to prevent Kirkuk from being incorporated into the Kurdistan Region.14 To date, therefore, the debate on Kirkuk’s future has been conducted mainly among those with a vested interest in the outcome. Of the few Western scholars to have ventured into the fray, David Romano offers the most systematic analysis of the controversies surrounding the issue and the various possible ‘‘futures’’ for Kirkuk.15 These include allowing the referendum to take its course, giving Kirkuk a special status within the Kurdistan Region, turning over its control to the central government, and delaying a resolution for ten years. In the end, Romano offers a package of compromises that would leave control over the management of Kirkuk’s oil in the hands of the federal government, while creating a special status for Kirkuk within the boundaries of the Kurdistan Region. As part of this special status, Romano advocates ‘‘consociational political arrangements’’ for the governance of Kirkuk. Brendan O’Leary, meanwhile, argues that ‘‘the obvious solution to this disputed area . . . is to create a local power-sharing arrangement within Kirkuk governorate and city underneath the Kurdistan regional government.’’16 He too advocates ‘‘local consociational arrangements in Kirkuk city, irrespective of the final status of the governorate.’’17 Though not an academic source, the ICG has pitched in with its own preferred

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solution. In a July 2006 report on the ‘‘Brewing Battle over Kirkuk,’’ the ICG proposed a special status for Kirkuk for an interim period of ten years under UN auspices, during which governing power would be shared equally among Kirkuk’s ‘‘four principal communities.’’18 This agreement would leave open a final resolution on Kirkuk’s status until after the interim period expires. While all of these proposals have merit, none delves deeply into details.19 For example, none describes the sort of power-sharing arrangement that might be appropriate to the specific requirements of Kirkuk. The concept of consociational democracy is more precise, but even here the range of potential institutional mechanisms that can plausibly be adopted as part of a consociational solution for Kirkuk is extensive. In principle, the use of power-sharing arrangements for Kirkuk is relatively uncontroversial. Jalal Talabani, for example, has referred favorably on numerous occasions to the ‘‘Brussels model’’ as an example for Kirkuk. In practice, however, the devil is in the details. There is an important difference between power sharing on the basis of equality and power sharing based on proportional representation. The former gives each group an equal share of power; the latter distributes power based on each group’s numerical strength in the population. Both are examples of power-sharing arrangements, and both can also be accommodated within the framework of consociational democracy, but the two carry different implications for the governance of Kirkuk.20 Those who advocate power-sharing arrangements as means of alleviating ethnic conflict almost always acknowledge that such arrangements must be crafted on a context-specific basis and that consociationalism is not a ‘‘one size fits all’’ prescription. This suggests a need to examine in greater detail if, and how, power-sharing arrangements might form part of a broader compromise solution to the problem of Kirkuk.

Three Dimensions of Compromise Any compromise deal on Kirkuk must address three issues: first, the territorial issue of whether Kirkuk becomes part of the Kurdistan Region or remains outside Kurdish boundaries; second, the administrative issue of whether or not Kirkuk is awarded a ‘‘special status’’ and whether this status applies only to the city or to the governorate as a whole; and third, the governance issue of whether Kirkuk is to be governed by some sort of power-sharing arrangement and, if so, what sort of arrangement. To simplify somewhat, the first two of these variables are dichotomous; either Kirkuk is included in the Kurdistan Region or it is not, and it is either assigned a special status or it is not. Figure 11.1 below illustrates the four possible combinations of these two variables.

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No Special Status

Special Status

Inside KR

1

2

Outside KR

3

4

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Figure 11.1. Four ‘‘futures’’ for Kirkuk

Outcome 1 locates Kirkuk within the Kurdistan Region with no special status. Under this scenario, Kirkuk governorate would become an administrative unit within Kurdistan of equivalent status to the three other governorates already governed by Erbil. The draft constitution for the Kurdistan Region does not provide for much in the way of administrative autonomy for units within the region. Section 4 of the draft provides a cursory outline for the organization of local administrations and municipal councils, and it includes the right to elect local councils and to an ‘‘independent budget.’’21 Article 143 also adopts the principle of ‘‘administrative decentralization’’ in the management of administrative units. However, the dearth of detail in this section and the absence of the word ‘‘federal’’ in any part of the draft indicate that there is no provision for a federal arrangement within the region. In fact, article 3 prohibits the formation of new regions within the region, and article 142 effectively gives the KRG the power to change administrative boundaries unilaterally and to create new units and destroy old ones at will.22 Nowhere in the draft are administrative units granted an existence independent of the regional government. As it stands, the draft sets up a strongly unitary system that would place Kirkuk under the direct control of Erbil.23 Under this scenario, therefore, the Kurds would ‘‘own’’ Kirkuk both in the sense of having it within the borders of the Kurdistan Region and in the sense of exercising over it direct (and unshared) governing authority. The scenario identified by quadrant 3 constitutes the inverse of this. It locates Kirkuk outside the borders of the Kurdistan Region and assigns it no special status. Effectively, Kirkuk would continue to be governed (or not governed) much as it has been since April 2003. The powers of so-called ‘‘governorates not organized into a region’’ are illdefined in the Iraqi constitution, but in practice, they are almost certain to be less powerful than regions relative to the federal government.24 Outcome 2 locates Kirkuk within the Kurdistan Region but assigns it a

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special status within the region. This would require amending the draft Kurdish constitution to grant broad autonomy to a new Kirkuk region. There are a variety of ways the autonomy of Kirkuk could be organized within the Kurdistan Region, but the most straightforward would be to give it similar independent powers with respect to the KRG as those afforded to regions vis-a`-vis the Iraq federal government. In effect, Kirkuk would become a federacy within the Kurdistan Region. As defined by O’Leary, ‘‘a federacy is a federal arrangement that is not part of a system-wide federation . . . it creates a division of powers between the federacy and the central government that is constitutionally entrenched, that cannot be unilaterally altered by either side, and which has arbitration mechanisms, domestic and international, to deal with difficulties that might arise from between the federacy and the central government.’’25 Ideally, according to O’Leary, the status and powers of a federacy should be ‘‘internationally protected in a treaty.’’26 Quadrant 4, meanwhile, assigns Kirkuk a special status, but outside the borders of the Kurdistan Region. In both cases Kirkuk would be granted extensive autonomy in its relations with the overarching governing authority, whether in Erbil or in Baghdad.

Group Preferences over Kirkuk’s Future Status There are a number of complexities involved in defining the preferences of the various ethnosectarian groups with respect to Kirkuk’s future status. First, to speak of ‘‘group preferences’’ implies a homogeneity of group perspective that is a significant simplification. Second, group preferences have shifted in response to political developments; most notably, the ITF’s position on Kirkuk has changed quite radically since April 2003. Third, there are some possible future statuses that are not captured by Figure 11.1. At various stages the ITF has proposed that Kirkuk become the capital of a new Turkmen federal region, for example, while partitioning Kirkuk, forcibly or otherwise, can also not be categorically eliminated as a possibility. Nonetheless, it is relatively uncontroversial to assert that the four most likely future statuses are those depicted in Figure 11.1.

The Kurds Assigning rank-order preferences to the Kurds as a group is relatively straightforward. Almost universally, Kurdish political leaders favor incorporating Kirkuk into the Kurdistan Region. On the specific issue of Kirkuk, there is almost no space between the positions of the two major Kurdish parties. There is certainly rivalry between the two in terms of

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who exercises power in Kirkuk, and there may be marginal differences in approach with regard to how aggressively to push the issue in Baghdad. However, the two major Kurdish parties have pursued a tightly unified line on the need for Kirkuk to be incorporated into the Kurdistan Region, or, more precisely, on the need for the people of Kirkuk to determine this in a referendum. Certainly, in terms of rhetoric, there is little to choose between the two leaders. Barzani has claimed variously that Kirkuk’s ‘‘Kurdish identity cannot be changed,’’27 that it is the ‘‘heart of Kurdistan,’’ and that ‘‘We are ready to fight and sacrifice our soul to preserve its identity.’’28 Talabani, meanwhile, has maintained that ‘‘Historically and demographically speaking, Kirkuk was never part of Iraq but part of Kurdistan’’ and, more controversially, that ‘‘Kirkuk is a sacred city for Kurds as much as Jerusalem is for Muslims and we have been struggling for it for more than 40 years.’’29 Beyond the obvious rhetorical flourishes and, perhaps, ethnic outbidding of the two leaders, more moderate voices from both parties, such as the PUK’s Barham Saleh and the KDP’s Hoshyar Zebari, have echoed similar sentiments, though with greater diplomatic nuance.30 Among the leadership of the other main Kurdish parties—the Kurdistan Communist Party, the Toiler’s Party, and even the KIU—there would appear to be almost no serious disagreement with the two main parties on the issue of Kirkuk. The KIU, for example, has had several public spats with the two main parties over a variety of issues but has consistently maintained its support for federalism and the 140 Committee solution for Kirkuk. Even after splitting with the main Kurdish list for the December 2005 election, the KIU’s election platform pledged to ‘‘Strive to delineate the borders of the federal Kurdistan Region, including the resolution of the Kirkuk issue on the date specified in the constitution, and return all the other severed areas to the Kurdistan Region.’’31 After winning five seats in the council of representatives, the KIU decided not to merge with the KA’s parliamentary bloc but stated that ‘‘When it comes to decisive questions such as federalism and the Kirkuk and Kurdistan border issues, we will cooperate with the alliance.’’32 Given the overwhelming strength of support among Kurdish politicians from across the political spectrum, it seems relatively uncontroversial to attribute a coherent group preference with respect to the future location of Kirkuk and to conclude that, all else being equal, the Kurds’ preference is for Kirkuk to be inside rather than outside the borders of the Kurdistan Region. With regard to granting a special status for Kirkuk, the picture is slightly more complex. A separate status within the Kurdistan Region would provide Kirkuk with autonomy and might help to insulate it against domination by the two major parties. Though it is almost impossible to quantify, there does appear to be a growing sense

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Most preferred

Inside Kurdistan, no special status (Quadrant 1) Inside Kurdistan, special status (Quadrant 2) Outside Kurdistan, special status (Quadrant 4)

Least preferred

Outside Kurdistan, no special status (Quadrant 3)

Figure 11.2. Kurdish preferences for the future of Kirkuk

of frustration among Kirkuki Kurds at the behavior of two main Kurdish parties in Kirkuk, in particular at their tendency to focus resources on winning an intra-Kurdish power struggle, rather than meeting the needs of the population. Most of the evidence for this is anecdotal, so the breadth and depth of this sentiment are unclear. Opinion-poll evidence is also sparse on this issue. In April 2005 the International Republican Institute’s ‘‘Survey of Iraqi Public Opinion’’ found that nearly 72 percent of Kurds supported placing Kirkuk under the authority of the KRG, roughly 12 percent favored placing Kirkuk under central government control, and less than 5 percent favored granting Kirkuk a ‘‘special status.’’33 Nonetheless, in terms of politically relevant preferences, there can be little doubt that the two major parties would prefer Kirkuk to be under the direct control of the KRG.34 It is obvious from conversations with officials and from the contents of the draft constitution for the Kurdistan Region that the two parties do not favor a political system for the region that affords much in the way of autonomy for any of the constituent subunits. At the same time, if Kirkuk is to be located outside the region, then it is self-evidently preferable for the Kurds to have maximum autonomy from the Arabdominated federal government in Baghdad. With caveats in mind, therefore, the most plausible rank order for Kurds’ preferences is as shown in Figure 11.2.

The Arabs The problems associated with treating a ‘‘group’’ as cohesive are even more acute in the case of the Arabs. Regardless of the myriad cleavages that divide Iraq’s Arab population internally, however, Kirkuk is one issue that unites rather than divides. At the national level, Arab political factions, whether Sunni or Shi’i, have been at best lukewarm to the idea of Kirkuk being incorporated into the Kurdistan Region. The Kurds’

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major Arab partner in the drafting of the constitution was SCIRI, whose last-minute conversion to the idea of large federal regions helped facilitate the mutual trade-off between articles 119 and 140. Though SCIRI officials have largely refrained from negative statements about the Kurdish drive to incorporate Kirkuk, their support for the implementation of article 140 has been less than enthusiastic.35 Indeed, in June 2005 Ammar al-Hakim, the influential son of SCIRI’s leader, made it clear that ‘‘We do not accept the annexation of Kirkuk to this or that governorate because Kirkuk is a miniature Iraq, and it is for all Iraqis.’’36 Elsewhere the Kurds have faced a solid wall of opposition from Arab Iraq. The most dramatic manifestation of opposition to Kurdish ambitions was the formation of a new bloc in the NA known as the ‘‘National Understanding Project (NUP).’’ Comprising ten (mainly) Arab political groupings and 150 members, the NUP has strongly expressed its opposition to a Kurdish incorporation of Kirkuk. Worryingly for the Kurds, the NUP spans the sectarian divide and also transcends the secular/religious cleavage. At the local level, Arab opposition to Kurdish designs on Kirkuk has been almost universal. The Kurds’ presentation of their demands on federalism and Kirkuk to the IGC in late 2003 provoked a strong response among Arab political and tribal groups in Kirkuk. A 31 December 2003 demonstration attracted ‘‘thousands’’ who had come to express, in the words of the Al-Jazeera correspondent on the scene, ‘‘their rejection of annexing Kirkuk to (the) Kurdistan region and Kurds’ demand of federalism of Kirkuk with (the) Kurdistan region.’’37 Subsequently, Kirkuk’s major Arab tribes—al-Jibbur, Shammar, alObeid, al-Bayati, and al-Saadun—staged a march through the streets of Kirkuk in January 2004 to protest Kurdish efforts to incorporate Kirkuk. As one of the organizers explained, ‘‘We are here today to say we are against federalism and that Kirkuk is an Arab town.’’38 Much like Kurdish leaders, local Arab politicians were prone to rhetorical excesses. For example, Atar al-Tawil, an Arab member of the appointed Kirkuk Council, claimed in February 2004, ‘‘Arabs—Sunnis and Shi’is—are seeking elections to stop ethnic federalism. We won’t allow Kirkuk to become Kurdish if it takes a million martyrs.’’39 While it was clear that Arabs were adamantly opposed to Kirkuk becoming Kurdish, their preferred solution was less clear. At a conference of Arab tribes held in Tikrit in September 2004, the preferred solution appeared to be ‘‘the reversion of the status of Kirkuk to its state before the collapse of the Iraqi former regime,’’ which meant, presumably, Arab-dominated and under the direct control of Baghdad.40 In May 2006, however, the Arab bloc on the Kirkuk Council drafted a joint document with Turkmen members calling for a referendum on a special

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Most preferred

Outside Kurdistan, no special status (Quadrant 3) Outside Kurdistan, special status (Quadrant 4) Inside Kurdistan, special status (Quadrant 2)

Least preferred

Inside Kurdistan, no special status (Quadrant 1)

Figure 11.3. Arab preferences for the future of Kirkuk

regional status for Kirkuk.41 At the same time, most statements emanating from Arab political leaders in Kirkuk rejected any concept of federalism outright. At a major conference of Sunni tribesmen in Hindiyah in October 2006, for example, spokesmen condemned the recently passed federalism law and reiterated their complete rejection of federalism and the article 140 process. As Sheikh Abdul Rahman Munshid, of the Obeidi tribe, put it, ‘‘most important of all, Kirkuk must never become part of Kurdistan. It is an Iraqi city, and we will take all routes to prevent the divisions of Iraq.’’42 Likewise, a gathering of up to one thousand Sunni and Shi’i notables in Kirkuk in February 2007 at the conference on ‘‘The Iraqism of Kirkuk and the Unity of Iraq’’ concluded that ‘‘Kirkuk is not linked to any province other than Baghdad,’’ and that continued efforts by the Kurds to annex Kirkuk would ‘‘compel them to resort to arms to defend themselves and to safeguard the Iraqism of Kirkuk.’’43 To extrapolate a group preference from this, it seems reasonable to conclude that the Arab preference would be for Kirkuk to remain outside the Kurdistan Region and under the direct control of Baghdad. Polls of Iraqi public opinion have repeatedly shown that federalism is comprehensively rejected by Sunni Arabs, and by a majority of Shi’i Arabs. The majority of Arab Iraqis, indeed, favor a unitary system with a strong central government. Consequently, the most plausible rank order for Arab preferences is as follows in Figure 11.3.

The Turkmens The Turkmens constitute the least politically coherent of the relevant groups with respect to Kirkuk. The Turkmen population of Iraq, already significantly smaller than claimed by its political leaders, is fragmented along multiple lines of cleavage. The two most relevant politically are sectarian and geopolitical. The first of these is of relatively minor importance on the issue of Kirkuk. When it comes to Kirkuk, the major differ-

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ence between the most important Sunni Turkmen political movement, the ITF, and the main Shi’i Turkmen party, the IUIT, is one more of style than substance. Ultimately, both strongly oppose Kirkuk joining the Kurdistan Region, but whereas the statements of IUIT officials tend to be measured and moderate, the ITF is reliably, vocally, and rabidly anti-Kurdish. Another way to perceive this is that in a political sense, the IUIT is Shi’i first and Turkmen second, whereas the ITF is an organization that defines itself in terms of staunch ethnic nationalism. At times this difference has split Turkmen ranks on the Kirkuk issue, as occurred during the drafting and approval of the permanent constitution. As part of the UIA, IUIT officials had little option but to back the constitution and all its contents (including article 140), whereas the same document (and most of its contents) was comprehensively rejected by the ITF. The difference is mostly one of intensity of preference with respect to Kirkuk. At the core of the ITF’s political vision is the mental image of a ‘‘Turkmeneli.’’ Stretching from Tal Afar in the west to Mandali in the southeast and with Kirkuk at its heart, the broad swath of territory encompassed by the Turkmeneli corresponds (more or less) geographically to the disputed territories claimed by the Kurds. This puts Kurdish and Turkmen nationalists in direct competition for ethnic ‘‘ownership’’ of the same territory. Without Kirkuk, moreover, there is no Turkmeneli. Thus, preventing Kurdish ownership of Kirkuk is the defining political issue for the ITF. The other main source of division within Iraq’s Turkmen community is geopolitical and separates those Turkmens residing in the Kurdistan Region from those outside its boundaries. This Erbil-Kirkuk fracture line emerged as a serious issue during the ITF’s fourth conference in April 2005, when the entire Erbil branch of the ITF broke away from the main body of the movement at the instigation of senior ITF official Abdul Qadir Bazirgan. As part of a long list of complaints aimed at the ITF leadership, including the marginalization of the Erbil branch and the intrusion of foreign powers (Turkey) in ITF decisions, Bazirgan claimed that since April 2003 the ITF ‘‘has slowly shifted towards racism towards the Kurds, especially when the leadership council moved to Kirkuk.’’44 Other prominent defectors from the ITF include Usher Topal Ughlu, who broke ranks in June 2006 to form the Independent Turkmen Group, and Kalkhi Najmaddin Noureddin, who split in January 2004 to create the Turkmen Democratic Movement. These new movements joined a growing army of (generally) pro-Kurdish and anti-ITF parties and movements, such as the Turkmen Reform Movement, the umbrella Iraqi Turkmen National Assembly, the Iraqi Turkmen Brotherhood Party, the Turkmen People’s Party, and the National Turkmen Grouping. These organizations were (and are) strongly supportive of

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Kurdish positions and have steadfastly advocated KRG control over Kirkuk in preference to control from Baghdad. The views of prominent ITF defector Bazargan are typical in this respect. He described as ‘‘fact’’ that Kirkuk was located ‘‘inside the geography of Kurdistan’’ and, further, that Kirkuk ‘‘is a Kurdistani city and it has to be Kurdistani.’’45 Similarly, the head of the Iraqi Turkmen Union Party, Dr. Sayfaddin Damirchi, stated simply, ‘‘It is in the interests of all ethnic groups in Kirkuk to have Kirkuk integrated into the Kurdistan region.’’46 Meanwhile, reliably proKurdish political figures such as Turkmen Brotherhood Party head Walid Shakira and the Turkmen People’s Party’s Irfan Kirkuki could generally be relied on to offer an alternative Turkmen perspective to the hostile narrative presented by the ITF.47 Dismissed by the ITF, with justification in some cases, as ‘‘cardboard parties that were established by the two Kurdish parties and that speak and make statements upon the orders of the two parties,’’ these new movements were nonetheless symptomatic of two uncomfortable realities for the ITF.48 First, a sizable portion of the Turkmen community, especially that part residing within the boundaries of the Kurdistan Region, had no interest in Turkmen nationalism, expressed as ‘‘antiKurdism.’’ Moreover, it is entirely plausible, though almost impossible to establish empirically, that the statements of these parties’ leaders reflected a genuine preference among a portion of the Turkmen population residing in Kirkuk for being under Kurdish control. Second, the elections of 2005 made it clear that the ITF had all but ceased to be a viable political force outside the boundaries of Kirkuk. Despite this, the ITF retained significance within Kirkuk; it remained the most widely supported Turkmen political movement in the governorate, and as a proxy force for Turkish interests, the ITF’s preferences on Kirkuk have broader geopolitical significance. Though clearly not reflective of coherent ‘‘group’’ preference on Kirkuk, the ITF’s position is the most relevant for current purposes because any future compromise on Kirkuk’s status will enjoy greater stability if it is not adamantly opposed by the ITF and, more importantly, Turkey.49 Even accepting that the ITF’s preferences are the most relevant, it is still not entirely clear that this results in a coherent set of preferences.50 One problem is simply that the ITF has shifted ground repeatedly on the issue over time, usually in response to shifts in the official Turkish position. Another is that as an amalgam of Turkmen parties, the ITF is a political organization that is not necessarily capable of adopting a unified, coherent stance on issues. Regarding the first point, the ITF’s prewar position was relatively clear. In keeping with the standard Turkish line, the ITF was strongly opposed to the idea of any form of federalism for Iraq.51 This position reflected the accurate perception that the introduction of fed-

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eralism into Iraq would almost certainly entail the preservation of a large, powerful Kurdistan Region as one of the constituent federal units. After the war, Ankara’s failure to play an active role in proceedings and, thus, its inability to influence the subsequent course of events forced the ITF to reassess its position. The enhanced political power of the Kurds in the immediate aftermath of the war made some form of federal system for Iraq all but inevitable. The revised ITF position accepted federalism but only on the basis of the existing eighteengovernorate structure. According to senior ITF official Mustafa Kemal Yaycili, the ITF’s preferred system involved eighteen provincial governments headed by powerful governors loosely governed by the center.52 With respect to Kirkuk, the ITF (and Turkey) developed various rhetorical formulas for describing the city’s non-Kurdish identity. Prominent Turkmen officials referred to Kirkuk at times as an ‘‘Iraqi city’’ at times as an ‘‘Iraqi city with Turkmeni characteristics,’’ and at others as ‘‘an important Turkmen city.’’53 Regardless of the formulation selected, two key elements of the Turkmen position were consistent, at least initially. First, Kirkuk was assuredly not Kurdish, or as one Turkmen official put it, ‘‘no matter what they do, Kirkuk will never become a Kurdish city.’’54 Second, some form of federalism was reluctantly acceptable as long as it did not involve recognition of an ethnically defined Kurdistan Region. At the same time, there were mixed messages emanating from the Turkmen political community. On the one hand, ITF officials condemned Kurdish plans for an ethnic federal region. On the other hand, the one Turkmen member of the IGC, Songhul Chapouk, was by December 2003 proposing the establishment of a ‘‘federal union of the Turkmen regions which straddle the areas from Talla’far to Mandali, with Kirkuk as its centre.’’55 Barely a week earlier the ITF leadership had issued a statement condemning Kurdish calls for an ethnic federal region as ‘‘against Iraq’s political unity and territorial integrity,’’ while simultaneously one of the ITF’s core political parties, the Turkmeneli Party, had written a memorandum to Bremer calling for the establishment of federalism based on four (essentially) ethnic regions—Kurdish, Turkmen, Sunni, and Shi’i.56 Naturally, Kirkuk was to be the capital of the new Turkmeneli administrative region. The problem with such mixed messages was not that they involved an inherent contradiction; it was, after all, reasonable to oppose Kurdish demands for an ethnic region while still reserving the right for Turkmens to do the same in the event that the Kurds were successful. The real problem was strategic. By opposing all forms of ethnic federalism, the Turkmens aligned themselves with powerful Arab forces against the Kurds; by promoting plans for a Turkmeneli proposal, they (however

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unwillingly) potentially aligned themselves with the Kurds and against a large portion of the Arab community. The Turkmeneli proposal also appeared to run directly counter to the prevailing position of the Turkish government.57 The confusion surrounding the Turkmen position on federalism was symptomatic of the ITF’s inability to mobilize a coherent response to the Kurds’ unified push for an ethnic region. In an effort to eliminate any confusion regarding its position on ethnic federalism, the ITF was forced to publish a clarification in its media mouthpiece, Turkmenali, that directly rejected Chapouk’s proposal and stated, ‘‘The Iraqi Turkmen Front, which represents our Turkmen people, rejects any scheme that harms the unity of the Iraqi soil and is devoted to its sovereignty. It will never agree to the dividing of the homeland under any guises or pretexts.’’58 However, devoid of political influence at the national level, the ITF was powerless to prevent the recognition of an autonomous Kurdistan Region in the TAL. Following the dismal performance of Turkmen parties in the January 2005 elections, the ITF was forced, once again, to change its position on federalism. Kirkuk council member Tahsin Kiyha put it well: ‘‘The Turkmen now accept a federal solution but they want Kirkuk to be a [separate] federal entity, administered by Kurds, Turkmen and Arabs.’’59 With the Kurdistan Region a de facto reality that became de jure with the approval of the permanent constitution, the ITF had no option but to accept its existence, and attention shifted to ensuring that Kirkuk would not be absorbed by the Kurds. The blocking dimension of the ITF’s strategy was aimed purely at preventing the incorporation of Kirkuk into the Kurdistan Region. To this end, the ITF sought to mobilize regional and international opinion against proceeding with the implementation of article 140.60 Locally the ITF joined with Arab factions to publicize outrage at the Kurdish takeover of the city via periodic demonstrations there. The positive dimension of the strategy—crafting a concrete proposal for what should happen to Kirkuk rather than what should not—was of secondary concern. From early 2005 on, Turkish officials, and consequently those of the ITF, increasingly spoke of the need to maintain Kirkuk’s ‘‘special status.’’ Exactly what this entailed was not clear. At times the formulation appeared to refer explicitly to the special status granted to Baghdad and Kirkuk under article 53 of the TAL. According to this, Kirkuk was ‘‘special’’ in the sense of being prohibited from joining with other governorates to form larger regions. It was not until after the approval of the permanent constitution that the meaning of the term ‘‘special status’’ began to evolve. The obvious option for those seeking to prevent the Kurds from absorbing Kirkuk on the basis of article 140 was to push for the establishment of Kirkuk as its own stand-alone region according to the provisions

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of article 119. This line of thinking lay behind the May 2006 proposal of fourteen Arab and Turkmen members of the Kirkuk Council for a referendum on creating a separate regional status for Kirkuk, and it was behind Turkey’s proposal to broker a prereferendum deal on the wording of the question asked.61 The logic of this approach became even more compelling after the passage of the Law on the Formation of Regions in October 2007. This law allowed governorates to be incorporated into extant regions but prohibited two or more already established regions from merging. A regional status for Kirkuk would, therefore, prevent it from ever being attached to the Kurdistan Region. However, Turkmen and Turkish officials were never entirely consistent in their usage of the term ‘‘special status.’’ For some, the term meant ‘‘a special kind of independent entity where all nationalities and minorities can take part.’’62 For others, for example ITF chairman Dr. Sa’d-al-Din Arkaj, the term referred to Kirkuk’s TAL status. In Arkaj’s view, ‘‘The best solution is to give Kirkuk a special status, whether a federal system is established or not. It should be treated according to paragraph C of article 53 of the interim State Administration Law.’’63 Still others advocated keeping Kirkuk under the direct control of Baghdad. At the ‘‘Kirkuk 2007’’ conference in Ankara, for example, ITF leader Sadettin Ergec argued for the article 140 referendum to be cancelled and suggested that ‘‘the province be placed under the control of the federal government.’’64 For its part, Ankara vigorously promoted the idea of a special status and, at times, seemed willing to embrace the ICG’s proposal for a ten-year period of UN control prior to a determination on Kirkuk’s permanent status.65 In sum, the Turkmen community was, by some distance, the least politically coherent of all groups with respect to their preferences over Kirkuk’s future status. Though differences between Sunni and Shi’i Turkmen political leaders on the issue were muted, there was a yawning gulf separating the preferences of the ITF (and Turkey) from those of pro-Kurdish factions. However, to the extent that the preferences of Turkmen parties such as the Turkmen People’s Party and the Turkmen Brotherhood Party were largely indistinguishable from those of the Kurds, they are subsumed under the heading ‘‘Kurdish preferences’’ in this assessment of possible compromises on Kirkuk. With respect to the ITF, the clearest, most consistently coherent preference expressed by leaders was for Kirkuk to be kept out of Kurdish hands. It seems reasonable, therefore, to conclude that the ITF would most prefer a future status for Kirkuk that minimized Kurdish influence to the greatest possible degree. Beyond this, it is unclear from the statements of leaders what precise meaning they attached to the term ‘‘special status’’ and whether or not this was preferred to leaving Kirkuk under the direct control of

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Most preferred

Outside Kurdistan, no special status/Outside Kurdistan, special status (Quadrants 3 and 4) Inside Kurdistan, special status (Quadrant 2)

Least preferred

Inside Kurdistan, no special status (Quadrant 1)

Figure 11.4. ITF/Turkmen preferences for the future of Kirkuk

No Special Status (Kurds, other groups)

Special Status (Kurds, other groups)

Inside KR (Kurds, other groups)

1

2

Outside KR (Kurds, other groups)

3

(1, 4)

(2, 3)

4 (4, 1)

(3, 2)

Figure 11.5. Group preferences for futures of Kirkuk

Baghdad. Consequently, the preferences of the ITF/Turkey are largely indistinguishable from those of the Arab community. A plausible rank order for ITF/Turkish preferences is seen in Figure 11.4. With some minor caveats, therefore, the rank order of Turkmen preferences is essentially the same as that of the Arab community. This means that the strategic context within which the Kirkuk issue must be resolved assumes the form of a two-player (Kurds and other groups), zero-sum game.66 Taken together, the rank order preferences (where 1 ⳱ most preferred and 4 ⳱ least) for the three (two) groups over the four possible status outcomes are seen in Figure 11.5. The benefit of depicting the preference ordering of the various relevant groups in the form of a figure is that it immediately clarifies in graphic form what are and what are not potentially viable compromise points over Kirkuk’s future status. If, as argued above, the only way to obtain a durable resolution to the Kirkuk issue is for both sides to compromise, then, by definition, neither can obtain its most preferred status for Kirkuk. However, because the preference ordering of one side is the mirror image of the other, then equally neither side is forced to accept

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its least preferred outcome. This basically eliminates quadrants 1 and 3 as possible outcomes. To put this another way, if the status of Kirkuk is to be resolved by a process of negotiation and compromise, then the only plausible outcomes involve a special status for Kirkuk, either inside or outside the Kurdistan Region.67 The key, and in some ways the most important, variable left to address is the issue of governance.

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Chapter 12 The Struggle for Kirkuk Future Governance

The key issue to be addressed in assessing the future governance of Kirkuk is whether power is to be shared among the governorate’s various ethnic communities and if so, to what extent and how? Power sharing does not distill neatly into a dichotomy, and there is a spectrum of possibilities, raging from total majority control at one end to power sharing on the basis of strict equality for all groups at the other. Nonetheless, as a first cut, it is useful to package the concept of power sharing into a dichotomy based on the distinction between majority control and meaningful power sharing. Similar to Figures 11.1 and 11.5 in Chapter 11, Figure 12.1, representing four possible futures for Kirkuk, can then be constructed. In the previous chapter it was established that a compromise solution will likely involve a special status for Kirkuk, whether inside or outside the Kurdistan Region. Figure 12.1 illustrates the four remaining possibilities for Kirkuk’s final status. In quadrant 1, Kirkuk enjoys special autonomous status inside the Kurdistan Region, and a deal is cut whereby formal power-sharing arrangements are adopted for its governance. Quadrant 2 sees Kirkuk inside the Kurdistan Region with autonomous

Power Sharing

Majority Control

Inside KR (special status)

1

2

Outside KR (special status)

3

4

Figure 12.1. Future governance preferences for Kirkuk

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Inside KR (special status) (Kurds, other groups)

205

Power Sharing (Kurds, other groups)

Majority Control (Kurds, other groups)

1

2

Outside KR (special status) 3 (Kurds, other groups)

2, 3

1, 4

4 4, 1

3, 2

Figure 12.2. Group preferences for the governance of Kirkuk

status but without any formal mechanism for power sharing. Thus, assuming that they constitute an electoral majority, the Kurds control the governance of the governorate. Quadrant 3 invests Kirkuk with special autonomous status and envisages formal power-sharing arrangements but locates it outside the territory of the Kurdistan Region. Quadrant 4 sees an autonomous Kirkuk outside the Kurdistan Region and under majority (presumably Kurdish) control. Assigning groups preferences to each of the outcomes depicted in Figure 12.1 is reasonably straightforward. The distribution of preferences depicted in the figure is rooted in three uncontroversial assumptions: first, that each group prefers to maximize its share of governing power relative to other groups; second, that the Kurds comprise an electoral majority; and third, that all groups care more intensely about the location of Kirkuk than the manner of its governance. Based on these assumptions, Figure 12.2 shows group preferences for each of the four possible futures. For the Kurds, the most preferred outcome is quadrant 2, in which Kirkuk is located within the boundary of the Kurdistan Region and subject to majority (presumably Kurdish) control. The only compromise involved in this outcome on the part of the Kurds is the assignment of special status to Kirkuk within the region. This would require amending the draft constitution of the Kurdistan Region to designate autonomous powers of governance to Kirkuk. Beyond this, the Kurds may choose to share power to a greater or lesser degree, but they are not institutionally obligated to do so. There are two major problems with this outcome. First, although it would clearly be possible to invest the Kirkuk government with wide-ranging powers over issues such as culture, education, and even security, and it would not be difficult to embed these in the Kurdish constitution in a way that prevents their easy revocation by Erbil, it is less clear that these powers would be meaningful in practice.

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It seems almost inevitable that the two major Kurdish parties that dominate the KRG would also dominate the governance of Kirkuk. If the two main parties control both governments, then any legal autonomy guaranteed (however robustly) in the constitution is no longer meaningful. To put this another way, meaningful autonomy would empower the Kirkuk government in certain areas to make decisions independent of and if necessary, contrary to the wishes of the KRG in Erbil. Though it is not beyond the realm of possibility, it is not particularly plausible that the Kirkuk branches of the two main parties could act in defiance of Erbil. The only other possibility is for an indigenous political movement of Kirkuki Kurds to emerge to challenge KDP and PUK dominance. Again, this seems highly unlikely. By far the most plausible outcome, therefore, is that the de jure autonomy accorded the Kirkuk government would degenerate rapidly into de facto subservience to the will of Erbil. The second major problem with the quadrant 2 scenario is that it represents the outcome most preferred by the Kurds but least preferred by other groups. As such, it does not constitute a compromise. Normatively this is problematic to the extent that the future of Kirkuk should be resolved as the product of compromise; pragmatically it is problematic because only compromise can put in place the political process that could produce this outcome. Currently the Kurds have no political process in place to achieve it. Much the same logic applies to the outcome depicted in quadrant 3. A Kirkuk with special status, outside the boundary of the Kurdistan Region and with formal power-sharing mechanisms in place, is the outcome least preferred by the Kurds and most preferred by other groups. However, a quadrant 3 outcome is as undesirable and implausible as a quadrant 2 outcome is, and for much the same reasons. Theoretically, Kirkuk could achieve a special status outside the Kurdistan Region under the terms of an existing process. Article 119 of the Iraqi constitution allows governorates to form regions that have powers in excess of governorates. The moratorium on this process established by the October 2007 ‘‘Law on the Formation of Regions’’ expired in April 2008, paving the way for governorates to form regions based on procedures outlined in article 119 and the ‘‘Law.’’ Hence, in theory, Kirkuk could obtain a special status outside the Kurdistan Region without the need for a compromise over process. However, to be successful, this mechanism would require a certain percentage of Kirkuki Kurds to vote in defiance of the two major Kurdish parties and in favor of permanent exclusion from the Kurdistan Region. Precisely how many Kirkuki Kurds are sufficiently alienated from the two parties to vote this way is unknowable, so while this outcome may be considered unlikely, it is certainly not impossible. However, there is no mechanism in place, either constitutionally or

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statutorily, to impose power-sharing arrangements on the governance of Kirkuk. Notably, the Iraqi constitution does not empower the central government to impose governing institutions and mechanisms on regions, beyond those already specified in the text. This means that any formal power-sharing arrangement would have to be brokered separately, as the product of compromise among ethnic groups. To protect the integrity of the agreement would probably necessitate its inclusion in the constitution through the amendment procedure, over which the Kurds currently have veto power. In short, formalized power-sharing arrangements could not be implemented in Kirkuk (except by force) without the consent of the Kurds, and under the quadrant 3 scenario the Kurds would have absolutely no incentive to share power. The crux of the problem with this outcome is the inverse of the problem with quadrant 2. In the latter the Kurds are ‘‘winners’’ on both dimensions, and in the former they are ‘‘losers’’ on both. In other words, neither involves a compromise. A second, more pragmatic problem with the ‘‘solution’’ offered by quadrant 3 is that the Kurds can already obtain a better solution without the need for compromise and without the need for a new political process. The existing article 119 process allows the Kurds to obtain the outcome depicted in quadrant 4—that is, a special status for Kirkuk outside the Kurdistan Region but under majority (Kurdish) control. The Kurds are reluctant to exercise this option because once formed, regions cannot join with other regions. Hence, a separate regional status for Kirkuk would condemn it to remaining permanently outside the boundary of the region. However, if the only alternative offered is the quadrant 3 scenario, it is difficult to see why the Kurdish leadership would not activate the article 119 process to obtain a more preferred outcome through an entirely constitutional and therefore legitimate means. The problems associated with the outcomes depicted in quadrants 2 and 3 are similar. Either could potentially be imposed as a solution, though this is unlikely to produce a stable, durable solution. The reality, no doubt uncomfortable to some, is that the two normatively and pragmatically defensible solutions to the Kirkuk problem are located in quadrants 1 and 4. These two options—inside the Kurdistan Region with formalized power sharing or outside under Kurdish control—both involve each side ‘‘winning’’ on one dimension and ‘‘losing’’ on the other. The struggle to define the ‘‘identity’’ of Kirkuk can be distilled down to these two dimensions: location and political control. In quadrant 1, Kirkuk is Kurdish to the extent that it falls within the boundary of the Kurdistan Region, but it is not Kurdish in the sense that political control is shared among all groups. In quadrant 4, the Kurds ‘‘own’’ Kir-

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kuk in the sense of controlling it politically, but it is not ‘‘Kurdish’’ because it remains outside the Kurdistan Region. To determine which of these two is the ‘‘better’’ outcome inevitably begs the further question, better for whom? Assuming that each side prioritizes location over political power, then outcome 1 is preferable for the Kurds and outcome 4 is preferable for other groups. To advocate a solution on the basis of who deserves to have their preferred outcome implemented inevitably requires value judgments about the strength of the Kurds’ claim to Kirkuk relative to the claims of other groups. However, in the context of Kirkuk, there is little prospect of agreement among ethnic groups on the appropriate criteria on which to base value judgments. Even if a consensus could be established that, say, demographics should play an important role in any determination of Kirkuk’s future, there is no consensus on which numbers are relevant or legitimate. For the ITF, the population of the city extrapolated forward from the 1957 census data is the relevant benchmark against which to determine Kirkuk’s ownership and future status. For the Kurds, what would have been the population of the governorate, in the absence of Arabization, extrapolated forward from the 1957 census is the appropriate data to use. Arguably, from the perspective of democratic principles, the will of the majority should prevail over the protestations of the minority; yet despite all evidence to the contrary, the ITF refuses to accept that Turkmens are not in the majority. The evidence to the contrary, the ITF maintains, is the product of vote suppression, ethnic cleansing, and the Kurds swamping the governorate with illegal, non-Kirkuki Kurds. If Kirkuk’s ethnic communities cannot agree on the relatively objective issue of numbers, it is implausible to expect any consensus on more emotive issues, such as which community suffered more under the Ba’th regime. A more productive approach may be to examine which of the two options is most likely to yield a stable and durable solution to the problem of Kirkuk, and to do this, it is necessary to delve more deeply into the issue of power sharing.

Conceptualizing Power Sharing For simplicity’s sake, Figure 12.1 conceptualizes power sharing as a dichotomy. Power is either shared or it is not. A more nuanced approach would recognize that any democratic system, whether majoritarian or consociational, involves sharing power and that within these categories there is variation in the degree to which power sharing is formalized and the extent to which power is shared—either proportionally or equally— among groups. From this perspective, it is useful to conceptualize power sharing as a continuum. At one end is total majority control, and at the

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Figure 12.3. Gradations of power sharing

other, power sharing on the basis of absolute equality. Figure 12.3 depicts one such continuum and is followed by brief descriptions of each of the models identified.

The Control Model The control model might best be described as systematic, institutionalized domination of the minority by the majority. Proposed and refined in the late 1970s by Ian Lustick in order to explain the puzzling quiescence of Israel’s sizable minority (15 percent) Arab population, the model was couched as a direct competitor to the consociational model as an explanation for political stability in deeply divided societies. The overarching difference between the two approaches, according to Lustick, is that ‘‘whereas consociationalism focuses on the mutual cooperation of subnational elites as decisive . . . a control approach would focus on the emergence and maintenance of a relationship in which the superior power of one segment is mobilized to enforce stability by constraining the political actions and opportunities of another segment or segments.’’1 In his book-length treatment of Israel’s control of its minority Arab population, Lustick identifies three strategies of control—segmentation, dependence, and co-optation—used by the superordinate segment to maintain systemic domination over the subordinate segment. Segmentation, in Lustick’s words, ‘‘refers to the isolation of the Arab minority from the Jewish population and the Arab minority’s internal fragmentation.’’2 For example, Israeli officials pursued conscious policies designed to fracture the coherence of the Arab population by privileging the Druze, Christian, and Bedouin communities at the expense of the broader Arab community. Such policies included recognition of the Druze as an independent religious community, requiring the Druze to record their identity as ‘‘Druze’’ rather than ‘‘Arab’’ on documentation and channeling state financial assistance disproportionately to Druze villages. Dependence, according to Lustick, ‘‘refers to the enforced reliance of Arabs on the Jewish majority for important economic and

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political resources.’’3 The Israeli regime’s sustained campaign to eliminate an autonomous economic power base for the Arab population has left the Arab community almost entirely dependent on the Jewish sector for education, employment, and state benefits and thus vulnerable to economic pressure and material coercion. Co-optation is characterized by Lustick as ‘‘the use of side payments to Arab elites or potential elites for the purposes of surveillance and resource extraction.’’4 Basically, Arab leaders or potential leaders have been bought off through the strategic use of material incentives in order to preclude the emergence of coherent leadership structure through which the demands of the broader community could be articulated forcefully. Through the judicious use of these three techniques of control, most of which were introduced during the period of military rule, the Israeli regime has been able to secure the quiescence of the Arab community at relatively low cost and without frequent recourse to actual physical coercion. In short, the control has been an effective strategy for the peaceful management of deep ethnic divisions in Israel. Perhaps for obvious reasons, Lustick stops short of advocating control as a normative model for governing deeply divided societies; his model is explanatory rather than prescriptive. Nonetheless, he does suggest a potential role for the control model under certain conditions: ‘‘In deeply divided societies where consociational techniques have not been, or cannot be successfully employed, control may represent a model for the organization of intergroup relations that is substantially preferable to other conceivable solutions: civil war, extermination, or deportation.’’5 Though the ethos of the control model rubs uncomfortably up against democratic norms, the experience of Israel demonstrates that the model is not inevitably incompatible with a democratic political system. Moreover, although noncoercive domination is the purpose of control, the model is not devoid of power-sharing attributes. The co-optation of subordinate elites by the superordinate segment is undeniably a minimalist version of power sharing, and the goal may be entirely cynical; however, power is shared nonetheless. In this sense, the control model represents the outer limits of what might be considered ‘‘acceptable’’ techniques for the management of ethnic relations within a democratic polity. The goal is domination by one ethnic group over another, but this is conducted within a plausibly democratic framework that involves some sharing of power, however minimal.

Majority Control Less controversial is the majority-control model typified by the Westminster system. Normally associated with a single-member district, plurality

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electoral system, two broad catch-all political parties, and a competitive, zero-sum mentality, majoritarian systems are winner-take-all. In parliamentary systems, the party that wins the majority of seats in the legislature forms the government and monopolizes all positions of power. The losing (minority) party gets nothing except the opportunity to criticize the government from the opposition benches. The institutions and dynamics that characterize majoritarian systems have been examined by others at length and are well known; therefore, they will not be repeated here.6 In the present context, majority control stands analytically between the control model and power-sharing models on the continuum depicted in Figure 12.3. Majoritarian systems are clearly distinguishable from control systems in that the goal is to win democratic elections rather than to subjugate permanently a minority through the use of control techniques. In addition, they are distinct from power-sharing systems because they normally do not require the winners to share power with the losers. This does not mean, however, that majoritarianism is the antithesis of power sharing, though it is often caricatured as such. The broad, catch-all parties that typically emerge in majoritarian systems are semipermanent coalitions of diverse interests not dissimilar to the coalition governments typical of power-sharing systems. Likewise, alternations of power are the hallmark of majoritarian politics, and in this sense, power is shared among parties over time. Moreover, although a single party usually wins sufficient seats in the legislature to govern alone and is, therefore, not required to share power, there is nothing that logically precludes the use of power-sharing institutions within majoritarian systems. The numerous majoritarian federations (Canada and Australia, for example) in which power is shared across levels of government, the drawing of black majority congressional districts in the US, and the guaranteed representation of Maoris in the New Zealand parliament are all examples of power-sharing mechanisms that can be comfortably accommodated within a majoritarian framework. Though majoritarian systems are not institutionally incompatible with power sharing, power sharing is not an institutional requirement. This can create serious problems when societies are deeply divided along ethnic lines. The viability and legitimacy of majoritarianism, and democracy in general, rest on the implicit promise that today’s losers stand some chance of being tomorrow’s winners. Where deep ethnic divisions exist, where political parties are organized along ethnic lines, and where the ‘‘floating voters’’ needed to turn today’s losers into tomorrow’s winners are absent, the danger is that ethnic minority groups risk being permanently excluded from power. The danger of what Horowitz refers to as ‘‘majority dictatorship’’ is, therefore, especially acute in ethnically

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divided societies, and for this reason, majoritarian democracy is not usually entertained as an option for divided societies by constitutional engineers.7

Proportional Representation Power Sharing The essence of PR power sharing is largely self-explanatory. Societal groups are represented in positions of power in proportion to their numerical presence in the population. The most obvious institutional vehicle for achieving this in the legislative branch is the use of a PR electoral system in which a party’s vote share is translated (more or less) directly into an equivalent share of seats in parliament. Unlike majoritarian/plurality electoral systems that distort this translation and tend to underrepresent minority parties with geographically dispersed support, PR faithfully translates votes into representation in parliament. In ethnically divided societies, with parties organized along ethnic lines and voters who vote their ethnicity, the legislative product of a pure PR electoral system resembles a census. Further, because PR fosters multiparty politics, no single party is likely to garner the seats necessary to form a oneparty government, so power sharing in the executive branch in the form of coalition governments is the norm. In an ideal type PR power-sharing system, the governing coalition should include representation for all parties in proportion to their strength in the legislative branch. Equally important, positions of power in the other important institutions of state—for example, the army, the police, the judiciary—should also be allocated on a proportional basis, possibly through the use of a quota system. Overall, the goal is to provide each ethnic group/party with access to the political power equivalent to its numerical strength in the population. This has obvious appeal as an approach in ethnically divided societies. Politics is not a competitive struggle in which the winner takes all, but rather an arrangement from which everyone takes something and from which no one is threatened with permanent exclusion from power. However, even an extreme form of PR power sharing does not inevitably guarantee minorities a proportionate influence over decision making. Most political decisions, whether in parliament or the cabinet, are made by simple majority vote. In a society of two ethnic groups with one representing 60 percent of the population and the other, 40 percent, any issue on which the two groups disagree will ultimately be decided by the majority group. Thus, controlling 40 percent of the seats in parliament or 40 percent of cabinet posts does not equate to a 40 percent share in decision-making power.

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Equal Power Sharing This approach can be distinguished from the PR approach in that power is shared equally rather than proportionally among groups. Thus, a group that represents 10 percent of the population gains power equal to that of a group representing 50 percent. This is an extreme form of power sharing that, taken literally, essentially eliminates competitive elections between groups. Each of society’s groups (however defined) is assigned an equal number of seats in parliament, exercises equal power in the executive branch, and enjoys equal representation in the institutions of state. The only potential for competitive elections under this scenario is within groups to determine group representatives. The defining institutional feature of equal power sharing is the veto. If, in the example society mentioned above, a two-thirds majority is required for all decisions instead of a simple majority, then the majority group controlling 60 percent of the seats in parliament can pass nothing without the votes of at least a portion of the minority group. If the minority group votes as a coherent bloc to exercise its veto power, then it is technically no less powerful than the majority group because nothing can pass without the consent of both groups. Alternatively, all groups in society can be granted mutual vetoes so that unanimous consent among groups is required to make any decision. The assumption underlying this arrangement is that it is preferable for decisions not to be made than for them to be made and imposed on an unwilling group. In practice, there is no system in the world in which absolute equality among groups is the organizing principle for all institutions of state, though the political system in Bosnia comes as close as any. There are, however, numerous polities, ranging from Belgium to Iraq, in which equal power-sharing principles are applied to particular governing institutions or are used to make certain critical decisions. Indeed, Arend Lijphart’s identification of ‘‘minority veto’’ as a defining element of the consociational concept illustrates the importance of equal power-sharing institutions among mechanisms to protect minorities in divided societies.8

Implications for Power Sharing in Kirkuk Kirkuk has experienced three governments since the fall of the former regime in April 2003, each of which occupies a slightly different location on the continuum depicted in Figure 12.3. Between June 2003 and December 2003 Kirkuk was governed by a municipal council of thirty members indirectly appointed by the US military; after January 2004 an expanded and ‘‘refreshed’’ governorate council of forty members con-

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stituted the government; subsequent to the January 2005 elections, Kirkuk’s first elected, forty-one-member governorate council assumed office during the summer of 2005. The ethnic breakdown of each of these governments is shown in Table 12.1. The data presented in this table are organized according to ethnicity rather than political affiliation. Thus, in column 1, Kurds are listed with eleven members of the municipal council, even though five of these were appointed to the council as independents and were not affiliated with any Kurdish political party.9 Likewise, the KBL’s twenty-six members of the elected governorate council are listed in column 3 according to their ethnicity. Column 4, meanwhile, provides each ethnic group’s approximate share of the total vote from the December 2005 election. This represents a rough and ready estimate of each group’s share of the population by the end of 2005. Column 5 shows the governorate’s ethnic breakdown recorded in the 1957 census. These data afford a comparison between the approximate ethnic compositions of the governorate at two points in time and the ethnic breakdown of each of Kirkuk’s three postwar governments. The two measures of ‘‘accuracy’’ provide a simple way to quantify the ‘‘closeness of fit’’ between the actual ethnic breakdown in the population and the ethnic breakdown on each of the three governments. There are several points to note about these data. When judged in purely ethnic terms, Kirkuk’s municipal government was the least proportional in terms of ethnic representation. This is not surprising as the composition of the council was determined by the US military using equality among groups and the basic principle. Even the inclusion of five Kurdish independents left the Kurds short of the representation their numerical presence would appear to have merited. Both Arabs and Turkmens were also underrepresented, though only marginally in the case of the latter. The major ‘‘winners,’’ and the prime source of distortion in the pattern of representation, were the Christians, who occupied a higher percentage of seats on the council (23 percent) than both Arabs and Turkmens, despite constituting only about 2 percent of the population. The refreshment of the council in late 2003 to early 2004, which resulted in an expansion in members from thirty to forty, also resulted in a slightly more accurately representative government. Arabs were the major winners (which was always the intention). Their 30 percent share of the seats in the refreshed council corresponded closely with their population share based on the 1957 census (28 percent) and the December 2005 election results (27 percent). Turkmen representation remained unchanged proportionally in the new government, meaning that both the Kurds and the Christians lost proportional representation as a consequence of the expansion.

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11 (37%) (6 Ⳮ 5 independents) 6 (20%) 6 (20%) 7 (23%) (6 Ⳮ 1 independent) 30 53% 41% 40 48% 37%

12 (30%) 8 (20%) 7 (18%)

13 (33%)

Executive Officers Governor Kurd Dep. Governor Arab Assistants Kurd Christian Turkmen Council President Turkmen

2 Governorate Council Seats (seat %)

41 25% 13%

9 (22%)i 11 (27%)ii 1 (2%)iii

20 (49%)

Governor Kurd Dep. Governor Vacant Associate Govs. Christian Arab Council President Kurd

3 Elected Governorate Council Seats (seat %)

48% 28% 21% 2%

27% 13% 0.2%

5 % of Population (1957 census)

53%

4 % of Population (Dec. 2005 elections)

Sources: Compiled by the authors from various sources. i Includes 3 Arabs elected on KBL. ii Includes 2 Turkmen elected on KBL. iii I Assyrian Christian elected on KBL. iv These figures are calculated by summing the absolute differences between each group’s percentage share of seats in the respective governments, and its percentage of the population based on the December 2005 election results. Thus, the Kurds obtained 37 percent of seats on the municipal council, and are 53 percent of the population according to the December 2005 election results. Their contribution to the measure of distortion is thus 37–53 ⳱ 16. For Arabs, the equivalent figures are 20–27 ⳱ 7. Clearly, therefore, the higher the number, the less accurately representation in government reflects the actual population. v These figures are calculated the same as in note 9 only using the 1957 census data.

Total seats Accuracy relative to Dec. 2005 Electionsiv Accuracy relative to 1957 Censusv

Arabs Turkmen Christians

Ethnicity Kurds

Mayor Kurd Dep. Mayor Arab Assistants Kurd Christian Turkmen

1 Municipal Council Seats (seat %)

Table 12.1 Ethnic Breakdown of Kirkuk’s Three Postwar Governments

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Another point is that the accuracy of representation in the elected council was significantly higher than it was in the previous two governments. The obvious cause of this was the precipitous decline in representation for Christians. Otherwise, relative to the December 2005 election results, Kurds and Arabs were relatively underrepresented on the council, while the Turkmen were significantly overrepresented. The closest fit was between the ethnic distribution of seats on the elected council and the 1957 census data. In other words, had a free and fair election been held in Kirkuk governorate in 1957, the ethnic composition of the resulting government would likely not have differed much from that of the current elected government. Taking the December 2005 election results as a rough indicator of the current population, the pattern is fairly clear: Turkmens and Christians have been consistently overrepresented in the various governments; Arabs and Kurds have been generally underrepresented; and overall, the elected council is significantly more accurate in terms of representation than its predecessors were. Based purely on ethnicity, the distribution of executive positions also seems to have been reasonably reflective of Kirkuk’s ethnic demography. The largest single group (the Kurds) has claimed the top executive post; the second largest group (Arabs) has been assigned the deputy position; and the two smaller groups (Turkmens and Christians) have been allocated assistant or associate positions. The exceptions to the pattern are the position of council president, awarded to a Turkmen under the refreshed governorate council and to a Kurd under the elected council, and the current deputy governor’s post, which was offered to Arabs and Turkmens but remains vacant. Hence, in terms of the legislative and executive representation, the governance of Kirkuk has ranged from an approximate form of equal power sharing to an accurately proportional model of PR power sharing.

Administrative Positions Accurate, reliable data on the ethnic distribution of administrative positions in Kirkuk are difficult to obtain, in part because of the high turnover of administrators and the sheer number of positions at various levels—city, governorate, and federal—and in part because such data are inevitably and intensely politicized. The data shown in Table 12.2 come from an ITF source. While there is no reason to assume a priori that ITF data are any more or less reliable than other sources, it seems safe to assume that these data do not overrepresent the presence of Turkmens in the bureaucracy.10 The ITF’s purpose in publishing this data is to indicate ‘‘the injustices

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Table 12.2. Administrative Positions in Kirkuk by Ethnicity, 2007

Ethnicity Kurd Arab Turkmen Christian Total

1 ‘‘High’’ Administrative Posts

2 ‘‘Moderate’’ Administrative Posts

3 ‘‘General Office Works’’

4 Total Administrative Posts

10 (53%) 7 (37%) 1 (5%) 1 (5%) 19

30 (65%) 8 (17%) 8 (17%)

10 (27%) 8 (21%) 19 (48%) 2 (5%) 39

50 (48%) 23 (22%) 29 (28%) 3 (3%) 105

46

Source: Violations against the Turkmen in Kirkuk. 2007. Ankara: ITF: 5–11.

that are applied against the Turkmen concerning the distribution of the administrative positions among the ethnic group in the governorate of Kirkuk.’’ In particular, the ITF is aggrieved at the underrepresentation of Turkmens in high-level positions, ‘‘despite [the fact that] they were forming the majority in Kirkuk.’’ This is a valid point. Not all administrative posts carry equal weight, and regardless of the population figures used, whether the 1957 census or the December election results, the Turkmens’ share of ‘‘high’’ administrative posts is clearly not in proportion to their population. However, the problem is not with the Kurdish allocation, which at 53 percent is reasonably proportionate to population share, but rather with the number of Arab administrators. Arabs are significantly overrepresented in high administrative posts. There is also the question of how ‘‘high’’ posts are distinguished from ‘‘moderate’’ ones and how these are distinguished from the ‘‘general office’’ category. These are not technical terms, and the ITF does not define them. To provide some perspective, the ITF lists only one Turkmen as occupying a ‘‘high’’ post, but at the same time, ethnic Turkmens occupy the posts of head of the Kirkuk Police Directorate, director of road and bridge construction, director of Kirkuk Hospital, director of education, director of the environment, director of communications and the post office, director of electricity distribution, director of the census, and director of agricultural planning. In addition, Turkmens comprise eight of the nine branch directors of Kirkuk’s two main state banks. Indeed, far from indicating the blanket exclusion of Turkmens and a Kurdish monopolization of power positions in Kirkuk, the ITF’s own data demonstrate that overall, the allocation of administrative posts is reasonably in proportion to population size. In terms of total adminis-

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Table 12.3. Ethnic Breakdown of Security Services of Kirkuk

Ethnicity

Quota Established by MOI

1 Serving Police

Kurd

40%

2557 (38%)

Arab Turkmen

29% 29%

2546 (38%) 1196 (18%)

Christian Total

2%

360 (5%) 6659

2 Executives, Police Directorate

3 Executives, City Police

10 (includes police chief ) 2 1 (dep. police chief ) 1 14

4 1 3 (includes police chief ) 1 9

Source: Violations against the Turkmen in Kirkuk. 2007. Ankara: ITF: 36–40.

trative posts, both Kurds and Arabs are slightly underrepresented relative to the Turkmens.

Internal Security The area in which the Kurds have come closest to establishing a stranglehold over power is internal security. The officer corps of the various counterterrorism formations, such as the Emergency Services Unit, that operate in the governorate are dominated by Kurds. Moreover, the two Kurdish parties’ own internal security services operate independently of the official state security institutions. Once again, however, the conventional view of a Kurdish monopoly over internal security is not entirely accurate, as Table 12.3 illustrates.11 Both the US military and, subsequently, the Iraqi Ministry of the Interior maintained a quota system for Kirkuk’s police force. Comparing the number of police currently serving with the approved quota indicates that the Kurds are, in fact, slightly under quota and that the Arabs are over quota to approximately the same degree as the Turkmens are under quota. As the ITF recognizes, this shortfall is due to problems with the recruitment of Turkmen police and officers and not due to an official policy of discrimination against the Turkmen community. Kurds are clearly more dominant in positions of leadership within the police forces, with ten of the fourteen posts in the governorate police directorate occupied by Kurds, including that of chief of police. Within the city police force, however, the distribution of executive posts is fairly equitable. Turkmens are actually overrepresented and can also count the city’s police chief and governorate’s deputy police chief positions among their number. Thus, an objective assessment of Kirkuk’s security forces would recognize that Kurds are dominant in the institutions tasked with counterinsurgency, that Kurds are somewhat overrepresented in the higher

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1st 2nd Council Council

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Elected Council

PR Power Sharing

Majority Control

Control Model

Figure 12.4. Power sharing and governance in Kirkuk

echelons of the police, but that overall, the security forces have retained their multiethnic character and are reasonably reflective of the broader ethnic composition of the population. The data presented above suggest that the image, assiduously cultivated by the ITF and Arab leaders and accepted uncritically by many Western sources, of total Kurdish monopolization of power in Kirkuk is not entirely accurate. The distribution of political and administrative power positions among ethnic groups is, in fact, largely proportional to each group’s share of the population. Returning to the models of power sharing depicted in Figure 12.3, Kirkuk’s three postwar governments are arrayed in Figure 12.4. Kirkuk’s first postwar government, the US-appointed thirty-member municipal council, was appointed on the basis of equality among Kirkuk’s four ethnic groups. This was not a pure form of equal power sharing both because groups were not granted veto power over decisions and because the appointment of six independents (five Kurds and one Christian) disturbed the formal equality of representation. The refreshed council was expanded by the US with the specific intent of bringing council membership more in line with the ethnic makeup of the governorate as a whole. This represented a deliberate move away from equal power sharing to PR power sharing. In January 2005 the council elected under a PR electoral system produced a legislature that reflected the ethnic composition of the governorate with reasonable accuracy. Taken along with the broadly proportional allocation of administrative posts in Kirkuk’s other governing institutions, the current governing structure is certainly closer to PR power sharing than it is to any of the other models shown in Figure 12.4. In light of the evidence, drawn mostly from ITF publications, that power has been shared with a reasonable degree of proportionality in Kirkuk and that, if anything, Turkmens have been overrepresented in most institutions, why have Turkmen and Arab leaders been so adamant that the Kurds have unfairly dominated the governance of Kirkuk?

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‘‘Illegitimate’’ Kurdish Domination The most obvious reason is that the benchmark numbers used to assess the proportionality of political and administrative representation are disputed. The allocation of 48 percent of the governorate’s administrative posts to the Kurds is fair and reasonably proportional if one accepts that the Kurds comprise 53 percent of the governorate’s population. Likewise, 28 percent of Kirkuk’s administrative posts is a generous allocation for the Turkmens if one accepts that they comprise almost certainly fewer than 20 percent of the governorate’s population. The problem, of course, is that these numbers are not accepted. Despite all evidence to the contrary, ITF leaders stubbornly cling to the claim that Turkmens are in the majority, at least in the city. There are two basic problems with this argument. First, it is flatly contradicted by all the evidence available. The 1957 census data list Turkish speakers as just over 21 percent of the governorate’s population; by 1997 the percentage of Turkmens in Kirkuk had declined to just 7. In the two elections since 2003, the ITF polled approximately 18 percent in the January 2005 elections and 11 percent in the December 2005 elections. Those relatively few scientific opinion polls that sample randomly and provide an ethnic breakdown tend to support the idea that across Iraq as a whole, Turkmens constitute between 1 and 2 percent of the population. For the Turkmens to comprise a majority in Kirkuk would, therefore, require Iraq’s entire Turkmen population to live in Kirkuk. The second problem is that the ITF’s claim is based on the city rather than the governorate as the relevant administrative unit. Even within the city limits, however, the idea that Turkmens are in the majority is not supported by the data. Even in the 1957 census Turkish speakers were only a plurality (36 percent) rather than a majority in the city, and it is highly unlikely that the proportion of Turkmens relative to other groups has increased since then. The more important point is that the ethnic breakdown of the city’s population is largely politically irrelevant. Elections are organized around governorates as the relevant administrative units, while any referendum, whether under article 119 or a revised article 140 process, would almost certainly take place across the governorate as a whole. Absent a rigorously conducted census, there cannot be a definitive resolution to the contentious issue of Kirkuk’s demographic makeup, and in the absence of hard data, the best that can be achieved is educated speculation based on the data that are available. Using these, it is all but impossible to conclude that Turkmens comprise a majority of Kirkuk city’s population, much less of the governorate as a whole. The most plausible interpretation of the data available is that across the governorate, Kurds are in either a large plurality or a small absolute majority of the population. In the city, it is almost impossible to tell.

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A more plausible line of argument by ITF and Arab leaders is to concede that Kurds are probably in a plurality/majority but to attribute this to Kurds flooding Kirkuk with ‘‘illegitimate,’’ non-Kirkuki Kurds. The most generous Arab and Turkmen estimates of the number of Kurds forced out of Kirkuk under Arabization are around 12,000 families.12 Assuming an average family size of six, this would translate to a total Kurdish population of around 70,000 with the ‘‘right’’ to return. Clearly, and unambiguously, more than 70,000 Kurds have returned to Kirkuk since April 2003. Precisely how many more have done so is open to debate, but at the time of elections in January 2005 there were just over 100,000 returnee Kurds of voting age who had yet to be supplied with the appropriate documentation to register to vote (see Chapter 10). The difference in votes for the Kurdish list between the January and December elections suggests that a further 75,000 voting-age Kurds returned (or registered to vote for the first time) over this period. Taking 175,000 Kurds of voting age as the baseline, a rough approximation of the total number of Kurdish returnees would be between 230,000 and 250,000. While there is certainly evidence that Kurdish leaders exerted considerable pressure on indigenous Kirkukis to return to their governorate of origin, there is no evidence to indicate that non-Kirkuki Kurds were imported on any significant scale from elsewhere in the Kurdistan Region or from other countries. This discrepancy between the number of ‘‘legitimate’’ returnees estimated by the ITF and Arab leaders and the actual number of Kurdish returnees can be attributed to two factors. First, the estimates of non-Kurdish leaders are almost certainly too low. Most Western sources—Human Rights Watch, for example—cite figures around 120,000 (mainly Kurds) Arabized just between the years 1991 and 2002.13 Second, the right of Kurds to return was extended not just to those expelled since 1968 but also to their subsequent progeny. Hence, the assumption that because 12,000 families were expelled, then only 12,000 families have the right to return is incorrect under the agreed terms of article 140. In the sense that article 140 was part of a document endorsed in a popular referendum by an overwhelming majority of Iraqis, these additional returnees are clearly ‘‘legitimate.’’ Moreover, regardless of whether the ITF or Arab groups consider the Kurdish returnees to be legitimate, their participation in elections was legitimized by the Iraqi government in both January and December 2005. However, this argument merely serves to highlight a profound difference in perspective in the debate over Kirkuk. The Kurds have explicitly and self-consciously pursued legal and constitutional means to reverse Arabization and establish a process that allows Kirkukis to vote on whether or not to join the Kurdistan Region. From this perspective, it is

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the legality of process that imparts legitimacy to the outcome. However, from the Turkmen and Arab perspective, any process that results in Kirkuk being absorbed into the Kurdistan Region is inherently ‘‘unjust’’ and therefore illegitimate. In this context, it becomes impossible for the Kurds to prove that returning Kurds are ‘‘legitimate.’’ Consequently, any electoral majority won by Kurds with the help of returnee Kurds will inevitably be dismissed by the Kurds’ opponents as illegitimate, as will the proportional allocation of political positions on the basis of election results. This is a deeper problem than the issue of demographics. A census in Kirkuk could determine each group’s relative numerical strength in the population and would probably reveal a pattern similar to the December 2005 election results, but it cannot resolve the question of legitimacy. Herein lies the central problem with PR power sharing in Kirkuk. In theory, PR power sharing offers a reasonable compromise position between equal power sharing, which offers an extreme form of minority protection but is highly inefficient, and majority control, which provides little in the way of guaranteed protections to minorities but facilitates efficiency. Moreover, it is clearly the ‘‘fairest’’ of the four models shown in Figure 12.3 in that each group is afforded representation commensurate with its share of the population. The perceived fairness of PR power sharing, however, is contingent on each group accepting as accurate and legitimate the statistics on which power is proportionally shared, which is not the case in Kirkuk. This means that the only model of power sharing that is likely to be accepted as legitimate by Arabs and Turkmens is power sharing on the basis of equality. If power is shared among groups on a strictly equal basis, then the number of Kurds in the population and the legitimacy of the status of returnees become irrelevant. Thus, the two major benefits of equal power sharing are, first, that it removes these inflammatory demographic issues from the equation and, second, that it is acceptable to Arab and Turkmen (and, presumably, Christian) communities in Kirkuk. Indeed, the power-sharing arrangement for Kirkuk pushed by the ITF envisages an equal distribution of power among Kirkuk’s ethnic groups (except Christians) according to the formula of 32:32:32:4. Though nowhere fleshed out in detail, this formula is intended to apply not just to administrative positions but also to legislative and executive representation.14 Obviously, power sharing on the basis of equality is appealing to the ITF and Arab leaders because they stand no realistic chance of dominating the governance of Kirkuk alone. Equal power is, therefore, the best possible outcome for each group. The most serious problem with equal power sharing is that the Kurds have no incentive to agree unless offered something in return.

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In sum, the problem with power sharing in Kirkuk is not that there has been none. The standard ITF and Arab line that the Kurds have flooded Kirkuk with illegal returnees and used this numerical superiority to monopolize positions of power in Kirkuk is not entirely accurate. Absent a census, the ethnic breakdown of Kirkuk’s current population can be estimated only on the basis of indirect measures, such as election results, but it is implausible that the distribution of positions of power in the governorate across ethnicities is wildly at odds with reality. In other words, the evidence indicates that ethnicities are represented in the administration broadly in proportion to their numerical strength in the population. The problem is that the Kurds’ numerical strength, on which their share of power is based, is perceived as having been illegitimately obtained, and while this remains the case, PR power sharing will not be accepted as ‘‘fair’’ by either the ITF or Arab political leaders. Thus, some form of equal power sharing would appear to be the only model that would satisfy the demands of the ITF and Arab leaders. This will not occur, however, unless Kirkuk is granted a special status within the Kurdistan Region. To understand why, it is useful to analyze briefly the two compromise outcomes depicted in Figure 12.2 (quadrants 1 and 4).

The Implications of a Quadrant 4 Outcome The outcome described in quadrant 4—Kirkuk with a special status, outside the Kurdistan Region, and with no arrangements in place for power sharing—would be the easiest to achieve procedurally of all four outcomes shown in Figure 12.2. Article 119 on the Iraqi constitution, supplemented by the Law on the Formation of Regions, allows ‘‘one or more’’ governorates to hold a referendum on forming a region on the basis of a request by one-third of council members or one-tenth of voters in the affected governorate(s). Approval by simple majority in the referendum is then sufficient to change the governorate’s status to a federal region. If regional status for Kirkuk is backed by the two main Kurdish parties, it is difficult to see how this initiative would not succeed. It would be supported by those Kurds loyal to the two parties, those Kurds who are alienated from the two parties and wish to keep Kirkuk outside the control of the KRG, and, quite possibly, a large proportion of Arab and Turkmen voters. After all, Kirkuk’s ITF and Arab leaders have long championed precisely this outcome—a ‘‘special status’’ for Kirkuk outside the Kurdistan Region. Hence, the problem with this option is not procedural. The relevant question is, why would the two Kurdish parties back a resolution that leaves Kirkuk officially and permanently outside the Kur-

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distan Region? There are two possible scenarios in which the Kurdish leadership might feel compelled to follow this course. In the first scenario, it begins to look as though Kirkuk is heading for the outcome shown in quadrant 3. It is difficult, though not impossible, to see how this can occur by legal or constitutional means without the consent of the Kurds, and even more difficult to envisage the Kurdish leadership being willing to consent to their least preferred outcome. In the second, and more plausible, scenario, a resolution to Kirkuk’s status appears to be heading for an indefinite delay, in which case Kurdish leaders may calculate that a quadrant 4 outcome is preferable to a semipermanent perpetuation of the status quo. A stand-alone regional status for Kirkuk would be preferable to the prevailing status quo for the Kurds for two major reasons: first, because regions enjoy significantly greater autonomy from Baghdad than so-called ‘‘governorates not organized into the region’’; and second, because the Kurds will be under no obligation, moral or constitutional, to share power with other groups. The precise differences between the powers of regions and those of governorates not organized into a region are not clearly articulated in the constitution. Article 114’s list of ‘‘competencies’’ to be shared across levels of government, for example, refers only to powers ‘‘shared between the federal authorities and regional authorities.’’ Article 115’s reserved powers doctrine, meanwhile, assigns to ‘‘regions and governorates not organized in a region’’ all those powers not stipulated as an exclusive power of the federal government. Further, the same article gives priority to the laws of regions and governorates in cases of dispute with federal law over shared powers. Hence, governorate law would appear to trump federal law in areas of shared competence even though governorates are not included in the shared power provisions of article 114. Section 5 of the constitution, which includes separate parts dealing with region and governorates, only adds to the confusion. Article 120 allows each region to write its own constitution ‘‘that defines the structure of powers of the region, its authorities, and the mechanisms for exercising such authorities,’’ while no such right is extended to governorates. Article 121 lists several powers, some of which refer to both regions and governorates and some of which refer only to regions. Among the former are the right to be allocated an ‘‘equitable share of the national revenues’’ (section 3) and the power to establish offices in embassies and diplomatic missions (section 4). Included among the latter are the right to ‘‘amend the application of national legislation’’ within the region in the event of a contradiction between regional and national law in areas outside the exclusive authority of the federal government (section 2) and, critically, responsibility ‘‘for all administrative

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requirements of the region, particularly the establishment of and organization of the internal security forces for the region such as police, security forces, and guards of the region’’ (section 5). Article 122 grants governorates ‘‘broad administrative and financial authorities’’ but leaves the specifics of these to be regulated by law. The same article evidently does not leave space for governorates to draft their own constitutions since section 3 refers specifically to ‘‘the governor, who is elected by the Governorate Council’’ as the ‘‘highest executive official,’’ while section 4 gives the federal government the power to regulate by law ‘‘the election of the Governorate Council, the governor, and their powers.’’ Though it makes little sense to speak of ‘‘reasonable’’ interpretations of a document that is highly inconsistent, there are certain important powers assigned to regions that are unambiguous. Regional law clearly takes precedence over federal law in areas of shared competence (according to article 115) or in all areas outside the exclusive authority of the federal government (according to article 121, section 2). Regions are unambiguously granted a free hand to write their own constitutions, to define internal political institutions and the powers associated with each, and, by default, to determine procedures for electing a regional government (article 120). Additionally, regional governments are given blanket administrative control over the region, including over all aspects of internal security. The relationship between federal and regional governments with respect to oil and gas is more ambiguous. The most logical reading of article 112 is that both federal and regional (and governorate) levels share responsibility for the management and development of ‘‘present fields,’’ but that the revenues from these present fields should be distributed on the basis of population. The article explicitly, and intentionally, refers only to ‘‘present fields,’’ meaning that (on the basis of article 115’s reserved powers doctrine) the management of future fields and the distribution of revenues from these are powers reserved for regional (or governorate) authorities. Ambiguity creeps in because it is not clear whether article 112 describes powers that are shared across levels of government. The wording of the article clearly indicates shared responsibilities, but they are not listed specifically under the shared powers of article 114. Nor are they listed under article 110’s exclusive powers of the federal government, however. Article 121, meanwhile, states that ‘‘In case of a contradiction between regional and national legislation in respect to a matter outside the exclusive authorities of the federal government, the regional power shall have the right to amend the application of the national legislation within that region.’’ The most reasonable way to interpret this is that a region’s oil and gas law trumps a federal oil and gas law when applied within the region. Therefore, to the extent

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that the draft federal hydrocarbons law contradicts the KRG’s oil and gas law over the management and development of present fields within the Kurdistan Region, the latter prevails over the former. Collectively, the most straightforward way to interpret these provisions relating to oil and gas is that the federal government has no role in the management of future oil and gas fields or in the distribution of revenues that accrue from these fields, and that regional law trumps federal law in the management of present fields located within the region.15 In short, the creation of a stand-alone regional status for Kirkuk would endow Kirkuk with autonomy equal to that enjoyed by the Kurdistan Region in its relations with the federal government. If Kirkuk remains a governorate not organized into a region, however, its autonomy relative to the federal government will actually diminish once the provisions of the law on governorates take hold after the next round of governorate elections. Under the constitution, governorates lack many of the important powers exercised by regions. For example, only regions are specifically granted the power to manage internal security. Likewise, governorates are not authorized to write their own constitutions, and the outlines of their political structures, electoral mechanisms, and appointment and dismissal procedures are subject to federal law. Conceivably, an argument could be made that governorates enjoy powers similar to those of regions over oil and gas, but this is a much flimsier case to make on behalf of governorates.16 The constitution outlines how the governorate’s chief executive (governor) is to be selected (appointment by the governorate council), while the law grants governors quite broad powers of appointment. However, the autonomy implied by these provisions is seriously undermined by the law’s provision that the Baghdad government can remove governors and, under certain circumstances, dissolve the governorate council.17 It remains to be seen how these provisions will play out in practice— whether, for example, the federal government will use its power to dismiss governors to impose its will over the governance of governorates—but the likelihood is that governorates will lose power to the center over time. As a stand-alone region, Kirkuk joins forces with some powerful allies, notably the Kurdistan Region and perhaps a powerful southern region based around Basra, that have a compelling shared interest in defending the powers of regions against encroachments by the federal government; as a governorate, Kirkuk stays in the ranks of much less powerful substate entities that have consciously chosen not to seek greater autonomy from the center. The likelihood is that over time, the discrepancy between the level of autonomy enjoyed by regions and that enjoyed by governorates will increase. The second reason why a regional status for Kirkuk would improve on

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the prevailing status quo for the Kurds is that they would be relieved of any obligation to share power with other groups. If the Kurds are forced to sacrifice the opportunity to reclaim the ‘‘heart’’ of Kurdistan by popular vote, despite the constitutional guarantees embedded in article 140, then they are certainly under no moral obligation to share governing power in Kirkuk. Nor is there anything in the constitution that enables the federal government to force the Kurds to share power at the regional level. Regions are empowered to design their own political institutions and their own electoral systems, so other than logistical problems, there is technically nothing to prevent the Kurds from implementing a single-member-district plurality electoral system and using this to solidify their political control over Kirkuk. In addition, there are few indirect means by which the federal government can exert serious pressure on regions. At present, the federal government’s control over oil revenues means that errant regions can be brought in line through economic coercion; in the future, revenue disbursement will be automatic, so this will not be an option.18 Hence, the Kurds may choose to share power in Kirkuk, but they also may not, and there is little that can be done to make them do so. What incentives do the Kurds have to share power in Kirkuk? The incentives issue is the traditional Achilles’ heel of all powersharing theories. Incentives impinge on power sharing via two key questions. First, what incentives do political leaders have to agree to powersharing arrangements in the first place? Second, what incentives do they have to make power-sharing arrangements function effectively rather than, say, engage in ethnic outbidding? Though both are important questions for power-sharing advocates to address, the first of these is more relevant in the current context. Except in exceptional cases where a society’s ethnic groups are both/all of approximately equal size, power sharing will necessarily involve one ethnic group ceding power to another group or groups. Where no one group constitutes a majority, the incentives issue is a much less acute concern because there may be plausible incentives for even the largest ethnic group to agree to share power with other groups. In a hypothetical society of three ethnic groups in which one (A) constitutes 40 percent of the population and the other two groups (B and C) each compose 30 percent, no single group can muster the majority necessary to govern. A can be outvoted by a coalition of B and C. To avoid this possibility, A has an incentive to agree to share power with the other two groups. However, if A constitutes 60 percent and the other two groups constitute 20 percent each, A can govern alone democratically. Under these circumstances, it is clear that B and C have incentives to sign up to a power-sharing arrangement with A, but why would A volun-

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tarily choose to give up majority control in order to enter into powersharing arrangements with minority groups? All power-sharing theories struggle to answer this question. They are, in Horowitz’s words, ‘‘motivationally inadequate.’’19 However, Horowitz’s preferred institutional solutions for governing ethnically divided societies are no better. Redrawing subunit boundaries in a federal system to foster intraethnic conflict and the use of vote-pooling electoral systems, such as the alternative vote, may well moderate the behavior of ethnic leaders, but they do not address the question of why a majority group would agree to implement these measures in the first place.20 In the absence of an external player with the capacity to impose power sharing on a majority group, the prospects for power sharing in majority/minority situations are not good. The architect of consociational democracy, Arend Lijphart, evades this problem by pointing out, correctly, that alternatives fare no better at dealing with majority/minority situations. Beyond this, he concedes that the majority/minority issue creates problems and that a ‘‘multiple balance of power among the subcultures instead of either a dual balance of power or a clear hegemony by one subculture’’ offers the optimal context for consociational arrangements to take root.21 It is left to another consociational advocate, Brendan O’Leary, to offer the most convincing explanations for why a majority group might volunteer to share power with a minority group. At best, O’Leary claims to offer only a ‘‘partial qualification’’ to Lijphart’s pessimistic assessment of the potential for consociational democracy in the presence of a majority group.22 The conditions under which a ‘‘hegemonic segment’’ may indeed have an incentive to share power, according to O’Leary, include when minorities have resources and blackmail potential, when there is a differential population growth rate among segments such that the majority risks losing this status at some point in the future, and when the majority group feels morally obliged to compensate the minority group for past injustices.23 The second and third of these explanations are irrelevant in the case of Kirkuk. The majority group has higher birth rates than the other groups, and the Kurds are also the historical ‘‘victims’’ in Kirkuk. The first explanation is relevant to Kirkuk but unlikely to provide sufficient incentive for the Kurds to agree to the type of power sharing demanded by the Turkmens and Arabs. According to O’Leary, a minority may have ‘‘credible bargaining power’’ when it enjoys the support of co-ethnics/ linguals in a ‘‘neighboring and significant power’’ or when it comprises an ‘‘economically vital minority, with high levels of human capital and the means to emigrate.’’24 Though a mass exodus of qualified Arab and Turkmen administrators and professionals from Kirkuk may create short-term difficulties, particularly in institutions dominated by these

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two groups, such as the Education Directorate and the NOC, the Kurdistan Region has more than fifteen years of (virtually) independent governing experience and a cadre of experienced officials capable of stepping into the breach. More importantly, the large-scale outmigration of Arabs and Turkmens would only make Kirkuk more Kurdish, which is precisely why it is unlikely to happen and, if it did, why it would probably be welcomed by most Kurds. In terms of powerful external support, neighboring Turkey and the Arab Iraqi state are obvious potential sources of pressure on the Kurds to share power equitably. It is not clear, however, that these ‘‘external’’ players have a vital interest in how Kirkuk is governed, and it is still less clear that they could do anything meaningful to affect it.25 The absence of compelling incentives for the Kurds to share power in Kirkuk is reinforced by two compelling incentives not to share power. First, the Kurds will justifiably feel that they have been cheated of their chance to reclaim Kirkuk. After securing the inclusion of article 140 in a document that was democratically endorsed by an overwhelming majority of the Iraqi population in a free and fair vote, the Kurds can be forgiven for believing that they had at least earned the right to take the issue to a vote. Denied this, there is absolutely no reason to suppose that the Kurds would, or should, look favorably on the idea of sharing power with precisely those groups that have battled the hardest to prevent the implementation of article 140. Second, the only type of power-sharing model that seems to be acceptable to Kirkuk’s other groups is at the extreme end of the spectrum. There is an approximate form of PR power sharing in place in Kirkuk already, and this has been rejected by other groups as inadequate. The most coherent replacement powersharing scheme advanced by the ITF envisages a 32:32:32 split in power positions among the three major ethnic groups, with the Christians receiving the remaining 4 percent share. Hence, the Kurds are expected to give up incorporating Kirkuk into the Kurdistan Region and not just to share power but to share power equally. Equal power sharing may be preferable to the alternatives under certain conditions, but it is certainly not a ‘‘fair’’ system in that the allocation of power bears no relation to relative group size, and it is about the least efficient form of government imaginable. If unanimity among groups is necessary to move policy from the status quo, then the likely result of this is complete policy stability, or in a word, gridlock. With no legal, constitutional, or moral obligation to share power with other groups, the Kurds cannot realistically be expected to adopt voluntarily a form of power sharing that significantly diminishes their power and that is neither fair nor efficient. Indeed, it is far more plausible that the Kurds will move away from a PR power-sharing model and toward a

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Westminster-style majoritarian or even an Israeli-style control model. Either would maximize Kurdish power, significantly increase governing efficiency, and avoid the governance of Kirkuk being held hostage to interminable, often arbitrary Arab and Turkmen boycotts. What, then, would a quadrant 4 outcome mean for the future of Kirkuk? Kirkuk would likely be dominated politically and administratively by Kurds to a significantly greater degree than it is at present; Kurdish peshmerga, operating as national guards, would provide the security throughout the governorate; within the other security forces, the Kurds would decide how much or how little of a presence to allow other groups; the Kurds would control all the directorates and could, quite legally, monopolize all important positions of power within the administration, including within the NOC; the Kurds would control Kirkuk’s budget and decide who gets what, when, and how; under Kurdish control, Kirkuk would acquire autonomy from central control equivalent to the levels enjoyed by the Kurdistan Region; as a result, Kirkuki regional laws would trump federal law in all of the areas defined as shared powers under article 114, including public health and education; and Kirkuk would be governed by much the same coalition of parties that governs the Kurdistan Region. In almost every important respect, therefore, the administrative boundary that separates Kirkuk from the Kurdistan Region would become an irrelevance. Technically, there would be two Kurdish regions rather than one, but this technical distinction would be of minimal practical importance. For the Kurds, of course, this distinction would still be of deep symbolic importance.

The Implications of a Quadrant 1 Outcome The outcome depicted in quadrant 1—Kirkuk inside the Kurdistan Region with a special autonomous status and with formalized powersharing arrangements—would probably be the most complex of all four options to achieve procedurally. It would certainly require amending the draft Kurdish constitution and probably, in addition, the Iraqi constitution. The need to amend the draft Kurdish constitution is obvious because it currently contains no provision for a subunit to exercise autonomy from the KRG, but it is also straightforward because the constitution has not yet been approved. Amending the Iraqi constitution may not be strictly necessary, but it is probably advisable. There may still be a process that can be put in place to resuscitate the provisions of article 140 and allow an eventual referendum on Kirkuk’s status. Indeed, the UN is currently involved in an envisaged three-stage process that starts with resolving the status of the least disputed of the disputed territories and culminates in a resolution to Kirkuk. The problem is that

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from the perspective of those opposed to article 140, this process is unfolding outside the framework of the constitution and is, therefore, illegitimate. With such strong opposition to the Kurds on the Kirkuk issue, the process by which any eventual deal can be ‘‘legitimized’’ is far from clear. There are three major advantages and one important benefit for the Kurds to using the temporary amendment procedure to codify a Kirkuk deal in the Iraqi constitution. First, the legitimacy of any deal that is embedded in the constitution will be beyond dispute.26 Second, a deal that involves power-sharing arrangements should be invested with a guarantee that these arrangements cannot be easily revoked in the future. Incorporating them into a constitution that can be amended only by a supermajority vote provides reassurance to all parties that these arrangements are stable. Third, the ongoing efforts to amend the constitution through the efforts of the Constitutional Review Committee (CRC) enable a deal to emerge that links the status of Kirkuk to definitive, unambiguous language about control over Kirkuk’s oil and gas.27 Opponents of the Kurds who fear that the Kurds’ only interest in controlling Kirkuk is to control its oil can be reassured via explicit constitutional provisions that this is not the case. By linking the issue of Kirkuk to other constitutional changes, some of which benefit Sunni Arabs and many of which strengthen the central government, the Kirkuk deal would become part of a package that offers concessions to all groups and will, therefore, more likely be endorsed. Fourth, the Kurds have the power to block the temporary amendment procedure entirely via the exercise of the Kurdish veto. Hence, this is probably the most powerful political weapon the Kurds still possess to force the hand of those seeking to either delay or derail entirely efforts to resolve Kirkuk’s status. The exact details of a constitutional amendment to resolve Kirkuk’s status are less important than the broad principles. First, Kirkuk in its pre-1968 borders would be recognized as falling within the official boundary of the Kurdistan Region, subject to approval in a referendum. Second, Kirkuk would be granted roughly the same level of autonomy with respect to the KRG as the Kurdistan Region enjoys relative to Baghdad. This means, for example, that Kirkuk would have its own constitution that could not be unilaterally amended or revoked by Baghdad or Erbil, and Kirkuk would have control over its own security forces. Third, Kirkuk would receive its budget directly and automatically from the Iraqi government, and a portion of this would be distributed, again automatically, among Kirkuk’s various ethnic groups according to a formula based on either proportionality or equality. Fourth, administrative posts and positions in the security forces at all levels would be allocated equally among groups. Fifth, groups would be granted autonomy over

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important symbolic and cultural issues, such as religion and education. Sixth, the passage of important legislation would require a supermajority mechanism to prevent the Kurds from passing laws against the wishes of all other groups. There are various ways to achieve this; establishing an executive council with representation for each group and wherein each group possesses veto power is one obvious way. Requiring a twothirds majority to overturn an executive veto would then require at least one other group to side with the Kurds in order to pass legislation. The broad principles, therefore, are that Kirkuk is officially part of the Kurdistan Region, that it has a high level of guaranteed autonomy from other levels of government, that its autonomous status is guaranteed in the constitution, and that power and resources are shared through a mix of proportionality and equality. The result is a compromise that gives the Kurds ‘‘ownership’’ of Kirkuk in the sense that it is officially recognized as territory of the Kurdistan Region but that denies them political control; in this sense, Kirkuk belongs to no one group. This is not an elegant outcome. Problems such as how to identify groups, which groups are significant enough to warrant treatment on the basis of equality, and the propensity of such an arrangement to produce political gridlock mean that this option is inevitably ‘‘messy.’’ However, as part of a package that removes Kirkuk’s oil from the equation and definitively settles the questions of Kirkuk’s official geographic status and who gets what, when, and how, the most contentious and intransigent issues associated with Kirkuk are resolved. Moreover, with power and resources doled out to groups on a (mostly) equal basis, the issue of the legitimacy of Kurdish returnees becomes a nonissue. With the resolution of these issues, most of the sources of ethnic tensions in Kirkuk would be eliminated. The purpose of this chapter is not prescriptive. Neither of the two compromise outcomes is necessarily better than the other; nor is it easy to establish objective criteria that would enable a judgment on their respective merits. The primary purpose is to clarify the terms of debate. Kirkuk’s status should be resolved as the product of compromise between the Kurds and other interested parties. Rhetorically, this much has been accepted by all parties to the dispute, including the ITF, Turkey, the Kurds, and most Arabs. A compromise solution is inherently more appealing normatively than a solution that is imposed on one side by the other. Moreover, a compromise solution that gives everyone something and no one everything almost certainly stands a better chance of producing a stable, productive future for the people of Kirkuk. Once this principle is established, then the real terms of debate come sharply into focus. The Kurds cannot reasonably expect to incorporate Kirkuk into the Kurdistan Region and dominate its governance

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any more than the ITF can plausibly press for Kirkuk to remain outside the region and enjoy equal power sharing. The outcomes depicted in quadrants 2 and 3 in Figure 12.2 are not compromises. Therefore, neither provides a viable solution to the problem of Kirkuk. The real choice facing the Kurds is whether they are prepared to sacrifice control over power and resources in order to incorporate Kirkuk into the Kurdistan Region. For the other groups, the question is whether keeping Kirkuk out of Kurdish territory is more important than access to equal/proportional power sharing. It is for the groups themselves to decide whether Kirkuk is more important to them symbolically or as a source of power and resources.

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Conclusion

It is difficult to write objectively about Kirkuk and all but impossible to be perceived as writing objectively on the issue. Kurds, Turkmens, and Arabs all tend to view their own perspectives, or narratives, as the true interpretations of events, and empirical evidence, no matter how robust, that supports the claims of one group over another is invariably dismissed as partisan propaganda. The absence of uncontested ‘‘facts’’ about Kirkuk should not, however, preclude informed speculation. The application of common sense to the available evidence should enable reasonable, thoughtful people to agree on certain ‘‘truths’’ about Kirkuk and puncture some of the more blatant myths that have come to pollute the discourse

Oil The conventional wisdom on Kirkuk is that it is primarily a struggle over oil. This is the basic line taken by almost every newspaper article ever written on Kirkuk.1 Accordingly, the Kurds want to control Kirkuk because its oil potentially provides the necessary resource base for an independent Kurdistan, something most Arabs and Turkmens naturally, and reasonably, oppose. On its face, this is a plausible line of argument. The presence of oil has dictated the trajectory of most of the important developments in Kirkuk’s modern history. From the initial British decision to append Mosul to Baghdad and Basra, to the increasingly brutal efforts of successive Arab governments to ensure an Arab majority in the region, there is little about Kirkuk’s recent history that can be understood without reference to oil. Despite this, the post-2003 struggle for Kirkuk has had very little to do with oil. The argument that the Kurds value Kirkuk only for its oil has gained widespread currency, even among many who purport to be experts on Iraq.2 The fatal (and obvious) flaw with the argument is that it is contra-

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dicted by all the available evidence. The constitution clearly and deliberately distinguishes between ‘‘present’’ and future oil fields, and Kirkuk’s oil field, which has been in production since the late 1920s, is unambiguously a ‘‘present’’ field. The constitution requires all revenues accruing from present fields to be distributed ‘‘in a fair manner in proportion to the population distribution in all parts of the country’’ (article 112, section 1). The power to manage and develop present fields is, however, ambiguously assigned; it is not listed among the exclusive powers of the federal government, so presumably a federal law on this can be trumped by regional law according to article 121, section 2. Potentially, this means that the Kurdistan Region would hold the whip hand over the management of Kirkuk’s oil in the event that Kirkuk becomes part of the region. However, the Kurds have consistently demonstrated a willingness to remove this source of ambiguity from the constitution and, moreover, to submit the revenues from even future fields to the federal government for redistribution. Anyone who doubts this should read the most recent report (May 2007) of the constitutional review committee.3 Beyond endorsing constitutional amendments to remove any ambiguities over the management of Kirkuk’s oil and agreeing to allow all oil revenues to be redistributed by the federal government, there is not much else the Kurds can do to prove that it is not ‘‘all about the oil.’’ Kirkuk’s oil can, very easily, be removed from the equation entirely. The second major flaw in this line of argument is to assume that control of Kirkuk’s oil is linked to the Kurds’ aspirations for independence. Without Kirkuk’s oil, so the argument goes, the Kurds lack the necessary resources to survive economically, so establishing control over Kirkuk’s oil is a vital prerequisite for a secessionist bid that is presumed to follow inevitably. By logical extension then, allowing the Kurds to claim Kirkuk is tantamount to facilitating the disintegration of the Iraqi state. This line is relentlessly pushed by Kirkuk’s Turkmen and Arab political leaders, and its logic is seldom questioned; but there is very little that is plausible about this argument. Taken at face value, the statements of Kurdish leaders have been consistent and unequivocal. Kurdish independence is not on the agenda for the foreseeable future. This is not a popular line for Kurdish leaders to take, but it appears to be sincere.4 Of course, there is no reason to assume a priori that Kurdish leaders are telling the truth. Skeptics might well argue that Kurdish leaders are disingenuously telling the world what they assume the world wants to hear, while secretly planning to secede once Kirkuk is back inside the Kurdistan Region. If this were the case, it should at least be evident in the actions of Kurdish leaders. Yet almost nothing about the behavior of Kurdish leaders suggests that preparations are under way for an independence bid. Talabani has, in fact, been harshly criticized in the Kurd-

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ish media for prioritizing Sunni-Shi’i reconciliation and Iraqi unity over Kurdish interests. Economically, the Kurds are becoming ever more dependent on neighbors, especially Turkey, for supplies of vital commodities such as food and bottled drinking water. Likewise, investments in the Kurdish economy have been targeted at sectors, such as the transportation infrastructure and tourism, the development of which would make no sense if secession were the short-term goal. However, the most compelling reason to dismiss the link between Kirkuk’s oil and Kurdish independence is that oil is useless to an independent Kurdistan. The Kurds have no indigenous refining capacity, so Kirkuk’s oil could not be consumed domestically, and the oil could not be exported to generate revenue because Kirkuk is wholly dependent on an oil infrastructure that is controlled by others. For Kirkuk’s oil to be of value, an independent Kurdistan would need to be supported, or at least tolerated, by its powerful neighbors. In return for acquiring control over mountains of useless oil, an independent Kurdistan would sacrifice its guaranteed share of income from the Iraqi government. Currently, federal government revenues provide over 90 percent of the Kurdistan Region’s budget. This money is used to pay the salaries of the public sector workers, political party employees, and peshmerga forces. In all, the jobs of approximately 60 percent of the Kurdish workforce depend directly on federal government revenues, as does the elaborate and extensive system of patronage that defines the relationship between the two major parties and the Kurdish population. Bluntly put, the entire political, social, and economic system of the region would likely collapse in short order in the event of a cutoff in federal government funding. In every important respect, therefore, the argument linking Kirkuk’s oil to Kurdish independence is implausible. It is, however, a useful argument for opponents of the Kurds because it appears to be an easy sell to those too lazy to think the issue through for themselves.5

Demography While the issue of oil is reasonably clear-cut, the question of Kirkuk’s demography remains mired in ambiguity and confusion. As is clear from the discussion in Chapter 2, it is futile to adjudicate among the wealth of conflicting anecdotal testimonies that support rival claims to majority status in pre-1957 Kirkuk. The obvious starting point for empirical analysis is the census data from 1957. These data provide a useful baseline measure because they capture Kirkuk’s demographic breakdown at a point prior to the most intense phases of Arabization and because their validity is not seriously disputed by any of Kirkuk’s communities. The data indicate that Turkmens comprised 37 percent of the population of

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Kirkuk city as against the Kurds’ 33 percent and the Arabs’ 22 percent. Thus, Turkmens were in a plurality but not a majority in the city. Within the province as a whole, Kurds comprised approximately 48 percent of the population, Arabs 28 percent, and Turkmens 21 percent. The only other data that come close to providing an accurate snapshot of Kirkuk’s demographic makeup are the results of the December 2005 federal elections. For various reasons (discussed in Chapter 8), these data cannot be considered conclusive; nor is the demographic picture they present uncontested. Nonetheless, all significant communities participated in the December elections, the turnout was high, and a large number of election monitors (Iraqi and international) were present on the day to ensure that massive electoral fraud could not occur. Thus, these election results provide an important yardstick against which to assess the more outlandish claims of Kirkuk’s ethnic communities. In this election the Kurdish list polled 53 percent of the vote, Arab parties roughly 27 percent, and Turkmen parties approximately 13 percent.6 What observations can be made from the data from 1957 and 2005? First, Turkmens were never in the majority in Kirkuk Province. Even in the city, by 1957 Turkmens were only a plurality of the population. By 2005 the only reasonable conclusion was that Turkmens were, by some distance, the smallest of the three ethnic groups in the governorate as a whole. The Kurds, meanwhile, were the second-largest ethnic group in the city in 1957 (behind the Turkmens) and a near majority in the province. By 2005 Kurds were either a large plurality or a small majority in the governorate as a whole. Arabs went from being the second-largest ethnic group in the province in 1957 to enjoying a comfortable majority status by 1997 (see Chapter 2). By 2005, however, the Arab percentage of the governorate’s population had returned to almost exactly its 1957 level (28 percent). Collectively, these observations yield three largely reasonable conclusions. First, in the absence of Arabization, the significantly higher birth rate of Kurds would almost certainly have put them in the majority in today’s Kirkuk. Second, the restoration of Kirkuk’s pre-Ba’thist boundaries would put the Kurds in a comfortable majority of the population in Kirkuk, given the heavy Kurdish dominance in three of the detached districts. Third, it is inconceivable that Turkmens are in the majority in either the city of Kirkuk or the governorate as a whole. In fact, Turkmens constitute the smallest of Kirkuk’s three ethnicities by some distance. In terms of implications, these three conclusions do not mean that a Kirkuk restored to its previous boundaries would necessarily vote in favor of joining the Kurdistan Region. There may be any number of Kirkuki

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Kurds who do not support a union with the Kurdistan Region, but precisely how many is impossible to know. Thus, the major implication relates to issues of power sharing. Quite clearly, Kirkuk is not composed of three groups of similar size. The Kurds are the largest group by an order of magnitude, and the Turkmens are by some distance the smallest. A power-sharing arrangement that assigns power equally to Kurds and Turkmens may be politically expedient, but it is not ‘‘fair’’ by any conventional understanding of the term. Nor is there any reason why the Kurds should be expected to accept formal political equality with the Turkmens unless they are offered something important in return.

Power Sharing and Kurdish ‘‘Hegemony’’ The conventional view of the political balance of power in Kirkuk appears to be that the Kurds have monopolized all positions of political power in the governorate since the fall of the former regime and, conversely, that Arabs and Turkmens have been totally excluded from access to power.7 The Kurds’ refusal to share power is then used as a justification for why they cannot be trusted with the governance of Kirkuk. This misconception is so central to (mis)understanding the situation in Kirkuk that it is worth exploring in more detail. The original council put in place by the US military in summer 2003 favored the Kurds, but only marginally. Of the thirty members, twentyfour were selected by each of the four identified ethnic communities, and the remaining six were ‘‘independents’’ affiliated with no political movement; five of these were ethnically Kurdish, and one was a Christian. Consequently, ethnic Kurds occupied only eleven seats on the thirty-member council. A ‘‘Kurdish’’ (in fact half-Kurdish, halfTurkmen) mayor was subsequently elected on the basis of a 20-10 vote, a majority made up of eleven Kurds, seven Christians, a Turkmen, and an Arab. The reaction of Turkmen and Arab political leaders to the defeat of their candidates and the election of a Kurdish mayor was that the vote was inevitable given that the US had stacked the council in favor of Kurds. ITF leaders even referred to the ‘‘twenty Kurds’’ on the council and subsequently, after council refreshment, to the Kurds ‘‘retaining their majority’’ on the council;8 but at no time did ethnic Kurds actually control a majority of seats on the council. After winning nearly 60 percent of the vote in the January 2005 governorate elections, the Kirkuk Brotherhood List claimed an absolute majority of seats (twenty-six of forty-one) on the first elected council. Even after a win of this magnitude, however, it would be inaccurate to describe Kurdish dominance as monopolistic or hegemonic. One of the three key executive positions (deputy governor) was offered to the

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opposition but remained unfilled because Arabs and Turkmens were unable to agree among themselves on who should claim the post. Elsewhere administrative positions throughout the governorate were distributed in reasonable proportion to population share (as shown by the ITF’s own data). If anything, Arabs are overrepresented in ‘‘high’’ administrative posts, with Turkmens overrepresented in ‘‘total’’ administrative positions. Of course, the mere occupation of an administrative post is not synonymous with power. Control of the purse strings is also of vital importance. However, in this respect, Kirkuk was largely dependent on an Arab-dominated central government for funding, and more often than not, this was either withheld or delivered in inadequate quantities. This raises the broader issue of who, if anyone, can meaningfully have been considered ‘‘in charge’’ of governance in Kirkuk since April 2003. Even in the security sphere, where claims of Kurdish hegemony have the most credibility, Kurdish dominance is far from absolute. The police force remains defiantly multiethnic on the basis of ethnic quotas that, arguably, underrepresent Kurds and overrepresent Turkmens and Arabs. Arabs police Arab areas of the city, and Turkmens perform the same function in Turkmen neighborhoods. Overall responsibility for security in the city of Kirkuk remains in the hands of the US military, not Kurdish forces. Likewise, the Kurds have no security presence in Arabdominated areas outside the city, such as Hawija. The one sphere in which the Kurds are clearly dominant is counterinsurgency, both via their preeminence in specialist units (such as the Emergency Services Unit) established specifically to combat the insurgency and through the internal security forces of the two Kurdish parties. However, the Kurds’ dominance of counterinsurgency forces is largely unavoidable, given their experience, capabilities, and invulnerability to insurgent infiltration, and it is not at all clear that there is a viable alternative. Clearly, the US military does not believe there is because it continues to rely heavily on Kurdish forces to maintain security in northern areas. Some reasonable conclusions can be drawn from these observations on the prevailing balance of power in Kirkuk. First, the Kurds (mainly through the two parties) clearly exercise more power than any other ethnic group in Kirkuk, though after they won nearly 60 percent of the vote in a democratic election, it is difficult to understand why the Kurds are not entitled to exercise more power than groups that polled 20 percent of the vote or less. Second, based on the ITF’s own data, the distribution of positions of administrative power in Kirkuk is reasonably reflective of the governorate’s demographic makeup. In short, power is shared among ethnic groups in Kirkuk in rough proportion to population strength. What Arabs and Turkmens demand in Kirkuk is not a moder-

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ate form of power sharing that sees each ethnicity represented in proportion to its numbers (because this already exists in large part), but an extreme form of equal power sharing based on predetermined ethnic quotas. Once again, the compelling question to address is why the Kurds should be expected to accept this arrangement without gaining something in return.

In the Context of Iraq None of the observations and arguments presented above is sufficient to establish a clear-cut case for why the claims of one ethnic group should prevail over another; nor is this the intention. Their function is to clear up common misconceptions and clarify the terms of debate. This is vital because, since the summer of 2008, the debate over the future status of Kirkuk has emerged as pivotal to Iraq’s overall political dynamic and because, thus far, the debate has been riddled with cliche´s and factual inaccuracies. Reactions to the events of July/August 2008 provide fascinating insight into the current nature of the debate on Iraq and Kirkuk. The facts of the matter are straightforward and easy to relate. The Law on Provincial Elections, approved by parliament on 22 July 2008, included a provision (clause 24) that dictated an equal (32:32:32:4) power-sharing arrangement for Kirkuk pending governorate elections at some point in the future. The vote on clause 24 was held in secret, presumably to allow Arab members of certain factions (ISCI, for example) to vote in defiance of party leadership and in favor of the measure. In response, the Kurds staged a walkout, accompanied by some members of ISCI. The walkout did not prevent parliament from achieving a quorum (an absolute majority of members), and of the 140 members who voted, 127 voted in favor of the bill. The following day Talabani vetoed the law in its entirety. Among Western experts the consensus appeared to be that this was just one more example of the ‘‘pushy’’ Kurds sabotaging the political process for narrow, partisan reasons.9 This fits into a broader narrative in which the Kurds constitute the core of a group variously referred to as ‘‘ethno-federalists,’’ ‘‘separatists,’’ or ‘‘the powers that be.’’10 The ethnofederalists, basically the Kurds and ISCI, are the ‘‘villains’’ of the emerging political landscape in Iraq intent on dividing Iraq along ethnosectarian lines and thereby destroying its coherence as a territorial entity. Ranged against them are the ‘‘heroes’’ of the piece diversely identified as ‘‘nationalists,’’ ‘‘centrists,’’ or ‘‘powers that aren’t.’’11 Composed principally of Sadrists, Fadilla, the INL, and most of the Sunni factions, the nationalists are the guardians of the true Iraq defending the country’s integrity in the face of concerted assaults by pernicious ethnofeder-

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alists. Those who share this perspective view the nationalists as the best hope for political (Sunni-Shi’i) reconciliation. Hence, the Kurds (and ISCI) are the major barrier to a political solution for Iraq. The obvious and logical course of action for the US, therefore, is to withdraw its support for the ethnofederalists and throw its weight behind the nationalists. The events of July 2008 feed into this black-and-white narrative. Unwilling to countenance power sharing in Kirkuk and fearful of losses in governorate elections, a Kurdish president, backed by his ISCI colleagues, vetoed the elections bill, thereby sabotaging any prospects of holding governorate elections in 2008. In the process, the ethnofederalists once more demonstrated their willingness to sacrifice national reconciliation for selfish political reasons. There is some underlying truth to the basic narrative. There is clearly an emerging division among Iraq’s political parties over the design of Iraq’s system of federalism and related issues, such as central versus regional control of the hydrocarbons sector; further, this divide clearly cuts across ethnosectarian fault lines. Moreover, the nationalists are now, plausibly, in a majority in the council of representatives and may well represent the majority view of the Iraqi population. They are, however, unable to translate their numerical strength into concrete policy outcomes because they are hopelessly internally fragmented and because they are trapped within the confines of a constitution that was authored by ethnofederalists. Hence the impasse. As a diagnosis of Iraq’s current political gridlock, there is much to recommend this narrative, but it is also deeply problematic in its assumptions about the motivations of actors. Narratives that simply assume purity of motive on one side and sinister intent on the other invariably degenerate into self-fulfilling prophesies. Hence, Talabani’s veto of the election law provides further confirmation that ethnofederalists ‘‘simply want to grab ever more power, and to exclude everyone else.’’12 By implication, nationalists are inclusive and, presumably, care nothing about power. Narratives such as these are also immune to falsification. Incoming information that conflicts with the terms of the narrative is either ignored or distorted in order to make it fit. Hence, the debate surrounding the events of July 2008 focused mainly on the iniquity of the Talabani veto and totally ignored the truly significant dimensions of the controversy. Why, for example, was an article on power sharing in Kirkuk included in a bill on governorate elections in the first place? Why did opponents of the Kurds insist on including a provision that they must have known would be rejected by Talabani, thereby throwing the elections into doubt? Why did the parliamentary speaker feel the need to vote on this one provision in secret?

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More pertinently, on what constitutional basis did the federal government claim the power to dictate comprehensive governing arrangements to governorates? How meaningful is a system of federalism if the federal government directly controls the governance of the subunits? More broadly, the proposed power-sharing arrangement for Kirkuk was based on absolute equality (32:32:32:4) among the three main communities. In other words, the system was based on strict ethnosectarian quotas. It is not clear why those who deplore the concept of governance based on ethnosectarian identity, and who vilify the ethnofederalists for precisely this reason, should be such strong supporters of this solution for Kirkuk; but it is certainly ironic. Moreover, if equal power sharing is considered a reasonable solution to the problem of governing Kirkuk, then there should be no objection to extending this principle to other ethnically mixed regions in which Kurds are in the minority. Thus, Ninevah, Diyala, and Baghdad should also have equal power-sharing arrangements dictated to them by the federal government. By the same logic, indeed, there is no reason why power should not be shared equally at the federal level. Of course, those who demonize the ethnofederalists have no interest in extending this principle beyond Kirkuk. Equal power sharing according to ethnic quotas is appropriate when Kurds are in the majority but not, apparently, when Kurds are in the minority. This merely serves to highlight the extent to which the narrative of nationalists (good) versus ethnofederalists (bad) is infused with anti-Kurdish sentiment. At its core this narrative is premised on the belief that Iraqi nationalism exists, that it is a powerful force, and that it is a positive force. Those who cling to this belief are seemingly immune to the empirical evidence that contradicts their position, such as a brutal three-year Sunni-Shi’i civil war or the fact that one of the ‘‘heroes’’ of Iraqi nationalism, Muqtada al-Sadr, was instrumental in cleansing large swaths of Baghdad of its Sunni Arab occupants. The key point, however, is that what is usually termed ‘‘Iraqi nationalism,’’ if it exists at all, is more usefully and accurately defined as ‘‘Arab Iraqi nationalism.’’ The nationalist agenda in Baghdad calls for a strongly centralized and, inevitably, Arab-dominated political system with national control over resources and minimal space for regional autonomy. This is the antithesis of the Kurdish vision for Iraq. For ISCI, the idea of a loose federation with space for the emergence of a ninegovernorate Shi’i region in the south may be a matter of preference and political calculation. For the Kurds, conversely, preserving constitutionally guaranteed autonomy against the threat of a powerful, Arabdominated central government is an existential issue. To lump Kurds together with ISCI and assume a shared motivation (that is, a naked grab

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for ever more power) dangerously misrepresents the depth of Kurdish sentiment on this issue.

The Need for Compromise The Arab Iraqi nationalist project is overtly anti-Kurdish. Why, then, should the Kurds be expected to embrace its agenda? Increasingly the Kurds are bearing the brunt of the hostility of those who lionize the nationalist project. The Kurds are blamed for obstructing the nationalist agenda and for ‘‘overreaching’’ on issues such as oil contracts and Kirkuk.13 Implicit in these assessments is the (erroneous) assumption that the Kurds, and their maximalist demands, are the major barrier to a reasonable agreement on Kirkuk. In fact, the converse of this is true. The Kurds have accepted the idea of equal power sharing among Kirkuk’s communities but only if Kirkuk is allowed to join the Kurdistan Region. On the other side of the debate, the Iraqi Arabic Kirkuk Front’s most recent ‘‘solution,’’ which differs only marginally from that of the ITF, is for Kirkuk to remain outside the Kurdistan Region, for it to be administered directly by the Iraqi government, and for every dimension of political and administrative power to be shared on the basis of strict equality.14 Thus, each of the three communities would receive a quota of thirteen seats on the council, and the position of governor would rotate among the three groups on an annual basis. Hence, the Arab solution to the Kirkuk impasse is to compromise on nothing. The Kurds cannot conceivably accept this solution; nor should they be expected to. Yet, in its basic outline this is more or less the solution promoted by many Western experts as a reasonable compromise. The solution, in other words, is for the Kurds to concede everything. For those who do not understand the meaning of the term ‘‘compromise,’’ the standard dictionary definition is the ‘‘settlement of a dispute by concessions on both or all sides.’’ There are two crucial dimensions of compromise with respect to Kirkuk. The first pertains to its administrative location (inside or outside the Kurdistan Region), and the second involves its governance (power sharing or majority control). A real compromise involves each side making a concession on one of these two dimensions. The Kurds can either dominate Kirkuk politically or have Kirkuk as part of the Kurdistan Region, but they cannot expect to have both. Opponents of the Kurds can share power equally or they can yield political power to the Kurds in return for keeping Kirkuk outside the Kurdistan Region. Equal power sharing inside the Kurdistan Region or no power sharing outside the Kurdistan Region—these are the only genuine compromises available on this issue. Those who oppose both are either ignorant of the Kirkuk issue or have no real interest in compro-

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mise. However, if the only alternative to compromise is an imposed solution by one side on the other, those uninterested in compromise need to explain why a violent resolution is pragmatically and morally preferable to compromise. This is not a pro-Kurdish argument, though no doubt many will deem it insufficiently anti-Kurdish. A pro-Kurdish argument would focus on why the Kurdish case for Kirkuk, whether on moral, historical, geographic, demographic, or constitutional grounds, is stronger than those of other groups. Alternatively, it would focus on the long-term consequences for Iraq of denying the Kurds any satisfaction on Kirkuk, which plausibly include large-scale bloodshed and Kurdish secession. There are strong arguments that could be made in defense of the Kurdish position, but this book does not pretend to make them. Kirkuk will be resolved either through compromise or through violence, and if violence is to be avoided, the Kurds, like all other interested parties, must be prepared to compromise.

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Notes

Introduction 1. See Haynes, D. 2008. ‘‘Iraq Minister: US Combat Troops to Pull out in Three Years under New Deal.’’ The Times, 14 August; Sabah, Z., and S. Raghavan. 2008. ‘‘Sectarian Bias Alleged in Iraqi Raids in Diyala.’’ Washington Post, 20 August; MacAskill, E. 2008. ‘‘Iraqi Militia Leader to Order Followers to Lay Down Their Arms.’’ Guardian, 6 August; Said, Y. 2008. ‘‘Iraq Oil Dispute.’’ Financial Times, 23 July. 2. The decision to extend the deadline is often attributed to either being ‘‘agreed’’ by the ‘‘five Iraqi leaders’’ (the three members of the Presidency Council (Jalal Talabani, Adel Abdul Mahdi, and Tareq al-Hashimi), the Prime Minister of Iraq (Nouri al-Maliki) and the Prime Minister of the KRG (Nechirvan Barzani)) or extended unilaterally by the UN. Neither interpretation is accurate. Instead, the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) suggested to all of them that there was a need for delay in the implementation of Article 140, given the impossibility of holding a referendum in the remaining three weeks of the agreed period. None of them responded to UNAMI which was interpreted as none of them objecting to the proposal. What is important to note is that neither UNAMI nor the non-responsive Iraqi leaders suggested any deadline. Rather, the most that could be said to have been agreed was to UNAMI’s proposal to facilitate the implemention of Article 140 with UNAMI assistance during the first six months of the delay. Source: email communication with Andrew Gilmour, Political Director of UNAMI, 2 October 2008. 3. Janabi, N. 2008. ‘‘Kirkuk’s Article 140: Expired or Not.’’ Policy Watch 1335, Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 30 January. 4. The recommendations of UNAMI can be read at http://www.uniraq.org/ newsroom/getarticle.asp?ArticleID⳱702. The outright rejection of the recommendations by all parties illustrates their inability to recognize the need to compromise on some of the issues involved with the resolution of the overall disputed territories, and Kirkuk in particular. 5. Parker, N., and S. Hameed. 2008. ‘‘In Iraq, Kurds Walk out of Parliament in Protest.’’ Los Angeles Times, 23 July. 6. Abdul-Zahra, Q. 2008. ‘‘Iraqi Presidential Council Rejects Elections Law.’’ Associated Press, 23 July. 7. KRG. 2008. ‘‘Statement: Kurdistan Regional Government Rejects Provincial Elections Bill Due to Breach of Constitution,’’ 23 July (http://www.krg.org/arti cles/detail.asp?smap⳱02010100&lngnr⳱12&anr⳱24961&rnr⳱223). 8. For an example of this approach, see Iraqi Crisis Group. 2008. ‘‘Oil for

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Soil: Toward a Grand Bargain on Iraq and the Kurds.’’ Crisis Group Middle East Report No. 80, 28 August. 9. KRG. 2008. ‘‘President Barzani: Iraq Will Fall Apart If Constitution Violated.’’ KRG Press Release, 7 August (http://www.krg.org/articles/detail.asp smap⳱02010100&lngnr⳱12&anr⳱25113&rnr⳱223). 10. Hacaoglu, H. 2008. ‘‘Kirkuk Dispute Fuels Ethnic Tensions in Iraq.’’ Associated Press, 15 August; Oppel, R. 2008. ‘‘Kurdish Control of Kirkuk Creates a Powder Keg.’’ New York Times, 18 August. Part I. Introduction 1. When referring to the situation in Kirkuk, it is important to differentiate between the city and the province. Of course, their futures are intrinsically intertwined, but the characteristics of the city do not translate directly onto the province. 2. Hepburn, A. 2006. ‘‘Ethnicity and Power in Contested Cities: The Historical Experience.’’ Comparative Urban Studies Project: Urban Update no. 7. Washington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. 3. We have chosen not to include a section on the perspective of the Christians/Assyrians. While clearly of importance in the ethnoconfessional mosaic of Iraq, and with a long association with Kirkuk (indeed, the longest of any group), the limited Christian population of contemporary Kirkuk has not proved sufficient for this community to have secured a meaningful voice in the debate surrounding the city’s future—unlike the Kurds, Turkmens, and Arabs. We do, however, refer to Christians and Assyrians at appropriate moments throughout the book. Chapter 1. Kirkuk before Iraq 1. Kramers, J. H. 2008. ‘‘Kirkuk.’’ In P. Beaman, T. Bianquis, C. E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel, and W. P. Heinrichs (eds.), Encyclopaedia of Islam. Vol. 5. Leiden: Brill: 144. 2. Mudhir, K. 2004. Kirkuk and Its Dependencies. Erbil: Ministry of Culture: 6. 3. Ibid. 4. Izady, M. 1993. ‘‘Exploring Kurdish Origins.’’ Kurdish Life 7 (http://www .xs4all.nl/⬃tank/kurdish/htdocs/his/orig.html). 5. Elphinstone, W. G. 1946. ‘‘The Kurdish Question.’’ International Affairs 22.1: 92. 6. Diakonoff, I. M. 1985. ‘‘Media.’’ In I. Gershevitch (ed.), The Cambridge History of Iran. Vol. 2, The Median and Achaemenian Periods. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 48–49; Roux, G. 1964. Ancient Iraq. London: Allen and Unwin: 247–312; Kramers. ‘‘Kirkuk.’’ 144. 7. Nestorius was the archbishop of Constantinople from 428 to 431 and was the founder of the doctrine of Christ existing as two persons—Jesus as a man and Jesus as the Son of God. Followers of this doctrine—Nestorians of the Assyrian Church of the East—separated from the Byzantine Church following the condemnation of the doctrine at the Council of Ephesus in 431. 8. Oates, J. 1991. ‘‘The Fall of Assyria.’’ In J. Boardman et al. (eds.), The Cambridge Ancient History. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 193. 9. Kramers. ‘‘Kirkuk’’: 144.

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10. Mudhir. Kirkuk and Its Dependencies: 13. 11. Ibid.: 14. 12. Al-Hirmizi, E. 2003. The Turkmen and Iraqi Homeland. Istanbul: Kerku¨k Vakfi: 16; Kerkuki, I. 2002. ‘‘Alta’yesh al-Selmi bein al-Kurd wa al-Turkmen fi Madinat Kerkuk’’ [The Peaceful Living between the Kurds and Turkmen in the City of Kerkuk]. In Kerkuk Madinat Alqawmiat Almuta’akhiyeh [Kirkuk—The City of Ethnic Harmony]. London: Karbala Center for Research & Studies: 312; Kerkuklu, M. 2007. Turkmen of Iraq. Dublin: no publisher: 18. 13. Kerkuki. ‘‘Alta’yesh al-Selmi bein al-Kurd’’: 312. Islamic sources first refer to the Oghuz-Turkmen people from the middle of the eleventh century. See Woods, J. 1999. The Aqquyunlu: Clan, Confederation, Empire. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press: 25–26. 14. Hodgson, M. G. 1974. The Venture of Islam: Conscience and History in a World Civilization. Vol. 2, The Expansion of Islam in the Middle Periods. Chicago: University of Chicago Press: 400. 15. Nakip, M. 2004. The Identity of Kirkuk. Columbia University Turkmen Symposium, 20 November. (www.turkmen.nl/1A_soitm_e/Kerkuk_identity .pdf ). Accessed 8 August 2008. 16. Woods. The Aqquyunlu: 3. 17. Ibid.: 28. 18. Hurewitz, J. C. 1968. ‘‘Military Politics in the Muslim Dynastic States, 1400–1750.’’ Journal of the American Oriental Society 88.1: 96–104. 19. Nakip. The Identity of Kirkuk: 2. 20. Batatu, H. 1978. The Old Social Classes and the Revolutionary Movements of Iraq: A Study of Iraq’s Old Landed and Commercial Classes and of Its Communists, Ba’thists and Free Officers. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press: 212. 21. Ibid. 22. Kramers. ‘‘Kirkuk’’: 144 23. One such scholar, Mofak Kerkuklu, notes that Sami wrote about Kirkuk and Baghdad without ever actually having been there and lists a range of factual errors made by him throughout his book. See Kerkuklu. Turkmen of Iraq. 24. Interestingly, in Erbil the reverse process occurred, with the Turkmen community becoming largely ‘‘Kurdified’’ due to the business community there largely using Kurdish—perhaps due to the administrative offices being of a lesser nature than those in Kirkuk. 25. Earle, E. 1924. ‘‘The Turkish Petroleum Company—A Study in Oleaginous Diplomacy.’’ Political Science Quarterly 39.2: 265–79, quote at 266; Shwadran, B. 1955. The Middle East, Oil and the Great Powers. London: Atlantic Press: 193. 26. Sluglett, P. 1976. Britain in Iraq. London: Ithaca Press: 103. 27. Earle. The Turkish Petroleum Company: 266. 28. Ibid.: 267. 29. Shwadran. The Middle East. 30. Sluglett. Britain in Iraq: 103–16. 31. Brown, P. 1924. ‘‘From Sevres to Lausanne.’’ American Journal of International Law 18.1, January: 113–16, ref. at 113. Also see Beck, P. ‘‘ ‘A Tedious and Perilous Controversy’: Britain and the Settlement of the Mosul Dispute.’’ Middle Eastern Studies 17.2: 256–76. 32. Sluglett. Britain in Iraq: 103–16. 33. Reguer, S. 1982. ‘‘Persian Oil and the First Lord: A Chapter in the Career of Winston Churchill.’’ Military Affairs 46.3, October: 134–38. 34. Mejcher, H. 1976. Imperial Quest for Oil: Iraq 1910–1928. London: Ithaca Press.

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Notes to Pages 21–35

35. Cohen, S. 1978. ‘‘Mesopotamia in British Strategy, 1903–1914.’’ International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 9.2: 171–81, quote at 172–73. 36. Fitzgerald, E. ‘‘France’s Middle Eastern Ambitions, the Sykes-Picot Negotiations, and the Oil Fields of Mosul, 1915–1918.’’ Journal of Modern History 66.4: 697–725, quote at 697. 37. See Earle. The Turkish Petroleum Company: 272; and Loder, A. de V. 1923. The Truth about Mesopotamia, Palestine and Syria. London: Allen and Unwin: 163–64. 38. Stivers, W. 1982. Supremacy and Oil: Iraq, Turkey, and the Anglo-American World Order. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press: 23. 39. Quote in Yergin, D. 1991. The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power. New York: Simon and Schuster: 188. 40. CAB21/119, quoted in Mejcher. Imperial Quest for Oil: 35–42. 41. Kent, M. 1976. Oil and Empire: British Policy and Mesopotamian Oil, 1900– 1920. London: Macmillan: 13–14. 42. Sluglett. Britain in Iraq: 103–16. 43. Al-Gailani, M. 2003. ‘‘Assessing Iraq’s Oil Potential.’’ Geotimes, October (www.geotimes.org/oct03/feature_oil.html, quote at 2). Accessed 3 June 2008. 44. Talabany, N. 2001. Arabization of the Kirkuk Region. Sulaimaniya: Khak Press: 20.

Chapter 2. Kirkuk in the Twentieth Century 1. Bruinessen, M. van. 2005. ‘‘Kurdish Challenges.’’ In W. Posch, Looking into Iraq [Chaillot Paper no. 79]. Paris: European Union Institute for Security Studies: 9. 2. Edmonds, C. J. 1957. Kurds, Turks, and Arabs: Politics, Travel, and Research in North-Eastern Iraq, 1919–1925. London: Oxford University Press: 266; Fieldhouse, D. (ed.). 2002. Kurds, Arabs and Britons: The Memoir of Wallace Lyon in Iraq, 1918–1944. London: I. B. Tauris: 122; Bruinessen, ‘‘Kurdish Challenges’’: 9. 3. Lloyd, H. I. 1926. ‘‘The Geography of the Mosul Boundary.’’ Geographical Journal 47: 104–13. 4. McDowall, D. 1996. A Modern History of the Kurds. London: I. B. Tauris: 314. 5. Mazhar, K. M. Kerkuk wa Tawabi’iha—Hukum al-Ta’rikh wa al-Zamir [Kirkuk and the Surrounding Area: The Verdict of History and Conscience]. Sulaimaniya: Renwin: 78; Amin, A. R. Hawari Kurd, no. 4. Printed in Erbil. 6. Farouk-Sluglett, M., and P. Sluglett. 2001. Iraq since 1958: From Revolution to Dictatorship. 3rd ed. London: I. B. Tauris: 70–72. 7. Following his involvement in the establishment of the ill-fated Republic of Kurdistan in Mahabad, Barzani had been forced into exile following the defeat of the republic by Iranian forces in 1946. With his followers he fled Mahabad and Kurdistan and crossed into Soviet territory, where he was granted asylum. 8. Batatu. The Old Social Classes and the Revolutionary Movements of Iraq: 913. 9. Ibid.: 918–19. 10. Talabany. Arabization of the Kirkuk Region: 23. 11. Ibid.: 24. 12. Including Sona Goli, Yarwali, Panja Ali, Wail Pasha, Qizilqaya, Chiman Gawra, Chiman Bechuk, Jawl Bor, Hanjira, Qushqaya, Shoraw, and Bajwan. 13. Resool, S. H. 1990. ‘‘Destruction of a Nation.’’ Unpub. manuscript, July 1990: 35; Mineh, A. 1999. Amni Stratigi Iraq u Sekuchkai Ba’sian—Tarhil u Ta’rib

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u Tab’is [Iraq’s Strategic Security and the Ba’th’s Triple Policy of Deportation, Arabization, and Ba’thification]: 238–39. 14. Talabany. Arabization of the Kirkuk Region: 32–33. 15. Stansfield, G. 2007. Iraq: People, History, Politics. Cambridge: Polity: 93. 16. Mufti, M. 1996. Sovereign Creations: Pan-Arabism and Political Order in Syria and Iraq. London: Cornell University Press: 198. 17. McDowall. A Modern History of the Kurds: 327. 18. Ibid. 19. Talabany. Arabization of the Kirkuk Region: 35. 20. Ibid. 21. It should be noted that Turkmens too would claim to have suffered in an identical manner to the Kurds and that many of the villages claimed by Kurds to have been Kurdish would be claimed by the Turkmens as Turkmen. Still, irrespective of the identity of the villages and places targeted for demographic engineering, the sheer scale of Arabization in Kirkuk was staggering, as this list indicates. 22. McDowall. A Modern History of the Kurds: 329. 23. Human Rights Watch (HRW). 2004. ‘‘Claims in Conflict: Reversing Ethnic Cleansing in Northern Iraq.’’ Human Rights Watch Report 16.4(E), August: 8. 24. Jawad, S. 1982. ‘‘Recent Developments in the Kurdish Issue.’’ In T. Niblock (ed.), Iraq: The Contemporary State. London: Lynne Rienner: 56. 25. Following a brief period in Tehran, Barzani later found he was suffering from lung cancer. He died in Washington, D.C., in March 1979. See Korn, D. 1994. ‘‘The Last Years of Mustafa Barzani.’’ Middle East Quarterly 1.2. 26. Human Rights Watch (HRW). 1995. Iraq’s Crime of Genocide: The Anfal Campaign against the Kurds. New Haven and London: Yale University Press: 8. 27. Resool, S. H. 2003. Ta’aribi Kerkuk—Siasati Ta’rib la du twei 80 Belganamada [Arabization of Kirkuk: Evidence of a Policy of Arabization]. London: Dar alHikmeh: 46. 28. HRW. Iraq’s Crime of Genocide: 9–10. 29. Ibid. 30. Interview with Sonja Khalil, Erbil, 27 April 2008. 31. HRW. Iraq’s Crime of Genocide: 15. 32. Graham-Brown, S. 1999. Sanctioning Saddam: The Politics of Intervention in Iraq. London: I. B. Tauris: 40. 33. Human Rights Watch (HRW). 2003. ‘‘Iraq: Forcible Expulsion of Ethnic Minorities.’’ Humam Rights Watch Report 15.3(E), Washington, D.C. 34. Bruinessen. ‘‘Kurdish Challenges’’: 11. 35. Energy Information Administration (EIA). 2007. Iraq: Country Analysis Brief (www.eia.doe.gov/cabs/iraq.html). 36. See Gerth, J. 2003. ‘‘Oil Experts See Long-Term Risks to Iraq Reserves.’’ New York Times, 30 November. The problems associated with the supergiant fields in Iraq, including Kirkuk, are common to aging fields. In effect, reservoirs lose pressure the more they are exploited, making it necessary to find ways to artificially maintain or increase the pressure in order to continue production. This is done by injecting fields with oil or with water. It is essential, however, for the procedure to be carefully managed as reservoirs are delicate structures. If too much injected oil, gas, or water finds its way into the wells, then production can become uneconomical. The impact of the mismanagement of water injection at Kirkuk is described in a UN report of 2000 (see below). 37. EIA. Iraq.

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38. United Nations (UN). 2000. Report of the Group of United Nations Experts Established Pursuant to Paragraph 30 of the Security Council Resolution 1284: quote at 21 (http://www.un.org/Depts/oip/background/reports/oilexpertsreport .pdf ). 39. Energy Information Administration. 2007. Iraq Energy Data, Statistics and Analysis (www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/Iraq/Oil.html).

Part II. Introduction 1. For an explanation of ‘‘modern hatreds’’ and the resurrection of ‘‘ancient hatreds’’ in contemporary settings, see Kaufman, S. 2001. Modern Hatreds: The Symbolic Politics of Ethnic War. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.

Chapter 3. The Post-2003 Iraqi Context 1. See Tripp, C. 2000. A History of Iraq. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 30–31; Wimmer, A. 2002. Nationalist Exclusion and Ethnic Conflict: Shadows of Modernity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 156–98; and Stansfield. Iraq: 26–50. For an outline of the notion of ‘‘dominant nationhood,’’ see Wimmer, A. 2004. ‘‘Dominant Ethnicity and Dominant Nationhood.’’ In E. Kaufman (ed.), Rethinking Ethnicity: Majority Groups and Dominant Minorities. London: Routledge: 40–58. 2. Interview with Abdul Qadir Bazirgan, president of the Turkmen Reform Movement, Erbil, 24 May 2008.

Chapter 4. The Turkmen Perspective 1. Kerkuklu. Turkmen of Iraq: 20. 2. Private communication by e-mail with Sheth Jerjis of the Stichtung Onderzoekcentrum Iraaks Turkmeense Mensenrechten, 5 August 2008. 3. Tu¨rkmenoglu, K. 2006. The Iraqi Turkmen’s Struggle to Survive: Sacrifice and Suffering. Ontario: Esprit de Corps Books: 15. 4. Oguzlu, H. ‘‘The ‘Turkmens’ as a Factor in Turkish Foreign Policy.’’ Turkish Studies 3.2: 139–48, quote at 143. 5. Edmonds, C. J. 1957. Kurds, Turks and Arabs: Politics, Travel and Research in North-Eastern Iraq, 1919–1925. London: Oxford University Press: 438–39. 6. Batatu. The Old Social Classes and the Revolutionary Movements of Iraq: 913. 7. McDowall. A Modern History of the Kurds: 314. 8. The paper referred to here, Hurmuzlu’s ‘‘The Ethnic Reality of the Kirkuk Area,’’ was downloaded from http://www.turkmen.nl/ERK.pdf. Accessed 12 July 2008. 9. International Crisis Group (ICG). 2006. Iraq and the Kurds: The Brewing Battle over Kirkuk. Middle East Report 56, 18 July: 4. 10. Batatu. The Old Social Classes and the Revolutionary Movements of Iraq: 913. 11. See Al-Hirmizi. The Turkmen and Iraqi Homeland: 79–89. 12. Stafford, R. 1934. ‘‘Iraq and the Problem of the Assyrians.’’ International Affairs 13.2, March–April: 158–84, quote at 163. 13. See, for example, Anne, A. 2003. ‘‘Daring for Victory: Iraq in Revolution

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1946–1959.’’ International Socialism Journal, issue 99, summer, published online at http://pubs.socialistreviewindex.org.uk/isj99/alexander.htm. 14. Al-Hirmizi, A. 2005. The Turkmen Reality in Iraq. Istanbul: Kerku¨k Vakfi: 91. 15. See, for example, Jerjis, S. 2006. The Turkmen of Iraq: Underestimated, Marginalized and Exposed to Assimilation. Nijmegan: Benda Print House. 16. Ahmad, N. 2002. Al-tagheer al-mimografi al-qisri lisukan Kerkuk [The Forced Demographic Change of the People of Kerkuk]. London: Karbala Center for Research and Studies: 446. 17. Ibid.: 448. 18. Jerjis. The Turkmen of Iraq: 7. 19. Kobrolo. 397–98. Within the context of Iraq, however, Misr (pl. amsar) could refer to a garrison town as a term used during the period of the Islamic conquest. 20. Agalik, Meydan, Yedi Kizlar, Yukari Mahalla, Kara Tepellier, Tenekeciler, Mekteb Kapisi, Hamam, and Zindan (listed in Jerjis. The Turkmen of Iraq: 11). 21. Jerjis. The Turkmen of Iraq: 12. 22. It would seem to be clear that this strategy was also employed against the Kurdish and Assyrian communities. However, as is in keeping with most recent writing on Kirkuk by those hailing from the region, the ability to empathize with the circumstances of the other communities is sorely limited. 23. The organizations of the ITF include the Iraqi National Turkmen Party, the Turkmen Independents Movement, the Iraqi Turkmen Islamic Movement, the Turkmeneli Foundation for Cooperation and Culture, the Turkmen Justice Party, the Association for Turkmen Brotherhood, the National Union of Turkmeneli, and the Turkmeneli Association of Intellectuals (Tu¨rkmenoglu. The Iraqi Turkmen’s Struggle to Survive: 17). 24. Quoted in ‘‘Iraq: Iraqi Turkmen Form Coalition Organization.’’ Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Chapter 5. The Kurdish Perspective 1. See Lowe, R. 2006. The Syrian Kurds: A People Discovered. Chatham House Briefing Paper (January). London: Chatham House. 2. See Eagleton, W. 1963. The Kurdish Republic of Mahabad. London: Oxford University Press. 3. Bruinessen, M. van. 1992. Agha, Shaikh and State: The Social and Political Organization of Kurdistan. London: Zed Books: 51. 4. Kurdish unity was notoriously fractured after World War I, and Kurdish nationalism was not at a level capable of promoting a national cause in a way that would see a state established. Furthermore, it was and remains extremely difficult to identify the geographic limits of Kurdistan. However, the point of the argument is not what the reality was and is but how Kurds perceive it. 5. See Stansfield, G. 2003. Iraqi Kurdistan: Political Development and Emergent Democracy. London: RoutledgeCurzon. 6. For an analysis as to whether Kirkuk is a tinderbox or not, see O’Leary, B. 2009. ‘‘Nationalities, Oil, and Land: Kirkuk and the Disputed Territories.’’ In G. Stansfield and R. Lowe (eds.), The Kurdish Policy Imperative. London: Chatham House. 7. It is a common feature of Kurdish political writings that they consider Kurdistan to have been ‘‘occupied’’ since the end of World War I.

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Chapter 6. The Arab Perspective 1. 2. 3. 4.

ICG. Iraq and the Kurds: 5. Talabany. Arabization of the Kirkuk Region: 23. HRW. Iraq’s Crime of Genocide: 28. Ibid.: 17–18.

Chapter 7. The Kurds Ascendant 1. On details of the economic aspects of the behind-the-scenes haggling, see, for example, ‘‘U.S. Reported Seeking Alternative to Turkish Reliance in Conflict with Iraq, but Also Fails to Note That West-Turkish Rift More over Pan-Turkism.’’ 2003. Defense & Foreign Affairs Daily 21.25, 19 February; and ‘‘Turkey Holds out on U.S. Use of Bases.’’ 2003. Irish Times, 20 February: 12. Beyond the purely economic dimension, the US haggled with Ankara about absurd minutia, such as who would pay for the identification badges of US troops and how much the US would be required to pay for gasoline while in Turkey. For details, see Richburg, K. B., and P. Slevin. 2003. ‘‘Turks Near Deal Giving U.S. Access to Bases: Aid Pact Would Open Northern Front in War.’’ Washington Post, 22 February: A01. 2. This Turkish force was also to be given the right to monitor the arming of Kurdish forces by the US military and their disarming after the end of hostilities. For details, see Cockburn, P. 2003. ‘‘Iraq Crisis: Turkey Close to Agreeing Deal with American Military.’’ Independent, 28 February: 5. 3. Boulton, L. 2003. ‘‘U.S. and Iraqi Groups in Deal to Prevent Chaos in Northern Iraq.’’ Financial Times, 19 March: 3. 4. See, for example, ‘‘Iraqi PUK Leader Says Kurdish Forces Will Not Enter Kirkuk, Mosul.’’ 2003. Kurdistani Nuwe (BBC Monitoring Middle East), 21 February (LexisNexis [LN]). 5. Pan, P. P. 2003. ‘‘Turkish Officials Back Away from Threats to Invade Northern Iraq.’’ Washington Post, 12 April: A23. 6. ‘‘Iraqi Kurdish PUK TV Reports Capture of Kirkuk.’’ 2003. KurdSat (BBC Monitoring Middle East), 10 April (LN). 7. Morris, H. 2003. ‘‘U.S. Soldiers Begin to Replace Peshmerga in Kirkuk.’’ Financial Times, 12 April: 2. 8. Loyd, A. 2003. ‘‘Kurdish Ploy Brought Early End to Looting and Violence.’’ Times, 12 April: 4. 9. Ibid. 10. See Cockburn, P. 2003. ‘‘The Iraq Conflict: Kurdish Victory Provokes Fears of Turkish Invasion; The Battle for Kirkuk.’’ Independent, 11 April: 4. 11. Williams, D. 2003. ‘‘Kurds Seize Oil Hub in Northern Iraq.’’ Washington Post, 11 April: A01. 12. ‘‘Iraqi Kurdish KDP Leader on Looting in Northern Iraqi Cities, U.S. Presence.’’ 2003. Al-Hayat (BBC Monitoring Middle East), 14 April (LN). 13. Vick, K., and S. Vogel. 2003. ‘‘Kurds’ Looting Sweeps across Liberated Kirkuk; U.S. Forces Take Action Late in Day.’’ Washington Post, 12 April: A23. 14. Daragahi, B. 2003. ‘‘Ethnic Tensions Threaten Hopes for Peace in Kirkuk.’’ Washington Times, 13 April: A05. 15. Taylor, C. 2003. ‘‘Euphoria Gives Way to Ethnic Blood Lust.’’ Australian, 14 April: 14. 16. ‘‘Turkmen Front’s Muratli Says PUK Entered Karkuk Disregarding Commitments.’’ 2003. Anatolia, 10 April (World News Connection [WNC]).

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17. Human Rights Watch. 2004. ‘‘Claims in Conflict: Reversing Ethnic Cleansing in Northern Iraq.’’ Human Rights Watch Report 16.4(E), August: 50. 18. ‘‘Iraq: ‘No Systematic Attacks’ against Turkmens in Kirkuk.’’ 2003. NTV (BBC Monitoring Middle East), 13 April (LN). 19. Dilanian, K. 2003. ‘‘Playing Diplomat for a Day: A N.J. Army Captain out to Secure a Compound on Kurdish Turf Ended up a Man in the Middle.’’ Philadelphia Inquirer, 13 April: A16. 20. ‘‘Iraq: Kurdish Paper Reports KDP Helping Kirkuk Hospitals to Continue Work.’’ 2003. Brayati, 19 April (WNC). 21. ‘‘Calm Begins to Return to Iraqi City of Kirkuk.’’ 2003. MENA, 19 April (WNC). 22. While recognizing that the term ‘‘Christian’’ is obviously not an ethnic ascription, for the sake of convenience Chaldo-Assyrians are here referred to collectively as Christians. 23. ‘‘Iraq: Kirkuk Tense after Kurdish Forces Kill Two Turkmens.’’ 2003. MENA (BBC Monitoring Middle East), 14 April (WNC). 24. Cockburn, P. 2003. ‘‘The Iraq Conflict: Tensions Boil over between Kurds and Arabs in North.’’ Independent, 14 April: 4. 25. Chivers, C. J. 2003. ‘‘Iraqi Arabs Are Driven from Homes by Kurds.’’ International Herald Tribune, 15 April: 3. 26. Cowell, A. 2003. ‘‘Turkey’s Stand against the War in Iraq Costs It Influence in Region.’’ International Herald Tribune, 19 April: 4. 27. Pan. ‘‘Turkish Officials Back Away from Threats.’’ 28. More accurately, the ITF was an extension of the foreign policy interests of a certain part of the Turkish state. The ITF was created in 1995 by Turkish special forces and then subsequently adopted by the Turkish Armed Forces. 29. Pessin, A. 2006. ‘‘US Commander in Iraq Hopes Political Progress Will Affect Insurgency.’’ Voice of America, 21 April (http://www.globalsecurity.org/ wmd/library/news/iraq/2006/04/iraq -060421-voa02.htm). 30. Kirkuk’s small Christian community, composed mainly of Chaldeans and Assyrians, probably numbered less than 3 percent of the population of Kirkuk. 31. Dougherty, K. 2003. ‘‘Army ‘Mayor’ Plans for Diversity in Kirkuk’s Future.’’ Stars and Stripes, 4 May. 32. ‘‘Iraq: U.S. Forces Begin to Disarm Factions in Kirkuk.’’ 2003. MENA (BBC Monitoring Middle East), 26 April (LN). 33. ‘‘Iraqi Turkmen Rep Says Kurds ‘Seized’ State Posts in Kirkuk.’’ 2003. ANS TV (BBC Monitoring Trans-Caucasus Unit), 26 April (LN). 34. ‘‘Iraq: Kurdish Police Sent to Maintain Security in Kirkuk.’’ 2003. Brayati (BBC Monitoring Middle East), 27 April (LN). 35. Prusher, I. R. 2003. ‘‘Free Media Blossom in Iraq City.’’ Christian Science Monitor, 29 April: A06. 36. ‘‘Iraqi Turkmen Front Reportedly Excluded from Kirkuk Administration.’’ 2003. Jamawar (BBC Monitoring Middle East), 29 April (LN). 37. Quoted from Sgt. First Class Todd Oliver. ‘‘Elections Process.’’ In 173rd Airborne Brigade Iraq Stories (http://www.173rdairborne.com/iraq-stories.htm). Accessed 15 December 2007. 38. A Sunni Arab majority council had selected an Arab, retired army general Ghanim al-Boso, as mayor along with a Kurdish deputy mayor (the KDPaffiliated Khaso Goran) and an Assyrian and a Turkmen as ‘‘assistants to the mayor.’’ The key difference between Mosul and Kirkuk, however, was that in the former, there was little dispute about which ethnic group was in the majority, whereas in the latter, this was a source of bitter dispute.

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39. Oliver. ‘‘Elections Process.’’ 40. Meixler, L. 2003. ‘‘Ethnic Tensions Flare in New Council.’’ Gazette, 26 May: A17. 41. This face-off between two Turkmen candidates, one from the Shi’i community and the other a representative of the overwhelmingly Sunni ITF, provided an early indicator of the difficulties the ITF would face in sustaining its claim to being the only legitimate voice of the Turkmen community in Kirkuk. 42. Clover, C. 2003. ‘‘Kurds Win Back Control of Kirkuk after Local Elections.’’ Financial Times, 29 May: 11. 43. ‘‘Iraqi Turkmens Refuse to Recognize Kirkuk Election.’’ 2003. MENA (BBC Monitoring Middle East), 29 May (LN). 44. The twenty members of the council who voted for the Kurds’ favored candidate in fact included eleven Kurds, seven Christians, and two Turkmens. 45. With fewer than twenty-five hundred troops in Kirkuk, the US can scarcely be characterized as ‘‘in control’’ of the city. US control was heavily dependent on indigenous security forces, especially those of the two Kurdish political parties. The relationship between the Kurds and the US military was, therefore, one of mutual dependence. The US could not hope to administer and police the city without Kurdish cooperation, and the Kurds badly needed the backing of the US in order to achieve their political goals both in the city and in Iraq. Although the Kurds generally enjoyed the benefits of this mutual dependence, there is no evidence that the US military made a strategic choice to systematically favor the Kurds above other ethnic groups. For example, the Northern Oil Company was left in the hands of its former Arab administrators despite the vociferous complaints of the PUK. Likewise, the US was consistent in its insistence that property disputes and the return of displaced Kurds should be managed according to a legal process. In this absence of this process, the US military actively intervened on several occasions to protect Arab populations against illegal eviction by returning Kurds from land or property. 46. This is not to suggest that a different approach might have yielded a more productive outcome. No principle of representation could have simultaneously satisfied the three largest ethnic groups when each believed itself to be the majority. At a minimum, this approach ensured that no single ethnic group could dominate the other two by controlling a majority of seats on the council. 47. For a description of how members of the IGC were identified and recruited, see Bremer, L. P., III (with Michael McConnell). 2006. My Year in Iraq: The Struggle to Build a Future of Hope. New York: Simon and Schuster, especially chapter 4. 48. Bremer’s memoirs provide a telling insight into the US’s overall lack of interest in the Turkmen community. Despite Bremer’s assertion, made on several occasions, that the Leadership Council was unrepresentative because it did not include Turkmens, women, or Christians, and despite voluminous detail concerning individual members of the IGC, the sole Turkmen representative on the IGC, Songhul Chapouk, is not mentioned once by name in the text. 49. ‘‘Turkey: Turkmen Party Official Snubs U.S. on Election of Iraqi Governing Council.’’ 2003. Anatolia (BBC Monitoring Europe), 16 July (LN). 50. ‘‘Iraqi Turkmen Front Submits Demands to U.S. Civil Administrator.’’ 2003. Turkmenali, 15 August (LN). 51. ‘‘Iraqi Turkmen Front Rejects Turkmen Appointed to Governing Council.’’ 2003. MENA (BBC Monitoring Middle East), 15 July (LN). 52. ‘‘Turkey.’’ 2003. Anatolia (BBC Monitoring Europe).

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53. ‘‘Iraqi Communities Demand Representation in Governing Council.’’ 2003. Al Hayat (BBC Monitoring Middle East), 1 August (LN). 54. See Prusher, I. R. 2003. ‘‘New Step toward Iraqi Self-Rule.’’ Christian Science Monitor, 2 September (http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0902/p06s01 -woiq.html). 55. See Prusher, I. R. 2003. ‘‘New Step Toward Iraqi Self-Rule,’’ The Christian Science Monitor, 2 September (http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0902/p06s01 -woiq.html). 56. O’Loughlin, E. 2003. ‘‘Oil-Rich Kirkuk a Fertile Ground for Racial Rivalry.’’ Age, 18 April: 10. 57. ‘‘Iraqi Turkmen March in Kirkuk Protests Tuzkhurmatu Incident.’’ 2003. Turkmenali, 24 August (WNC). 58. HRW. ‘‘Claims in Conflict’’: 35. 59. Ibid.: 43. 60. It was more common for Kurds to rent property than to own it because of the serious legal impediments introduced under the Ba’th regime to prevent Kurds from acquiring ownership of land or property. 61. ‘‘Turkish Foreign Minister Confirms Pipeline Blast Was ‘Sabotage.’ 2003. Anatolia (BBC Monitoring Europe), 13 June (LN). 62. ‘‘Iraq’s Oil Pipelines Hit 83 Times since Saddam Fell: Official.’’ 2003. Agence France Press, 11 December. 63. Mulholland, R. 2003. ‘‘The Iraqi Sheikh, the American Colonel, and the Oil Pipelines.’’ Agence France Presse, 12 September (LN). 64. ‘‘Iraq: Kurdish Peshmergas Start Protecting Oil Pipelines in Dibs.’’ 2003. Khabat (BBC International Monitoring International Reports), 8 November (LN). When the training of the police force was complete, it comprised fourteen thousand guards across Iraq, of which approximately sixty-four hundred were deployed in the north. The force was overwhelmingly dominated by Kurdish peshmerga, a fact readily admitted by Erinys’s operations manager Peter Brown: ‘‘The majority of the people in Kirkuk at the time (when we began to recruit in the autumn) were Kurdish peshmergas who spearheaded the invasion from the north. They were readily available, and so we took them on.’’ At the same time, Brown insisted, ‘‘There was no master plan to employ Kurds over any other group’’ and that Erinys’s use of Arab tribes was a deliberate attempt to correct the disparity in numbers between Kurds and other groups. See Pelham, N. 2004. ‘‘Iraqis Question Capability of Group Guarding Oil Facilities.’’ Financial Times, 10 August: 7. 65. On the struggle to fill the Turkmen quota, see ‘‘Iraq: Kirkuk Police Mount Turkmen Recruitment Drive Following Incidents.’’ 2003. Turkmenali (BBC Monitoring Middle East), 10 September (LN). On the use of a specific quota system, apparently at the instigation of coalition authorities, see ‘‘Iraq’s Kirkuk Police ‘Excludes from Service’ 550 Kurds—Shi’i Radio.’’ 2003. Voice of the Mujahidin (BBC Monitoring Middle East), 18 September (LN). 66. Blanford, N. 2003. ‘‘U.S. Raid Gets (Mixed) Results.’’ Christian Science Monitor, 4 December: 6. 67. ‘‘Iraq: Official Confirms Dismissal of Ba’thists from Government Posts in Kirkuk.’’ 2003. Kurdistani Nuwe (BBC Monitoring Middle East), 3 October (LN). 68. ‘‘Turkmens Seek U.S. to End Kurdish Domination in Kirkuk.’’ 2003. Turkish Probe, 21 September (LN). 69. Unlu, M. 2003. ‘‘New Leader of Turkmens Says Turkey Won’t Intervene in ITF’S Policies.’’ Turkish Daily News, 17 September.

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70. ‘‘Turkish Agency: Iraqi Turkmen Official Says Kirkuk Will Never Be Kurdish City.’’ 2003. Konya (BBC Monitoring International Reports), 23 December (LN). 71. ‘‘Arabs, Turkmen Demonstrate against Kurds in Kirkuk.’’ 2003. Agence France Presse, 31 December. 72. ‘‘Iraq: U.S. Colonel Says Demonstrators Fired at Kurdish Party Office in Kirkuk.’’ KurdSat (BBC Monitoring Middle East), 1 January (LN). 73. Ibid. 74. Candar, C. 2004. ‘‘Revisiting the Kirkuk Issue.’’ Turkish Daily News, 10 January (LN). 75. See International Crisis Group. 2004. ‘‘Can Local Government Save Iraq?’’ Middle East Report 33, Brussels, 27 October: 11. 76. As was the case with the original council, there was probably nothing that could have been done to satisfy Turkmen representatives, short of appointing a Turkmen majority on the council. 77. ‘‘Kirkuk Appoints Arabs, Women Councillors to Calm Tensions in Northern Iraq.’’ 2004. Agence France Presse, 15 January (LN). 78. Ibid. 79. With respect to the appointment of chiefs of police, section 6 (2) of order 71 only allowed the governorate council to choose from among candidates preselected by the Ministry of the Interior in Baghdad. The MoI could also unilaterally remove police chiefs. 80. ‘‘Premier Conveys Turkey’s Views to Turkmen, Iraqi Kurd Leaders.’’ 2004. Anatolia (BBC Monitoring Europe), 23 June (LN). 81. ‘‘Iraqi Turkmen Writer Views Kurdish Leader’s Turkey Visit, KurdTurkmen Ties.’’ 2004. Turkmenali (BBC Monitoring Middle East), 10 July (LN). 82. The National Council was supposed to operate alongside the IGC as a sort of protoparliamentary advisory body. Predictably, its influence over policy was negligible. 83. Constable, P. 2004. ‘‘Key Iraqi Conference on Track to Open: Delegates Will Choose Interim Oversight Body.’’ Washington Post, 28 July: A12. Chapter 8. The Kurds Triumphant 1. The text of section 2 of article 58 read as follows: ‘‘such individuals may be resettled, may receive compensation from the state, may receive new land from the state near their residence in the governorate from which they came, or may receive compensation for the cost of moving to such areas’’ (emphasis added). The repeated use of the word ‘‘may’’ strongly suggests that none of this was obligatory. 2. Section B of article 53 prohibited any changes to governorate boundaries during the transition period, while section C prevented Baghdad and Kirkuk from becoming part of larger regions. 3. If unable to agree unanimously on the recommendations, the presidency council was to agree unanimously on a neutral arbitrator; failing this, the council was to request the UN secretary general to appoint a ‘‘distinguished international person’’ as arbitrator. 4. Though the Kurds did make other compromises—on management of natural resources and on veto power over central government laws, for example— they gained in return a number of important concessions. Article 53(A) officially recognized the KRG and the territory over which it had governed since

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1991; article 9 made Kurdish Iraq’s second official language; and article 54 allowed the Kurds to control their own internal security and impose taxes within the region. More broadly, they helped design a system of political institutions at the center that would help the Kurds to defend their gains. For example, the two-thirds requirement to invest a new government made any government difficult to form without Kurdish participation, while the three-member PC gave the Kurds (presumably) a guaranteed position of executive influence. For a detailed analysis of Kurdish gains in the TAL, see O’Leary, B. 2005. ‘‘Power-Sharing, Pluralist Federations, and Federacy.’’ In B. O’Leary, J. McGarry, and Khalid Salih (eds.), The Future of Kurdistan in Iraq. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press: 47–91. 5. The Kurdish veto was deeply controversial and was strongly opposed by Shi’i clerical leaders in Najaf, including Ayatollah Sistani. This controversy nearly derailed the signing of the document. For details, see Allawi, A. A. 2007. The Occupation of Iraq: Winning the War, Losing the Peace. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press: 222–24. 6. Beaumont, P. 2004. ‘‘Premature Rejoicing in Kirkuk.’’ Guardian, 9 March: 13. 7. ‘‘Arab Tribes Rally against Iraq Oil City’s Inclusion in Kurdish Region.’’ 2004. Agence France Presse, 27 January. 8. ‘‘Iraqi Kurds Ransack Turkmen Party Offices Again.’’ 2004. Agence France Presse, 3 March. 9. See Human Rights Watch. 2004. ‘‘Claims in Conflict: Reversing Ethnic Cleansing in Northern Iraq.’’ Human Rights Watch Report.16.4(E): 58. 10. Ibid.: 66. 11. Ibid.: 71. 12. See CPA Program Review Board Minutes. 15 May 2004 (http://www.cpa -iraq.org/budget/PRB/May15_PRB.html). It is not clear how the CPA came up with this figure or how they were able to differentiate between those Arabs who had fled of their own accord and those who had been ‘‘illegally’’ evicted. 13. ‘‘100,000 Arabs Evicted by Kurds in Iraq.’’ 2004. United Press International, 11 June. 14. For a brief but perceptive synopsis, see Lawrence, Q. 2008. Invisible Nation: How the Kurds’ Quest for Statehood Is Shaping Iraq and the Middle East. New York: Walker & Company: 223. 15. Steele, J. 2004. ‘‘Oil Town Looks to Property Tribunal for Justice.’’ Guardian, 8 July (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/jul/08/iraq.jonathan steele1). 16. ‘‘Iraqi Property Commission Failing, 167,400 Displaced Persons since March: US.’’ 2004. Agence France Presse, 3 September (LN). 17. Packer, G. 2004. ‘‘The Next Iraqi War: What Kirkuk’s Struggle to Reverse Saddam’s Ethnic Cleansing Signals for the Future of Iraq.’’ New Yorker, 4 October (http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2004/10/04/041004fa fact). 18. Filkins, D. 2004. ‘‘Kurds Advancing to Reclaim Land in Northern Iraq.’’ New York Times, 20 June: 1. 19. ‘‘Iraq: Turkmen, Arab Settlers Clash over Land Ownership.’’ 2004. Kurdistani Nuwe (BBC Monitoring International Reports), 4 August (LN). 20. ‘‘Iraq: Official Statistics Show 503 ‘Terrorist’ Acts in Kirkuk in Six Months.’’ 2004. Kurdistani Nuwe (BBC Monitoring International Reports), 30 July (LN). 21. Bremer’s original plan for restoring sovereignty to Iraq had involved an

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immensely complex three-stage process for the ‘‘election’’ of a Transitional National Assembly by the end of May 2004. The plan was left in shreds when Ayatollah Sistani, at this point the most powerful voice in Iraqi politics, refused to sanction any process that did not involve direct elections. 22. Allawi. The Occupation of Iraq: 285. 23. ‘‘Letter from Barzani and Talabani to President Bush.’’ 2004. Kurdistan Observer, 1 June (http://home.cogego.ca/⬃kurdistan3/5-6-04-letter-bush-from -b-and-t.htm). 24. In deliberately omitting mention of the TAL in UNSCR, the US capitulated to the demands of Ayatollah Sistani, among others. In a 6 June letter to the Security Council, Sistani had described the TAL as illegitimate because it had not been drafted by an elected body, and he warned of ‘‘dangerous consequences’’ if the TAL’s provisions were incorporated into the resolution. Among Sistani’s major concerns was the Kurdish veto provision, which he saw as a mechanism that could be used by the (non-Shi’i) minority to obstruct the will of the (Shi’i) majority. This, of course, was precisely the point of the article. 25. ‘‘Iraqi Turkmen Islamic Movement Issues Statement on Sidelining of Role.’’ 2004. Turkmenali, 14 June (WNC). For a similar line of argument from a senior ITF official, see ‘‘Iraqi Turkmen Member Calls for Participation in New Government.’’ 2004. Turkmenali, 5 June (WNC). 26. ‘‘Two Main Kurdish Leaders Urge Postponement Kirkuk Municipal Elections, until Kurds’ Normalization.’’ 2004. Associated Press Worldstream, 17 November. 27. ‘‘Iraqi Turkmen Parties Reject Delay in Kirkuk Council Elections.’’ 2004. Turkmenali (BBC Monitoring Middle East), 27 November (LN). 28. In the absence of reliable census data, the voter registration system was based on ration cards issued as part of the UN’s oil-for-food program during the 1990s. Those returning to Kirkuk from outside the governorate lacked the Kirkuk-issued ration cards to document their status as Kirkuk residents. 29. ‘‘Iraq: Kurds Threaten to Boycott Kirkuk Governorate Election.’’ 2004. Kurdistan Newsline (BBC Monitoring Middle East), 22 December (LN). Yahya Hadidi resigned from the KEC the day after the publication of the Kurdish letter. Subsequently the KEC was reorganized by the council on the basis of equal representation for all four ethnic groups. 30. ‘‘Iraqi Kurdish Leader Reports ‘Good Result’ on Kirkuk in Baghdad Talks.’’ 2005. Kurdistan Satellite TV (BBC Monitoring Middle East), 15 January (LN). 31. ‘‘Iraq: Turkmens Protest against Kurdish Domination in Kirkuk.’’ 2005. Turkmenali (BBC Monitoring Middle East), 27 January (LN). 32. ‘‘Iraqi Turkmen Front Decides to Participate in Kirkuk Council Elections.’’ 2005. Turkmenali (BBC Monitoring Middle East), 28 January (LN). 33. ‘‘Iraq: Kurdish Leaders Form Joint Election List, Discuss Topical Issues.’’ 2005. KDP Satellite TV (BBC Monitoring International Reports), 2 December (LN) 34. The ITF has included, at various stages, between four and six political parties. At the time of the January 2005 elections there were four member parties. 35. ‘‘Iraq: Turkmen Front Leader on Participation in Elections, Situation in Kirkuk.’’ 2004. Al-Mustaqbal Web site (BBC Monitoring Middle East), 30 November (LN). 36. Also outside the ITF was the more extreme Turkmen National Move-

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ment, a party with rumored links to Turkey’s Gray Wolves paramilitary organization. 37. Muqtada al-Sadr’s movement had probably gained more grassroots support than any other Shi’i Arab organization in Kirkuk and might conceivably have been able to mobilize the city’s Shi’i Arab base, but al-Sadr had refused to participate in elections held under occupation. 38. For the Kirkuk election, however, the NRL fielded a slate of only six candidates, which was, no doubt, a pessimistic but realistic assessment of its prospects. 39. The system eventually written into CPA Order Number 93 (the Electoral Law) treated Iraq as a single electoral constituency and adopted the Hare quota (total votes/total seats) for the allocation of seats in parliament to parties. The law established no electoral threshold, meaning that any party obtaining the quota would achieve representation. 40. For a variety of reasons a single-member district plurality system penalizes smaller parties whose support base is geographically dispersed. A PR-based system avoids this problem. 41. Variations on the basic PR system were considered, such as using governorates as electoral districts and then allocating each governorate a number of seats on the basis of population. This was the system eventually used in the December 2005 national elections. In June 2004 Bremer rejected this proposal on the recommendation of UN advisers because the seat allocation issue was deemed to be too controversial. For details, see Diamond, L. 2005. Squandered Victory: The American Occupation and the Bungled Effort to Bring Democracy to Iraq. New York: Times Books: 269. 42. Under normal circumstances there is nothing unreasonable or unfair about a system that rewards those who choose to vote in large numbers and penalizes those who choose to stay home. It was not clear, however, whether Sunni Arabs chose to stay home in deference to the boycott or were intimidated to do so by the threat of violence. 43. ‘‘Iraqi Turkmen Document Details Kurdish Election Rigging in Iraq.’’ 2005. Assyrian International News Agency, 6 February (http://www.aina.org/ news/20050206115345.htm). 44. ‘‘ ‘Free and Fair’ Elections a Fable.’’ 2005. Kurdish Life, Winter: 2 (http:// findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0SBM/is_53/ai_n13805780/pg_1). 45. ‘‘Kurds Prevent Assyrian Representation, Continue Divisive Formula in Iraq.’’ 2005. Assyrian International News Agency, 28 March (http://www .aina.org/releases/20050328112133.htm). 46. After accounting for the effects of an Arab boycott, the pattern of results from the January 2005 election in Kirkuk did not differ greatly from the much more closely monitored December election. For the December elections, international observers were present in Kirkuk from a variety of NGOs. 47. The National Rafidain List’s total vote across Iraq was 36,255, of which 18,538 were obtained from voters outside the country. 48. In Kirkuk the IRA received over 43,000 votes for the governorate election but only 6,000 for the national election. 49. The ING received only 765 votes from Kirkuk for the national election. Its national total of over 18,000 votes was mainly composed of the more than 15,000 votes the party received in Salahadin governorate. 50. In the Diyala governorate election, the front polled less than one-half of 1 percent. In Ninevah the front’s share of the vote was a little under 2 percent.

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51. Turnout as a whole in Salahadin was a shade under 30 percent. With such a low turnout, the front was able to achieve five seats on the council based on fewer than 15,000 votes. 52. Indeed, relative to its performance nationwide, the ITF’s showing in Kirkuk governorate was a triumph in that over 65,000 of its total 93,000 votes across Iraq as a whole were obtained in Kirkuk. 53. Of the approximately 35,000 Iraqi Turkmens in Turkey, many of whom might have been expected to vote for the front, fewer than 4,000 actually voted. 54. Birand, M. A. 2005. ‘‘Imitation Raki Won’t Affect Us(!).’’ Turkish Daily News, 5 March (http://www.turkishdailynews.com.tr/article.php?enewsid⳱ 7476). 55. International Crisis Group. 2006. Iraq and the Kurds: The Brewing Battle over Kirkuk.’’ Brussels: ICG Middle East Report 56, 18 July: 21. 56. Dawde, S. 2005. ‘‘New Strategy for Turkmen Bloc.’’ Journal of Turkish Weekly Opinion, 10 March (http://www.turkishweekly.net/comments.php? id⳱434). 57. ‘‘Turkmen Leader Congratulates New Iraqi President.’’ 2005. Turkmenali (BBC Monitoring Middle East), 11 April (LN). Other front members were less generous. For example, the front’s Ankara representative, Ahmet Muratli, struggled mightily to find something positive to say about Talabani’s election. In the end he managed to say, ‘‘we are confident that Talabani will not make mistakes as did Saddam,’’ but not before pointing out that having a Kurd as president was yet further evidence that the Kurds were the ‘‘most rewarded’’ ethnic group in Iraq. See ‘‘Iraqi Turkmen Front Announces Support for Talabani as President.’’ 2005. Anatolia (BBC Monitoring International Reports), 13 April (LN). 58. Ridolfo, K. 2005. ‘‘Iraq: Will the Turkmen Split Break Turkish Interference?’’ RFE/RL, 6 May. 59. In April 2003, shortly after the fall of the previous regime, the leadership council of the front shifted its base of operations from Erbil to Kirkuk. Subsequently the front devoted the lion’s share of its resources to Kirkuk at the expense of branches elsewhere. Moreover, the front’s hostile stance toward the two Kurdish parties cost the party dear in Kurdish-controlled governorates. In Erbil, home to tens if not hundreds of thousands of Turkmen, the front obtained less than one-third of 1 percent of the vote in the governorate election. 60. The Kurds won thirty-one of forty-one council seats in Ninevah, twentysix in Kirkuk, eight in Salahadin, and seven in Diyala. 61. The three Kurdish governorates enjoyed, by some distance, the highest voter turnout in the country (Dohuk, 92 percent; Erbil, 84 percent; and Sulaimaniya, 82 percent). By contrast, the turnout in predominantly Sunni Arab regions was the lowest. In Anbar, for example, turnout for the national election was under 2 percent. 62. Kashmula had been appointed to the office in June 2004 after the assassination of the former governor. 63. Because the two main Kurdish parties ran on the same list, there are no concrete data to prove that the PUK has a larger support base than the KDP. However, even KDP officials privately concede that the PUK is the larger party in Kirkuk, and this is reflected in allocation of KBL seats and in the balance of representation on other Kirkuk-related bodies, such as the Article 140 Committee. 64. Anie, M., and J. Spinner. 2005. ‘‘Regional Kurdish Victory Could Lead

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to Conflict: Results Anger Turkmens and Arabs in Kirkuk.’’ Washington Post, 14 February: A08. 65. ‘‘Iraqi Kurdish Leader Talabani Hails Poll Success in Kirkuk.’’ 2005. KurdSat (BBC Monitoring Middle East), 15 February (LN). 66. Sanders, E. 2005. ‘‘The Conflict in Iraq: Kurds Wield New Power in Kirkuk Politics.’’ Los Angeles Times, 27 March: A5. 67. ‘‘Groups in Kirkuk Far from Making Concessions.’’ 2005. Tharwa Review of Events in Iraqi Kurdistan, 17–23 May (http://www.tharwaproject.org/node/ 2620噛Groups_in_Kirkuk_far_from_making_concessions). 68. These issues are discussed more fully below in Chapter 10. 69. ‘‘Efforts to Form Kirkuk Council Continue Despite Differences among Lists.’’ 2005. Kurdistani Nuwe (BBC Monitoring Middle East), 11 May (LN). 70. ‘‘Iraqi Turkmens Demand Post of Kirkuk Deputy Governor.’’ 2005. Kurdistani Nuwe (BBC Monitoring Middle East), 14 May (LN). 71. ‘‘Iraqi Minister Comments on Delayed Funding for Kirkuk Reconstruction.’’ 2005. Khabat (BBC Monitoring Middle East), 27 November (LN). 72. ‘‘Everybody’s Business Is Nobody’s Business in Kirkuk.’’ 2005. Kurdish Media, 5 April. Reposted at http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2005/04/05/ 17315131.php. 73. The CPA’s order 71 on the powers of local government made the appointment of provincial police chiefs a shared power. In the event of a vacancy, the Ministry of Interior in Baghdad was to submit a list of qualified candidates to the relevant governorate council, from which the council was to select the winning candidate by a majority vote. In terms of dismissal, police chiefs could be removed by either the Ministry of Interior or a two-thirds vote in the council. 74. ‘‘Iraqi Ministry Replaces Kurdish Officials in Kirkuk, Diyala.’’ 2005. Khabat (BBC Monitoring Middle East), 20 December (LN). 75. Director Mubarek became the frequent target of hostile Kurdish media attention for, among other things, blocking the distribution of year-end exams in the Kurdish language and starving the Directorate of Kurdish Education in Kirkuk of resources. According to the complaints of the directorate’s head, Yousif Saeed, ‘‘the director general of the KGDE [Kirkuk General Directorate of Education] not only refuses to cooperate and coordinate with us but also resorts to all possible means to put obstacles in our way.’’ See Abdulla, S. 2005. ‘‘The Dire Situation of the Directorate of Kurdish Education in Kirkuk.’’ Kurdish Media, 20 April. 76. ‘‘Iraqi Kurdish PUK Official Says Oil Company Not Employing Enough Kurds.’’ 2005. Kurdistani Nuwe (BBC Worldwide Monitoring), 21 February (LN). 77. Strikingly, the US’s National Public Radio (NPR) broadcast a news story from Kirkuk in April 2005 about ‘‘what has not happened in Kirkuk.’’ According to the broadcast, ‘‘The city in northeastern Iraq has not seen open conflict between competing ethnic groups, and that’s news.’’ See ‘‘Lack of Violence despite Ongoing Ethnic Tensions in Kirkuk.’’ 2005. National Public Radio broadcast, 18 April (LN). 78. Fainaru, S., and A. Shadid. 2005. ‘‘Kurdish Officials Sanction Abductions in Kirkuk: U.S. Memo Says Arabs, Turkmens Secretly Sent to the North.’’ Washington Post, 15 June: A01. 79. See ‘‘Iraqi Turkmen Leader Reacts to Kurd, Shi’i Coalition Agreement on Kirkuk.’’ 2005. Al-Jazeera (BBC Monitoring International Reports), 11 March (LN). 80. The presidency council’s only real power, other than the formality of

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nominating the prime minister, was to veto bills passed by the National Assembly. However, a veto required unanimity on the council, and it was almost impossible to envisage a scenario in which a bill supported by a majority in the assembly would be unanimously rejected by representatives of the parties (SCIRI and the Kurdistan Alliance) that dominated the assembly. 81. The eight were Rowsch Shaways (deputy prime minister), Hoshyar Zebari (foreign minister), Barham Salih (planning and development), Nisrin Barwari (municipalities and public works), Juwan Fouad Masum (telecommunications), Latif Rasid (water resources), Narmin Othman (environment), Abdel Basit Karim Mawloud (trade), and Idris Hadi (labor and social affairs). 82. See, for example, Rawanduzi, Firyad. 2004. ‘‘Al-Ja’fari’s Agenda and Article 58.’’ Al-Ittihad (BBC Monitoring Middle East), 1 June (LN). 83. The breakdown of seats on the committee according to political factions was as follows: UIA, 28 seats; Kurdistan Alliance, 15; Iraqi List, 8; National Rafidain List, 1; Front of Iraqi Turkmens, 1; People’s Union, 1; Patriotic Cadres and Elites, 1. The committee was chaired by the UIA’s Humam Hamoudi, the Kurdistan Alliance’s Fuad Ma’soum was made ‘‘first’’ deputy chairman, and the Iraqi List’s Adnan al-Janabi (a Sunni Arab) became ‘‘second’’ deputy chairman. 84. The front’s seats in the National Assembly translated into about 1.1 percent of the assembly’s total seats. Its one spot on the committee translated into about 1.8 percent of total committee seats. 85. For a highly critical assessment of the drafting process and the problems associated with the lack of Sunni Arab representation and efforts to address this, see International Crisis Group. 2005. Iraq: Don’t Rush the Constitution. Brussels: ICG Middle East Report 42, 8 June: 3–5. 86. In principle, the idea of decision making by consensus should have led to a compromise document that was broadly acceptable to all communities. In practice, however, the positions of Sunni Arab committee members on key issues—such as federalism, the Arab identity of the state, and Kirkuk—were so far removed from those of the Kurds and SCIRI that any compromise was all but impossible within the allotted time line. 87. Article 119, modified at the last moment at the insistence of SCIRI, allowed governorates to join together to form larger federal regions. Unlike the TAL, which capped the size of regions at no more than three governorates, the constitution contained no such cap. This opened up the possibility of a ninegovernorate superregion emerging in the south, a prospect that greatly alarmed the Sunni community for obvious reasons. 88. The confusion here is that article 110 lists the ‘‘exclusive authorities’’ of the federal government and includes neither the management of the oil and gas sector nor the distribution of revenues. These are also not specifically included in article 114 as shared powers. However, article 115 states that ‘‘all powers not stipulated in the exclusive powers of the federal government belong to the authorities of the regions.’’ The reference to ‘‘present fields’’ was intentional, according to Ali Allawi, and designed precisely to exclude the federal government from the management of future fields. See Allawi. The Occupation of Iraq: 414–15. 89. These proposed amendments were to be presented to the council of representatives as a package and approved on the basis of a simple majority vote in that council and a popular referendum. The package could be rejected by twothirds of voters in three or more governorates. 90. Along with article 140, the ITF’s opposition to the constitution was based

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on its failure to recognize Turkmens as the ‘‘third’’ major component of Iraq (after Arabs and Kurds). The ADM opposed the document primarily because it distinguished Chaldeans and Assyrians as ethnic groups, thereby (in the view of the ADM) deliberately fragmenting Iraq’s Christian community. 91. The exception was Diyala, where the draft was approved by a wafer-thin margin of 51-48 percent. 92. Wong, E. 2005. ‘‘Kurds’ Return to City Shakes Politics in Iraq.’’ New York Times, 14 March: A01. 93. Fainaru, S. 2005. ‘‘Kurds Reclaiming Prized Territory in Northern Iraq: Repatriation by Political Parties Alters Demographics and Sparks Violence.’’ Washington Post, 30 October: A01. 94. Wong, E. 2005. ‘‘Kurds Are Flocking to Kirkuk, Laying Claim to Land and Oil.’’ New York Times, 29 December: A12. Chapter 9. The Kurds Denied 1. Of the council’s 275 seats, 230 were allocated in this manner. The remaining 45 ‘‘compensatory’’ and ‘‘national’’ seats were distributed, first, to parties that had polled above a certain threshold nationally but had not won a governorate seat and, subsequently, to other parties on the basis of a ‘‘national quota.’’ 2. Basically, this adjustment was designed to guarantee a certain level of Arab Sunni representation in the council. The largely Sunni Anbar governorate, for example, was allocated nine seats and would elect nine representatives whether voter turnout was 1 or 100 percent. 3. The UIA formally incorporated the Sadrist movement and Fadilla but lost Ahmed Chalabi’s Iraqi National Congress, while the most important change for the Kurdish list (the Kurdistan Alliance) was the defection of the KIU. 4. Between the January and December elections, the number of registered voters in Kirkuk increased from approximately 576,000 to 691,000. 5. Though voter turnout was high in Kirkuk, some 14 percent of registered voters (over ninety thousand individuals) did not vote. Kurdish-dominated governorates had consistently exhibited the highest turnout rates in the country, so it seems unlikely that this group of registered nonvoters contained a high proportion of Kurds. Assuming, for the sake of argument, that none of the ninety thousand was Kurdish, then the Kurdistan Alliance’s 53 percent of those voting translates into just over 45 percent of Kirkuk’s population of registered voters. 6. An additional reason for the decline in Kurdish seats was the greater disproportionality of the electoral system used in the December elections. By assigning seats to governorates on the basis of estimated population rather than turnout, the Kurds received reduced benefit from their high turnout. The major beneficiaries of this were the UIA (46.7 percent of the seats with 41.2 percent of the votes) and the major Sunni Arab parties. 7. ‘‘Red’’ complaints were those deemed to have the potential to affect the results of an election. 8. Fischer, J. 2006. ‘‘Council of Representatives Election Composite Report Iraq: December 15, 2005, Final Report.’’ Center for Transitional and Post-Conflict Governance, 20 February. 9. The controversy actually stemmed from registration for the constitutional referendum. In all, an extra eighty-one thousand mainly Kurdish voters had registered during the final two days of registration in late August. After initially

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threatening to invalidate the votes of these eighty-one thousand in the December election, the IECI eventually backed down in the face of Kurdish pressure. 10. ‘‘Turkmens Complain Kurds Cheated in Elections in Kirkuk.’’ 2005. Turkish Daily News (Internet Version-WWW), 17 December (WNC). 11. ‘‘Iraqi Protests Continue in Kirkuk.’’ 2005. CNN.com, 29 December (LN). 12. The inclusion of the INL in a unity government was deeply unpopular in certain quarters. Muqtada al-Sadr, in particular, was strongly opposed due mainly to (then) Prime Minister Allawi’s strong backing of US forces’ efforts to destroy the Mahdi army during 2004. 13. Garwood, P. 2006. ‘‘Iraqi Kurds Flex Muscles over Kirkuk in Talks on New Government.’’ Associated Press, 15 February. 14. Two other candidates for the premiership, the Islamic Virtue Party’s Nadim al-Jabiri and the independent Hussein al-Shahristani, both withdrew their nominations prior the vote. 15. In turn, this threat apparently influenced some independents to vote for al-Jaafari in preference to the chaos that would likely accompany a Sadrist withdrawal. On this, see Worth, R. F., and S. Tavernise. 2006. ‘‘Radical Cleric Rising as a Kingmaker in Iraqi Politics.’’ New York Times, 16 February: A18. 16. Ibid. 17. The US was also firmly opposed to Jaafari’s continued tenure as Prime Minister. Zalmay Khalizad reportedly informed SCIRI’s leader al-Hakim that President Bush ‘‘doesn’t want, doesn’t support, and doesn’t accept that Jaafari should form the next government.’’ See Allawi. The Occupation of Iraq: 443. 18. Negus, S. 2006. ‘‘Kirkuk Dispute Bedevils Iraq’s Political Crisis.’’ Financial Times, 11 March: 9. 19. According to Kurdish sources, an additional bone of contention was that Jaafari included Turkmens but no Kurds in his delegation. 20. ‘‘Al-Ja’fari Won’t Let Kirkuk Return to Kurdistan.’’ 2006. Chawder (BBC Monitoring International Reports), 28 March (LN). 21. The only major factions that stayed out of the unity government were the INDF (which criticized the government for being too ‘‘sectarian’’) and the Islamic Virtue Party (which deplored US interference in the process of government formation and was overlooked for the Oil Ministry). Four smaller parties, including the KIU, also declined to participate. Overall, the various components of the government controlled 240 and the council of representatives controlled 275 seats. 22. The KDP claimed the Ministries of Construction and Housing (Bayan Dezei) and Industry and Minerals (the Assyrian Fawzi Hariri), while the PUK headed up Water Resources (Abdul-Latif Rashid) and the Environment (Narmin Othman). 23. This was an important difference in the powers of the presidency council under the TAL and under the permanent constitution. Under the former, unanimity was required among the three members in order to veto; under the latter, unanimity was required in order to approve legislation. 24. Idiz, S. 2006. ‘‘Ankara’s Self Criticism Regarding the Turkmens.’’ Milliyet (Internet Version-WWW), 31 January (WNC). 25. Cetinsaya, G. 2006. The New Iraq, the Middle East and Turkey: A Turkish View. Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research (SETA), Report SE1– 406, April: 47–48. 26. Ibid.: 48.

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27. ‘‘Turkey: MIT Issues Secret Report on Kirkuk, Iraqi Kurds’ Intentions.’’ 2006. Milliyet (Internet Version-WWW), 29 December (WNC). 28. The latter proposal was implausible because it stood no chance of being acceptable to the Kurds who would certainly lose an Iraq-wide vote on the future of Kirkuk. For examples of the various Turkish proposals, see ‘‘Turkish Columnist Views Ankara’s Assessments, Expectations Regarding Iraq.’’ 2006. Milliyet (Internet Version-WWW), 31 January (WNC); and ‘‘Turkey: Erdogan Seeks Special Status for Kirkuk in Meeting with Rice.’’ 2006. Milliyet (Internet VersionWWW), 28 April (WNC). 29. ‘‘Turkey Seeks Pre-Referendum Deal on Kirkuk’s Status.’’ 2006. Turkish Daily News, 10 August (LN). 30. For various examples of ITF representatives using this sort of language, see‘‘Turkey: ITC Chairman Ergec Warns of Approaching Danger in Kirkuk.’’ 2007. Anatolia, 10 January (WNC); ‘‘Turkmen Official Warns against Massacre in Iraq’s Kirkuk.’’ 2007. Anatolia, 8 January (LN); and ‘‘Iraqi Turkmen Complain of Kurdish Attacks.’’ 2006. Turkish Daily News, 14 March (LN). 31. For data on volume and frequency of attacks, see Brookings Institution. 2007. Iraq Index: Tracking Variables of Reconstruction & Security in Post-Saddam Iraq. 21 December: 27 (http://www.brookings.edu/saban/⬃/media/Files/Centers/ Saban/Iraq%20Index/index20071221.pdf ). 32. ‘‘Unrest Worsens in Northern Iraq.’’ 2006. National Public Radio, 2 February (LN). 33. ‘‘Iraqi Kurdish TV: Car Bomb Kills More than 100 in Kirkuk.’’ 2006. KDP Satellite TV (BBC Monitoring International Reports), 23 July (LN). 34. Howard, M. 2006. ‘‘Iraq: As Violence Grows, Oil-Rich Kirkuk Could Hold Key to Iraq’s Future: Tribal Chiefs Call for Return of Saddam while Kurds Eye a New Federal State.’’ Guardian, 27 October: 22. 35. ‘‘Iraq Urged to Lessen Kirkuk Ethnic Tension.’’ 2006. United Press International, 21 April. 36. Almost all of the bombings in the city that produced significant civilian casualties were actually targeted at security forces or symbols of political authority. 37. Steele, J. 2006. ‘‘Comment & Debate: Iraq Is Already Enduring Two Wars; Could It Survive a Third? The Competing Claims of Arabs, Turkmens and Kurds in the Oil-Rich Iraqi North Are an Explosion Waiting to Happen.’’ Guardian, 1 December: 39. 38. ‘‘Iraqi Turkmen Complain of Kurdish Attacks.’’ 2006. Turkish Daily News, 14 March. 39. ‘‘Turkmen Official Warns against Massacre in Iraq’s Kirkuk.’’ 2007. Anatolia, 8 January (LN). 40. ‘‘Turkmen Groups in Turkey Hold Kurds Responsible for Tuz Khurmatu Blast.’’ 2007. Anatolia, 9 July (WNC). 41. ‘‘Iraqi Turkmen Leader Warns Kirkuk Is ‘a Powder Keg.’ ’’ 2007. Anatolia, 10 January (LN). 42. Barzani’s reasonable point was that the Ba’thist version of the Iraqi flag was synonymous with the violent oppression of the Kurds. Barzani’s objection, therefore, was not to an Iraqi flag (of whatever design) but to a specifically Ba’thist Iraqi flag. However, it seemed to play into the hands of those arguing that the Kurds wanted Kirkuk (and its oil) in order to ensure the viability of an independent Kurdish state, and that once the Kurds had control of the city, secession would inevitably follow.

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43. See, for example, Farrell, S. 2007. ‘‘As Iraqis Vie for Kirkuk’s Oil, Kurds Are Pawns.’’ New York Times, 9 December. 44. See Human Rights Watch, Reaping the Whirlwind. 45. ‘‘Northern Iraq City’s Fragile Ethnic Mix Perseveres.’’ 2006. Agence France Presse, 17 April. 46. Ibid. 47. ICG. ‘‘Iraq and the Kurds’’: 9. 48. ‘‘Al-Ubayd Tribe Threatens to Boycott Iraq Political Process.’’ 2006. AlHayat (BBC Monitoring International Reports), 25 October (LN). 49. ‘‘Arab, Turkmen Members Boycott Meetings of Kirkuk’s Provincial Council.’’ 2006. Associated Press Worldstream, 16 November. 50. ‘‘Iraqi Turkmen Official Accuses Kurds of Trying to Control Multi-Ethnic Kirkuk.’’ 2007. Hawlati (BBC Monitoring International Reports), 15 February (LN). The commission, appointed in August 2006, initially contained two Turkmen members, neither of whom was a representative of the ITF. 51. ‘‘Iraqi Kurdish Paper Interviews Kirkuk Governorate Council Chairman.’’ 2007. Aso (BBC Monitoring International Reports), 30 October (LN). 52. ‘‘Northern Iraq City’s Fragile Ethnic Mix Perseveres.’’ 2006. Agence France Presse, 17 April. 53. The Interior Ministry exercised this power in March 2006 when it issued an order to ‘‘retire’’ Kurdish police chief Shirku Shakir. See ‘‘Iraqi Interior Ministry Dismisses Kirkuk Police Chief.’’ 2006. Al-Furat, 8 March (WNC). 54. ‘‘Iraqi Army Takes the Lead in Kirkuk Province.’’ 2006. Defense Department Documents and Publications, 1 September (LN). 55. For 2006 the budget for the entire governorate was only slightly over $81 million, only 10 percent of which had been paid by June. For details, see ‘‘Iraq: Kirkuk Official Criticizes Central Government Inaction.’’ 2006. Govari Gulan, 20 March (WNC). 56. A number of PRT-led projects were undertaken in 2006, including the physical rehabilitation of Kirkuk’s railway station and the commencement of construction on a major landfill capable of dealing with the waste of approximately 750,000 people. 57. ‘‘Iraq: Kirkuk Governor’s Complaints against Baghdad Regarding Article 140.’’ 2006. Kurdistani Nuwe, 21 June (WNC). 58. The problem was that the four parties involved—the Kurdish People’s Democratic Movement, the Kurdistan Liberation Party, the Kurdistan Democratic Solution Party, and the Kurdistan Democratic Movement—had neither the resources nor the popular support to provide a credible opposition to the two established parties. 59. Col. Michael Browder, the US officer in charge of reorganizing the police, asked for written guarantees on the part of the PUK and KDP that they would stop interfering in the police department. Reportedly, the PUK was willing to sign, but the KDP refused unless Arab parties were also required to sign the pledge. 60. Committees to oversee the work of the 140 Committee were subsequently established in Baghdad and within the KRG. 61. The appointment of Ashur Yelda appears to have been under the mistaken belief that he was still a member of the Kirkuk Council. 62. ‘‘Iraqi Turkmen Leader Supports Kirkuk Normalization, Not Referendum—Paper.’’ 2006. Aso (BBC Monitoring International Reports), 14 September (LN).

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63. ‘‘Iraqi Kurdish Newspaper Comments on Formation of Kirkuk Status Committee.’’ 2006. Aso (BBC Monitoring International Reports), 27 August (LN). 64. ‘‘Iraqi Kurds Object to Adding Turkmen to Kirkuk Committee.’’ 2006. Hawlati (BBC Monitoring International Reports), 26 October (LN). 65. The first stage (normalization) was scheduled to be completed by the end of July; the second (census), by mid-March; and the third (referendum), by midNovember. 66. The 140 Committee was formed to deal not just with Kirkuk but also with all of the territories referred to in article 58/140 as ‘‘disputed.’’ It is far from clear, however, that there was any consensus as to which territories belonged in this category, nor how the boundaries of these territories were defined. 67. ‘‘Iraqi Kurdish PM Says Breakthrough Made in Talks with Baghdad.’’ 2006. Kurdistan Satellite TV, 20 December (WNC). 68. Rhetorically, almost all groups in Kirkuk, including the ITF and the Iraqi Republican Assembly, claimed to be in favor of implementing article 140, at least in principle. 69. The latter decision also covered land forcibly confiscated from the owners for constructing military bases. 70. ‘‘Iraqi Kurdish Minister Says Nobody to Be Forced to Leave Kirkuk.’’ 2007. Kurdistan Satellite TV, 8 February (WNC). 71. International Crisis Group. 2007. ‘‘Iraq and the Kurds: Resolving the Kirkuk Crisis.’’ Middle East Report 64, 19 April: 6. 72. ‘‘Iraqi Kurdistan Minister Denies Forcible Deportation of Arabs from Kirkuk.’’ 2007. AlJazeera (BBC Monitoring International Reports), 8 February (LN). 73. Muhammed, A. 2007. ‘‘Article 140 to Translate Talks about Kirkuk to Deeds.’’ Kurdish Globe, 14 February. 74. Senanayake, S. 2007. ‘‘Iraq: Committee Decision Increases Tensions in Kirkuk.’’ Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 8 February (http://www.rferl.org/ featuresarticle/2007/02/3a63f415-eb59–4a80-b97e-64c24566 1555.html). 75. Ibid. 76. ‘‘Iraqi Shi’i leader in Tehran, Seeks to Revive U.S.-Iran Dialogue on Iraq.’’ 2007. Al-Bayyinah (BBC Monitoring Middle East), 9 February (LN). 77. Senanayake. ‘‘Iraq.’’ 78. For example, Qadir Aziz accused al-Maliki of wasting time, ‘‘so that ultimately—under the pretext that it is too late and there is no more time—they would make the delay of Article 140 a de facto state and impose it on the Kurds.’’ See Palani, S. 2007. ‘‘Iraqi Kurdish Official Criticizes PM’s ‘Negative Attitude’ on Kirkuk Article.’’ Aso (BBC Monitoring International Reports), 12 March (LN). 79. Despite persistent rumors in the media, Al-Shibli denied that his resignation had anything to do with the 140 Committee’s decisions. He claimed that the decision was the result of ‘‘disagreements’’ with both the INL and the government, though others suggested that he was due to be replaced by the prime minister imminently and had jumped before being pushed. 80. Hurst, S. R. 2007. ‘‘Iraq Endorses Contentious Plan to Relocate Arabs from Kirkuk.’’ Associated Press, 31 March. 81. The 2007 elections in Turkey proved particularly complex and controversial. Among the more intriguing elements was the decision of the AKP to put forward a candidate for president, a position typically viewed as a secular bulwark against Islamism.

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Notes to Pages 158–160

82. ‘‘Turkish Deputies Visit North Iraq, Draft Report, Warn against Kirkuk Referendum.’’ 2006. Anatolia, 6 October (WNC). Referring to Kirkuk, Comez stated, ‘‘the moment you enter the city, you are confronted with chaos. The war, coupled with the failure of 600,000 rural Kurds to adapt to urban life, has produced it.’’ See ‘‘Comez Reports on Tour of Northern Iraq.’’ 2006. Turkish Daily News, 8 October (LN). 83. Cited in Civaoglu, G. 2007. ‘‘Bleachers and Mevlana.’’ Milliyet (Internet Version-WWW), 18 January (WNC). 84. ‘‘DTP to Invite Talabani, Barzani to Celebrate Nevruz in Diyarbakir.’’ 2007. Milliyet, 26 February (WNC). 85. Mroue, B. 2007. ‘‘Kurdish Leader Warns Turkey Not to Intervene in Kirkuk.’’ Associated Press Worldstream, 7 April (LN). 86. ‘‘Turkey: Minister Tuzmen Views Barzani Remarks, Threatens ‘Iron Fist.’ ’’ 2007. Anatolia, 9 April (WNC). 87. ‘‘Turkish Government Said to Propose 10-Year UN Control of Kirkuk.’’ 2007. Sabah, 19 January (LN). 88. Article 142 of the constitution, included at the last moment in an effort to placate the Sunni Arab community, established a temporary process for constitutional amendments but contained a ‘‘Kurdish veto’’ whereby two-thirds of voters in three or more governorates could reject any package of amendments. 89. Full text of the report is available at http://www.usip.org/isg/iraq_ study_group_report/report/1206/iraq_study _group_report.pdf. 90. For a variety of reactions, though mostly negative, to the contents of the Baker-Hamilton Report, see the special edition of the electronic journal Strategic Insights (vol. 6, issue 2), especially O’Leary, B. ‘‘Iraq’s Future 101: The Failings of the Baker-Hamilton Report’’ (http://www.ccc.nps.navy.mil/si/2007/Mar/ introMar07.asp). 91. ‘‘U.S. Ambassador: Future of Kirkuk to Be Determined by Iraqis.’’ 2007. MENA, 16 January (WNC). 92. In Burns’s words, ‘‘We’ll be pleased to listen to the Turkish authorities but it’s going to be most important for the Iraqi authorities to deal with this question in the first place’’ (‘‘U.S. Says Kirkuk Decision up to Iraqis.’’ 2007. Turkish Daily News, 20 January). 93. ‘‘U.S.-Kurdish Rift Emerges on Kirkuk Referendum’s Timing.’’ 2007. Turkish Daily News, 12 April. 94. Khalilzad, Z. 2007. ‘‘Why the United Nations Belongs in Iraq.’’ New York Times, 20 July (http://nytimes.com/2007/07/20/opinion/20khalilzad.html?_ r⳱2&oref⳱slogin &oref⳱slogin). 95. Senanayake, S. 2007. ‘‘Iraq: Kirkuk Referendum Likely to Be Delayed.’’ Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 13 September. 96. Missing the July deadline for the census did not initially appear fatal to the implementation of 140 because a national census, which would include Kirkuk, was scheduled for 17 October 2007. The October census was, however, never conducted. 97. Naturally, the Kurds suspected delaying tactics on the part of the Iraqi government. However, finding an individual who was at least minimally acceptable to all groups and who was willing to accept the ‘‘poisoned chalice’’ of implementing article 140 was not an easy task. 98. Hendawi, H. 2007. ‘‘Kurdish Leader Warns of ‘‘Civil War’’ over Kirkuk.’’ Associated Press Worldstream, 31 July. 99. ‘‘Iraqi Kurdish Leader Hints at Accepting Delay on Kirkuk Article.’’ 2007. Kurdistan Satellite TV (BBC Monitoring International Reports), 19 June (LN).

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100. In fact, as early as June, Hawlati reported that Jalal Talabani had reached an agreement with President Bush on ‘‘extending the deadline’’ for article 140. 101. See Chapter 2 for details and relevant maps of the changes over time to the administrative boundaries of Kirkuk. 102. Efforts to prepare the disputed territories for absorption into the KRG had begun as early as September 2006, when Barzani dispatched political representatives to various disputed territories to invite them to become ‘‘administratively linked’’ to the KR. Barzani’s initiative coincided with a vote by the municipal council for both Mandali and Khanaqin to come under KRG administration. 103. ‘‘Thousands of Iraqi Arabs Paid to Leave Kirkuk.’’ 2007. Agence France Presse, 27 September. 104. ‘‘Census to Be Held in Oil-Rich Kirkuk in Mid-Nov 2007.’’ 2007. Rozhnama (BBC Monitoring International Reports), 4 October (LN). It was, however, somewhat optimistic to expect enthusiastic cooperation from the minister of planning, Ali Baban, a representative of the Sunni Arab Iraqi Islamic Party who was not overly sympathetic toward Kurdish ambitions in Kirkuk. 105. Moutot, M. 2007. ‘‘Trouble on the Doorstep of Kirkuk’s Disputed Homes.’’ Agence France Presse, 21 November. 106. Frayer, L. 2007. ‘‘Arab Lawmakers Win Power-Sharing Deal, Return to Kirkuk-Area Council after Yearlong Boycott.’’ Associated Press, 4 December. 107. Ibrahim, M. 2007. ‘‘Arabs and Kurds Reach Accord in Iraq’s Kirkuk.’’ Agence France Presse, 3 December. Ironically, it was Turkmen council member Ali Mahdi who had first suggested the 32:32:32:4 power-sharing arrangement. 108. UN Assistance Mission to Iraq (UNAMI). 2006. ‘‘Human Rights Report,’’ 1 November–31 December: 3 (http://www.uniraq.org/FileLib/misc/ HR%20Report%20Nov%20Dec%202006%20EN.pdf ). 109. International Crisis Group. 2007. Iraq and the Kurds: Resolving the Kirkuk Crisis. Middle East Report 64, 19 April: 17–18. 110. See, for example, O’Hanlon, M., and O. Taspinar. ‘‘Time for Kurdish Realism.’’ Washington Post, 18 February: A15; Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. 2008. ‘‘Iraq: Kurdish Ambitions Generate Backlash.’’ 26 January; Rubin, A. 2008. ‘‘Kurds’ Power Wanes as Arab Anger Rises.’’ New York Times, 1 February (http:// www.nytimes.com/2008/02/01/world/middleeast/01kurds.html? scp⳱2&sq⳱ kurds&st⳱nyt); and Oppel, R. A. 2007. ‘‘Kurds Reach New Oil Deals, Straining Ties with Baghdad.’’ New York Times, 4 October (http://www.nytimes.com/ 2007/10/04/world/middleeast/04kurds.html? scp⳱3&sq⳱kurds&st⳱nyt). 111. The Norwegian company DNO was the first to secure a deal with the KRG, closely followed by the Canadian firm Western Oil Sands. 112. To declare something ‘‘illegal’’ it must violate a law, and it is not clear which, if any, law was being violated by the Kurdish contracts. 113. The use of the term ‘‘present fields’’ in article 111 was consciously and deliberately intended to distinguish these from the management of future fields. Although management of future fields was not specifically allocated to the regions as a power, by any reasonable interpretation of article 115 this power belonged to the regions. 114. Although lawmakers devoted more than a year debating and drafting the federal oil and gas law, its contents proved so controversial that it had yet to be enacted by March 2008. For the Kurds, indeed, one of their key objections was to the listing of oil fields in the four annexes to the draft law. For other groups, such as the Sadrists and both Sunni Arab factions, the draft was unac-

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ceptable because it gave too little power to the central government to manage the oil industry. 115. Among the production sharing contracts announced by the KRG in early November 2007, for example, was one awarded to the Kurdistan National Oil Company (KNOC) to develop the Khurmala Dome oil field. This particular field is generally considered part of the Kirkuk field (making it a present field), but it falls inside the territory of the Erbil governorate, which makes it part of the Kurdistan Region. 116. Several political factions, most notably the Sunni blocs and the Sadrists, argued that the Kurds’ share should be reduced from 17 to 13 percent. 117. The NUP apparently comprises some 150 lawmakers, drawn from across the sectarian divide. This represents a clear majority of the council of representatives’ 275 members and so is potentially a very dangerous development for Kurdish political interests. 118. The Kurdistan Region depends almost entirely on Baghdad for its budget. Additionally, most of the resources at the disposal of the two Kurdish parties come from the central government. Central government funding is, therefore, vital to the economic well-being of the region and to maintaining the two parties in their positions of political preeminence. Chapter 10. The Struggle for Kirkuk: Problems of Process 1. On this, see ‘‘Iraq’s Kirkuk Governor Interviewed on Ownership, Other Issues.’’ 2007. Kurdistani Nuwe, 6 October (WNC). 2. For example, in 2007 the minister of the interior, Jawad Bollani, issued an order prohibiting the transfer of personal registration documents from one governorate to another. This was in response to the large-scale displacement of citizens due to escalating sectarian violence, but it applied equally to those individuals covered by article 140. 3. This design of this process was a classic example of the disconnect between CPA advisers in the ‘‘Emerald City’’ in Baghdad and the realities of everyday life in Iraq. For an extended treatment of this disconnect, see Chandrasekaran, R. 2007. Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq’s Green Zone. New York: Vintage. No doubt this type of system would have functioned effortlessly in the US or Western Europe, but in Baghdad, where judges were being assassinated on a daily basis, it was, perhaps, gratuitously complex. 4. Of course, the Kurds were not above using the same tactic, with Barzani threatening, on occasion, that a failure to implement article 140 would result in a ‘‘real civil war.’’ 5. Constituent groups within the ACC controlled six seats on the Kirkuk Council and approximately fifty seats in the council of representatives. 6. Al-Sadr’s efforts to establish a division the Mahdi Army in Kirkuk began in late 2003/early 2004, under the watch of his representative Abdul Fattah alMusawi. Following al-Sadr’s first uprising in April 2004, Musawi’s mosque was raided by US and Kurdish forces, and Musawi was driven out of Kirkuk. 7. It is impossible to establish for certain how many members of parliament opposed article 140 both because the UIA contains a large number of unaffiliated independents and because some factions, such as Islamic Da’wa and the INL, did not have a coherent, unified position on the issue. There were also differences of opinion on how to proceed, with some in favor of scrapping article 140 entirely and others favoring a postponement of the referendum. The

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statement signed by 150 members of the council in January 2008 opposing the implementation of article 140 is probably the best estimate of the numerical strength of opposition in the council. 8. In similar cases, such as the repeated extensions for the work of the constitutional review committee, the prime minister had relied on a parliamentary vote. 9. The argument that a UN-sponsored deal was constitutional because article 58, section B of the TAL permitted UN arbitration to resolve certain elements of the Kirkuk issue was questionable, to say the least. The relevant section refers only to UN arbitration to resolve the specific issue of restoring gerrymandered boundaries and not to the basic three-stage process. 10. As many have noted, Ankara displayed remarkably little concern for the oppression of the Turkmens under Saddam Hussein. 11. A military intervention to occupy Kirkuk, which would presumably have to be the goal, would end any prospects of EU accession for Turkey and would likely alienate large swaths of the international community. It would also be an extremely dangerous military mission involving long supply lines through Kurdish-controlled territory and confronting a full-scale Kurdish insurgency. The biggest problem, however, is the absence of an obvious exit strategy. 12. The Turks also sought to link the Kirkuk issue with the continued presence of PKK bases on Iraqi Kurdish soil. Logically, there was no obvious link between the two issues, but a series of military incursions and bombing campaigns from October 2007 on, ostensibly targeting PKK bases, undoubtedly helped to destabilize the region in the run- up to the December referendum. 13. The ability of Kurdish forces to maintain stability and security in the Kurdistan Region and, to a lesser extent, throughout northern Iraq was of huge benefit to the US because it freed up US troops to concentrate on pacifying more violent areas, such as Baghdad and Diyala. The Kurds also contributed peshmerga units to Fallujah during the first siege in April 2004 and to Baghdad on several occasions. 14. For examples of Kurdish media criticisms of the behavior of the two main Kurdish parties, see ‘‘Iraqi Kurdish Media Note on Corruption 2–15 Jun 06.’’ 2006. BBC Monitoring Middle East—Political, 17 June (LN); and ‘‘Iraqi Kurdish Media Note on Corruption 30 Jul to 11 Aug.’’ 2006. (BBC Monitoring International Reports), 13 August (LN). For a prominent Kurdish official’s take on the role of the two, see ‘‘Iraq’s Kirkuk Governor Admits Parties’ Intervention in Administration.’’ 2007. Hawlati, 27 January (WNC). 15. ‘‘Will the Kurdish Leaders Admit the Demise of Article 140?’’ 2007. Hawlati, 7 August (WNC). 16. ‘‘Kurdish Editorial Criticizes Iraqi President for Not Helping Kurds.’’ 2006. Hewler Post (BBC Monitoring International Reports), 10 May (LN). 17. ‘‘Will the Kurdish Leaders Admit the Demise of Article 140?’’ 18. ‘‘Iraqi Kurdish Leaders Fail to Return Kirkuk to Kurdistan Region— Paper.’’ 2007. Chawder (BBC Monitoring Middle East—Political), 21 September (LN). 19. ‘‘Iraqi Kurdish Official Blames Government, Kurds for Failures on Article 140.’’ 2007. Hawlati (BBC Monitoring International Reports), 11 October (LN). 20. At the time of the Kurdish threat, al-Sadr’s group, the IAF, and the INL had all previously withdrawn from the government for various reasons. 21. It would also have threatened the region’s electricity supply because Kurdistan has very little independent capacity to generate power and remains dependent on the Iraqi electricity grid.

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22. This was not just an issue of unemployment and potential economic collapse; it was also a matter of political control. A steady revenue stream was what enabled the two parties to retain their power via well-established patronage networks. 23. For a full list of Kurdish leaders interviewed for this book, see ‘‘Persons Interviewed’’ section. 24. The key point is that Kirkuk’s future status and control over Kirkuk’s oil are separable issues for the Kurds. Dealing with these issues separately, which the Kurds have always been willing to do, negates the argument that the Kurds want Kirkuk only because its oil provides a resource base for independence. Having said this, physical and legal control over the Kirkuk region would certainly put the Kurds in a better position to exploit its resources in the event that independence is thrust upon the Kurds. While Kurds have always asserted that they will not be the cause of Iraq’s breakup, there are plausible scenarios that might produce Kurdish independence by default—a full-scale Sunni-Shi’i civil war, for example, or the restoration of a repressive Arab nationalist (or Islamist) leader in Baghdad in violation of the constitution. In this sense, control of Kirkuk and control of its resources can never be entirely separable. 25. Article 140, section 2 of the permanent constitution also requires that the executive authority ‘‘accomplishes completely’’ all stages of the process by 31 December 2007. 26. For example, one of these districts, Chamchamal, is heavily populated and almost exclusively by Kurds. 27. Kurdish leaders were also very aware that time was not on their side. Their power at the national level was magnified initially by the Arab Sunni boycott of elections and subsequently by the political fragmentation of other factions. There was obviously no guarantee that this favorable situation would endure for long, so the Kurds needed to lock in their gains while they were in a position to do so. 28. While it is tempting to judge the demand for the inclusion of a deadline as a tactical error on the part of Kurdish leaders, in reality they faced a difficult choice because leaving the article without a specified deadline made the process vulnerable to indefinite intentional delays. 29. Following the January 2005 governorate elections, the Iraqi Islamic Party ‘‘controlled’’ Anbar in the sense of having a majority of seats on the council. However, voter turnout in the election was about 1 percent due to the boycott, so the party’s majority was in no way reflective of the will of the people in Anbar. 30. Apparently, Kurdish officials were unaware of the significance of the Anbar-Karbala dispute when they negotiated article 58. See ‘‘The Effect of Karbala and al-Anbar on Kirkuk.’’ 2007. Kurdistani Nuwe, 6 December (LN). 31. The city of Tal Afar has been a periodic hotbed of insurgent activity, and this part of the Iraq-Syria border is a known entry point for insurgents entering from Syria. 32. Obviously, the Kurds are likely to win an Erbil-wide referendum on the status of Makhmur. 33. ‘‘Iraq Kurdish Official Says Referendum in Kirkuk Possible without Census.’’ 2007. Rozhnama (BBC Monitoring Middle East—Political), 19 September (LN). 34. This assumes that given the choice, most Kurds would vote for attachment to the Kurdistan Region. 35. The only part of the article that envisages a role for arbitration concerns disputes over the restoration of pre-Ba’thist governorate boundaries.

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Chapter 11. The Struggle for Kirkuk: Final Status 1. Author interviews with multiple Kurdish leaders, including Dr. Fuad Hussein, chief of staff to KRG President Massoud Barzani, Erbil, April 2008; Nechervan Barzani, KRG prime minister, several meetings, 2005–2008; Barham Salih, prime minister, Kurdistan Regional Government, Sulaimaniya, March 2004; Kosrat Rasool Ali, Chief Executive Committee, PUK PolitBureau, Sulaimaniya, March 2004. 2. The Iraqi constitution requires a two-thirds majority vote in the council of representatives in order to replace the TAL’s court with a permanent constitutional court. 3. At the time of writing (May 2008), there is no indication that the article has actually been referred to the court. 4. On the suspension of the committee’s work and the withdrawal of four members, see ‘‘Iraq PM Suspends Work of Constitutional Committee.’’ 2008. Rozhnama (BBC Monitoring Middle East), 6 February. 5. It should be pointed out that a parliamentary vote used, for example, to extend deadlines for drafting the constitution and completing the article 142 process is of similarly dubious validity. The benefit of relying on parliamentary assent was that it at least imparted some popular legitimacy to the extensions. 6. In early 2008, for example, Governor Mustapha described tensions between himself and Rizgar Ali as ‘‘public knowledge.’’ On this, see ‘‘Iraqi Kirkuk Governor Defends His Administration of the City.’’ 2008. Rozhnama (BBC Monitoring International Reports), 8 February (LN). 7. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) estimated that by the end of 2005 there were over 22,000 IDP families in Kirkuk. Using the IOM’s own estimate of 6 persons per family, this suggests over 130,000 displaced individuals in the governorate. See IOM. 2006. ‘‘Tameem/Kirkuk, October–?December 2005, Phase II Monitoring’’ (http://www.iom-iraq.net/Library/idpReports/ Tameem-%20Kirkuk%20Phase%20II%20ID P%20Report.pdf ). 8. As of January 2008 there were at least 150 members of the council who actively opposed Kurdish efforts to incorporate Kirkuk. It remains to be seen whether Kurdish allies, such as members of the ISCI, would be prepared to vote with the Kurds to block an amendment supported by a large majority of council members. 9. At the time of the January 2005 elections, for example, voters in the Kurdistan Region were also asked to participate in a nonbinding referendum on independence from Iraq. Over 95 percent of the population voted in favor of independence. 10. Many of the disputed territories—Sinjar, Makhmur, and Aqra, for example—are already under the de facto control of the KRG and Kurdish security forces. It is also plausible that the Kurds would take the opportunity to include Mosul’s large Kurdish population within the expanded boundary of the Kurdistan Region. This would inevitably provoke a serious confrontation with the city’s Sunni Arab majority, but the alternative—leaving a sizable population of Kurds beyond the protective cover of Kurdish security forces—may justify the risk in the eyes of Kurdish leaders. 11. Obviously, this is only one possible response to an imposed solution, but the broader point is that it is unthinkable that Kurdish leaders would passively consent to an imposed solution on Kirkuk and the disputed territories. 12. For a recent autobiographical history of Kirkuk, written by an ethnically

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Armenian Kirkuki, that is largely anecdotal but consistently fascinating, see Astarjian, H. D. 2007. The Struggle for Kirkuk: The Rise of Hussein, Oil, and the Death of Tolerance in Iraq. Westport, Conn.: Praeger Security International. 13. For example, Yucel Guclu’s The Turkmens and Kirkuk provides 179 footnotes for under 100 pages of text but is clearly intended to prove that Kirkuk is, and always has been, a Turkmen city. In a similar vein, the Kurdish historian Khamal Mudhir Ahmed’s Kirkuk and Its Dependencies is a meticulously researched and detailed account of why Kirkuk is, and always has been, a Kurdish city. 14. See Talabany, N. 2007. ‘‘The Kurdish Case.’’ Middle East Quarterly 14.1, Winter: 75–78; and Guclu, Y. 2007. ‘‘The Turkmen Case.’’ Middle East Quarterly 14.1, Winter: 79–86. 15. Romano, D. 2007. ‘‘The Future of Kirkuk.’’ Ethnopolitics 6.2, June: 265–83. 16. O’Leary, B. ‘‘Power-Sharing, Pluralist Federation, and Federacy.’’ In O’Leary et al. (eds.), The Future of Kurdistan in Iraq: 78. 17. Ibid. 18. The International Crisis Group (ICG). 2006. ‘‘Iraq and the Kurds: The Brewing Battle over Kirkuk.’’ Middle East Report 56, 18 July. 19. This is not intended as a criticism. None of the sources cited here claims to offer a detailed blueprint for Kirkuk. 20. Given the vast array of institutional arrangements that scholars have sought to characterize as ‘‘consociational,’’ some have questioned whether the concept of consociational democracy is still meaningful or useful. For a particularly withering critique of the concept’s validity, see Lustick, I. S. 1997. ‘‘Lijphart, Lakatos, and Consociationalism.’’ World Politics 50.1: 88–117. 21. Quotations are taken from the version published by the Kurdish Globe, available at http://www.kurdish globe.net/displayPrintableArticle.jsp? 22. The specific wording of article 142 is as follows: ‘‘The administrative divisions in the Kurdistan Region (Governorate, District, and Subdistrict), their creation, naming and changing their centers, identifying and amending their borders, and disintegrating them from and annexing them to other administrative units shall be in accordance with law.’’ 23. In prior versions of the constitution, Kirkuk was identified as the capital of the region. In the most recent draft, however, Kirkuk has been replaced by Erbil. 24. For a more detailed discussion of the difference between the powers of regions and governorates not organized into a region, see Chapter 9. 25. O’Leary, B. 2003. ‘‘Multi-national Federalism, Federacy, Power-Sharing and the Kurds.’’ Keynote address, Cafritz Foundation Conference Center, George Washington University, 12 September: 20. 26. The relationship between Finland and the Aland Islands provides an exemplar case of a durable, and successful, federacy arrangement. For the relevance of the Aland Islands’ federacy arrangement to Iraq, see Anderson, L. 2007. ‘‘A Comparative Perspective on Iraq’s Federal System: Some Concrete Suggestions.’’ Paper prepared for presentation at the MESA Conference, Montreal, November. 27. ‘‘Kurdish Parties Reject Proposed Division of Iraqi Kurdistan.’’ 2004. Deutsche Presse Agentur, 6 January (LN). 28. ‘‘Barzani: Ready to Fight for Kirkuk.’’ 2004. Turkish Daily News, 10 September (LN). 29. ‘‘Talabani: Kirkuk Sacred for Kurds.’’ 2004. United Press International, 31 March (LN).

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30. See, for example, Clover, C. 2003. ‘‘Dispossessed Kurds Beginning to Lose Patience.’’ Financial Times, 24 May: 8; and Congar, Y. 2004. ‘‘The Kirkuk Incidents and the United States.’’ Millayet, 4 January (LN). 31. ‘‘Election Program of the Kurdistan Islamic Union,’’ November 21, 2005, available at http://www.nahrain.com. 32. ‘‘Kurdistan Islamic Union Is Not Ready to Join the Kurdistan Alliance List in the Iraqi Parliament.’’ 2006. Kurdistani Nuwe, 27 January (WNC). 33. The exact wording of the question was, ‘‘Which of the following do you think is the most appropriate solution to resolving the status of the city of Kirkuk?’’ The options given were: ‘‘place under authority of Iraqi central government’’; ‘‘placed under authority of KRG’’; ‘‘resolved once a permanent government is established’’; ‘‘referendum by people of Kirkuk’’; ‘‘granted special status’’; ‘‘Unresolved until a census is completed’’; and ‘‘don’t know.’’ See International Republican Institute. 2005. ‘‘Survey of Iraqi Public Opinion April 11–20’’: 45 (http://www.iri.org/mena/iraq/2005-05-05-IraqPoll.asp). 34. This is not to suggest that the views of ordinary Kurdish people are somehow ‘‘irrelevant’’ but merely to highlight the obvious point that the leaderships of two major parties will be those involved in negotiating a compromise on Kirkuk, and in this sense, their preferences are more ‘‘relevant’’ to the outcome. 35. See, for example, ‘‘Official Observes Arab-Kurdish Divisions within Iraqi Administration.’’ 2004. Al-Hayat (BBC Monitoring Middle East), 11 January (LN). 36. ‘‘Report Sees Iraqi Ruling Shi’i-Kurdish Alliance Crumbling over Kirkuk.’’ 2005. Elaph (BBC Monitoring Middle East), 8 July (LN). 37. ‘‘Iraq: Al-Jazeera Says ‘‘Thousands’’ Took Part in Turkomans’ Rallies in Kirkuk.’’ 2003. Al-Jazeera TV (BBC Monitoring Middle East), 31 December (LN). 38. ‘‘Arab Tribes Rally against Iraq Oil City’s Inclusion in Kurdish Region.’’ 2004. Agence France Presse, 27 January (LN). 39. Pelham, N. 2004. ‘‘A Search for Common Ground in Battle-Scarred Kirkuk.’’ Financial Times, 11 February: 10. 40. ‘‘Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Rejects Arab Tribes Resolution on Kirkuk.’’ 2004. Hawlati (BBC Monitoring International Reports), 29 September (LN). 41. ‘‘Turkmens Propose Making Iraq’s Kirkuk Federal Region.’’ 2006. Hewler Post (BBC Monitoring Middle East), 28 May (LN). 42. Howard, M. 2006. ‘‘Iraq: As Violence Grows, Oil-Rich Kirkuk Could Hold Key to Iraq’s Future: Tribal Chiefs Call for Return of Saddam while Kurds Eye a New Federal State.’’ Guardian, 27 October: 22. 43. ‘‘Iraqi Shi’i Leader in Tehran, Seeks to Revive US-Iran Dialogue on Iraq.’’ 2007. Al-Bayyinah (BBC Monitoring Middle East—Political), 9 February (LN). 44. ‘‘Prominent Official Splits up from Iraqi Turkmen Front, to Set up New Party.’’ 2005. Kurdistani Nuwe (BBC Monitoring Middle East), 2 May (LN). 45. Ridolpho, K. 2005. ‘‘Iraq: Will the Turkmen Split Break Turkish Interference?’’ Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 6 May. 46. ‘‘Turkmen Official Says US Responsible for Increase in Terrorism in Kirkuk.’’ 2006. Chawder, 25 July (WNC). 47. For example, Shakira helped organize a pro–article 140 conference in Kirkuk in September 2006 under the catchy banner ‘‘Supporting Article 140 is the key for stability and security in Kirkuk.’’ 48. ‘‘Iraq: Turcoman Front Voices ‘Satisfaction’ with ISG Report, Criticizes KDP, PUK.’’ 2006. Al-Quds al-Arabi, 17 December (WNC). 49. This is not to suggest that either the ITF or Turkey should have a veto

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over any future compromise. If neither is seriously willing to compromise, for example, then their inflexibility should not be rewarded. 50. The preferences of the pro-Kurdish Turkmen organizations are essentially those of the Kurds. In this sense, and in contrast to the ITF, they do not have distinctive preferences and are therefore irrelevant to an analysis of likely compromises on the Kirkuk issue. 51. According to the Turkish Daily News, indeed, one day prior to the war, at a meeting between the US and Iraqi opposition movements, Kalmay Khalizad had established two conditions for the ITF’s participation in a future interim government. One of these was that any future Iraqi political system would be based on federalism, a condition that the ITF was unable to accept—thereby excluding itself from participation in the immediate postwar governments (‘‘From the Columns: Last-Minute Game to Turkmens.’’ 2003. Turkish Daily News, 16 September (LN). 52. Cevik, I., F. Demirelli, and M. Unlu. 2003. ‘‘Turkmens Call for PowerSharing in Administration of New Iraq.’’ Turkish Daily News, 1 July. 53. See statements made by various Turkmen leaders: Unlu, M. 2003. ‘‘New Leader of Turkmens Says Turkey Won’t Intervene in ITC’S Policies.’’ Turkish Daily News, 17 September; ‘‘Iraqi Turkmen Official Proposes ‘Joint Administration’ for Kirkuk.’’ 2004. Turkmenali (BBC Monitoring International Reports), 24 September; ‘‘Turkey: Foreign Ministry Says Kirkuk Iraqi City, Not Belonging to Kurds.’’ 2003. NTV (BBC Monitoring Europe), 24 April (LN). 54. ‘‘Turkish Agency: Iraqi Turkmen Official Says Kirkuk Will Never Be Kurdish City.’’ 2003. Konya (BBC Monitoring International Reports), 23 December (LN). 55. ‘‘Iraqi Governing Council Member to Propose Federal Turkmen Region.’’ 2003. Turkmenali (BBC Monitoring Middle East), 30 December. 56. The four proposed regions were as follows: a Kurdish region, with Sulaimaniya as its capital; a Sunni region centered on Ramadi; a Shi’i region based on Najaf; and a Turkmen region with Kirkuk at its core (see ‘‘Turkmen Party Proposes Iraq Divided into Four Administrative Regions.’’ 2003. Turkmenali [BBC Monitoring Middle East], 30 December [LN]). 57. As of late January 2004, in fact, Prime Minister Erdogan had claimed, ‘‘The reality is that a federated structure in Iraq based on ethnicity or religious sects will not be healthy. It will bother Syria, Iran and Turkey’’ (‘‘Press Scanner: Erdogan’s Warning on Kirkuk.’’ 2004. Turkish Daily News, 28 January). 58. ‘‘Iraqi Turkmen Front Rejects Federal Status in Kurdish Region.’’ 2004. Turkmenali (BBC Monitoring International Reports), 17 January (LN). 59. Dawde, S. 2005. ‘‘New Strategy for Turkmen Bloc.’’ In Institute for War and Peace in Reporting, Iraqi Crisis Report 116, 9 March (http://iwpr.net/?p⳱icr& s⳱f&o⳱244910&apc_state⳱heniicr2005). 60. The ITF found receptive audiences in many regional countries, most obviously in Ankara, but also in Arab countries and Iran. For efforts to mobilize Sunni Arab states in the region against Kurdish plans, see ‘‘Turkish Column: Egypt, Jordan Will Train Turkmens for New Iraqi Army, Police.’’ 2004. Milliyet, 5 January (WNC). 61. ‘‘Turkmens Propose Making Iraq’s Kirkuk Federal Region.’’ 2006. Hewler Post (BBC Monitoring Middle East), 28 May (LN). 62. Steele, J. 2006. ‘‘Comment & Debate: Iraq Is Already Enduring Two Wars: Could It Survive a Third?’’ Guardian, 1 December: 39. 63. ‘‘Iraqi Turkmen Front Leader Discusses Kirkuk Issue, Turkmen Demands.’’ 2007. Elaph (BBC Monitoring International Reports), 7 March.

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64. Senanayake, S. 2007. ‘‘Turkey Keeps a Nervous Eye on Kirkuk.’’ Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Newsline, 11, 13, 23 January (http://www.rferl.org/newsline/ 2007/01/5-not/not-230107.asp). 65. ‘‘Turkish Government Said to Propose 10-Year UN Control of Kirkuk.’’ 2007. Sabah (BBC Monitoring International Reports), 19 January (LN). 66. Obviously, Figure 11.5 is not intended to represent a strategic game in the technical sense. 67. Of course, if the Kirkuk issue is resolved as part of the package deal by which, say, the Kurds give up any claim to Kirkuk in return for the uncontested reclamation of all other disputed territories, then the process can still be one of compromise, and the outcome falls outside the possibilities included in figure 11.5. A deal of this nature is possible but unlikely. The Kurdish leadership has invested too heavily in Kirkuk to simply accept a quadrant 3 outcome. Chapter 12. The Struggle for Kirkuk: Future Governance 1. Lustick, I. 1979. ‘‘Stability in Deeply Divided Societies: Consociationalism versus Control.’’ World Politics 31.3: 328. 2. Lustick, I. 1980. Arabs in the Jewish State: Israel’s Control of a National Minority. Austin: University of Texas Press: 77. 3. Ibid. 4. Ibid. 5. Lustick. ‘‘Stability in Deeply Divided Societies’’: 336. 6. For a recent description of the core tenets of the Westminster system, see Lijphart, A. 1999. Patterns of Democracy: Government Forms and Performance in ThirtySix Countries. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press: chap. 2. 7. Horowitz, D. 1985. Ethnic Groups in Conflict. Berkeley: University of California Press: 102. 8. The four ‘‘models’’ briefly reviewed above by no means exhaust the range of conceivable power-sharing arrangements. The consociational model, for example, combines various proportional elements (such as proportional representation and grand coalitions) with institutions of equality (such as the minority veto) to yield a hybrid model of power sharing that continues to exert a powerful influence on political scientists. These models are ideal types that are intended only to illustrate the range of options available across the powersharing spectrum. 9. The obvious rejoinder to listing the breakdown of governments in ethnic terms rather than by political affiliation is that those members of other ethnicities who ran as members of the KBL were little more than Kurdish stooges and should, therefore, not be counted as ‘‘real’’ representatives of the Turkmen, Arab, or Christian communities. In one sense this is a reasonable argument. The pro-Kurdish Irfan Kirkuki, an ethnic Turkmen who has served in diverse executive positions in Kirkuk, heads up the Turkmen People’s Party, which can scarcely be described as a mass political movement. That the two main Kurdish parties have indeed sponsored a variety of largely cosmetic pro-Kurdish Turkmen and Christian parties, however, does not necessarily mean that there is no support among Turkmens, Arabs, and Christians for Kirkuk to be incorporated into the Kurdistan Region. There may be a variety of entirely pragmatic reasons, ranging from better security to improved quality of life, why a Turkmen might prefer to live inside the Kurdistan Region than outside. Those non-Kurds who back the Kurdish position are as entitled to representation as those who do not.

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However, the more serious problem with this argument is that it is made inconsistently. If representation is to be judged on grounds of political affiliation rather than ethnicity, then the ITF cannot simultaneously dismiss pro-Kurdish Turkmen parties as unrepresentative of the Turkmen community and count independents (i.e., those not affiliated with any political party) as Kurds. The Kurdish governor of Kirkuk, for example, is half Turkmen and is not affiliated with any Kurdish political party but is counted by the ITF as a Kurd. 10. The data on the ethnic distribution of administrative positions in Kirkuk are taken from Violations against the Turkmen in Kirkuk. 2007. Ankara: ITF publication: 5–11. 11. Data are taken from ibid.: 36–40. 12. On the various Arab and Turkmen estimates of the number of Kurds expelled by Saddam Hussein’s regime, see, for example, ‘‘US-Kurdish Rift Emerges on Kirkuk Referendum’s Timing.’’ 2007. Turkish Daily News, 27 April (http://www.turkishdailynews.com.tr/article.php?enewsid⳱70448); ‘‘Ethnic Tensions Mount in Kirkuk.’’ 2006. WorldPress.org, 17 November (http:// www.worldpress.org/Mideast/2567.cfm); and ICG. ‘‘Iraq and the Kurds’’: 10. 13. Human Rights Watch. 2003. Iraq: Forcible Expulsion of Ethnic Minorities. March: 2 (http://www.hrw.org/reports/2003/iraq0303/Kirkuk0303.pdf ). 14. This proposal was initially championed by the ITF’s Ali Mahdi and subsequently became the standard ITF (and Arab) proposal for power sharing in Kirkuk. See ‘‘Turkmens Propose Making Iraq’s Kirkuk Federal Region.’’ 2006. Hewler Post (BBC Monitoring International Reports), 28 May. 15. Of course, the power of the regions over oil and gas management is limited by other constitutional provisions, such as the federal government’s exclusive powers to ‘‘regulate commercial policy across regional and governorate boundaries’’ and to formulate ‘‘foreign sovereign economic and trade policy.’’ To what extent these powers could be exploited to circumscribe the regions’ role in the oil and gas sector would be for a constitutional court to determine. Moreover, although this is the most straightforward way to interpret the constitutional provisions regarding oil and gas, this is not to say that other, creative interpretations are not possible. 16. This basically reflects the difference in wording between article 115, which refers to both regions and governorates, and article 121, which refers only to regions. 17. For more on this, see Visser, R. 2008. ‘‘The Law on the Powers of Governorates Not Organized in a Region: Washington’s ‘Moderate’ Allies Show Some Not-So-Moderate Tendencies.’’ Historiae, 11 February (http://www.historiae .org/governorates.asp). 18. If and when the article 142 process reaches a successful conclusion, and assuming that the proposed amendments are approved by majorities of the COR and the Iraqi people (and not rejected by two-thirds of voters in three or more governorates), then article 111, sections 2 and 3 will require the federal government to distribute oil revenues ‘‘equally’’ according to population size and ‘‘automatically in an effective and transparent mechanism. See Constitutional Review Committee Report, 23 May 2007, available at http://www.forumfed.org/ pubs/IraqConstitutionalReviewENG.pdf. 19. Horowitz, D. L. 2002. ‘‘Constitutional Design: Proposals versus Processes.’’ In A. Reynolds (ed.), The Architecture of Democracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press: 20. 20. For a detailed treatment of Horowitz’s arguments for an ‘‘integrative’’

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approach to moderating ethnic conflict in divided societies, see Horowitz, D. 1985. Ethnic Groups in Conflict. Berkeley: University of California Press. Nigeria is a classic example of a state that appears to have benefited from the use of institutions (territorial federalism, vote-pooling electoral systems, for example) designed to alleviate intense conflict at the center and foster moderation among ethnic leaders. It is also a classic example of why Horowitz’s approach is as motivationally inadequate as is consociational democracy. All of the major constitutional changes were introduced under military rule and then imposed on the majority Hausa-Fulani. 21. Lijphart, A. 1969. ‘‘Consociational Democracy.’’ World Politics 21: 217. 22. O’Leary, B. 2005. ‘‘Debating Consociational Politics: Normative and Explanatory Arguments.’’ In S. Noel, From Power Sharing to Democracy: Post-conflict Institutions in Ethnically Divided Societies. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press: 21. 23. Ibid.: 22. 24. Ibid.: 21. 25. From a purely pragmatic perspective, the Turks are interested primarily in keeping Kirkuk outside the Kurdistan Region. It is also difficult to see why the Turks and Arab Iraq have any more right to push for power sharing for their coethnics in Kirkuk than the Iraqi Kurds have to call for equal power-sharing arrangements in Ankara for Turkey’s Kurds or to demand an equal share of power in Baghdad. 26. Of course, one could have made the same argument about the legitimacy of article 140. 27. In its most recent report, the CRC proposed a series of amendments to clarify the relationship between the federal government and the regions with regard to oil and gas. The most important of these involve exempting articles 111 and 112 from the article 115 provision that gives priority to regional laws in areas of shared power and deleting article 121, section 2. See Constitutional Review Committee Report, 23 May 2007. Conclusion 1. Brendan O’Leary, for example, notes that a Google search using the terms ‘‘Kirkuk’’ plus ‘‘oil rich’’ returned 190,000 entries (O’Leary, B. 2007. ‘‘Nationalities, Oil and Land: Kirkuk and the Disputed Territories.’’ Paper presented at a conference at the Royal Institute for International Affairs, 19 December). 2. For example, Juan Cole apparently finds it unproblematic to simply assert, ‘‘The Kurds wish to annex it (Kirkuk) to their Kurdistan Regional Government, seeing its oil wealth as potentially key to an independent Kurdish state in the future’’ (Cole, J. 2008. ‘‘Informed Comment.’’ 23 July [http://www.juanco le.com/2008_07_01_juancole_archive.html]). Cole’s persistent use of the term ‘‘annex’’ when referring to Kurdish efforts to incorporate Kirkuk into the Kurdistan Region is an obvious indicator of where his sympathies lie on this issue. The verb ‘‘to annex’’ carries obvious negative connotations, implying that the Kurds are acting violently or illegally in their efforts to incorporate Kirkuk. 3. The constitutional review committee’s report contains several proposed amendments to those parts of the constitution dealing with oil and gas. These include the elimination of the distinction between present and future fields; a rewrite of article 111 to state, ‘‘The federal government shall collect the oil revenues and distribute them equally to all Iraqis . . . in a transparent and fair way’’;

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a recrafting of article 115 to exempt oil and gas from the provision that gives priority to regional law in cases of disputes with federal law; and the elimination of article 121, section 2—the provision that privileged regional law over federal law in matters outside the exclusive authority of the federal government. See ‘‘Constitutional Review Committee Report,’’ 23 May 2007, available at http:// www.forumfed.org/pubs/IraqConstitutionalReviewENG.pdf. The Kurds have agreed to all of these changes; the major source of controversy that remains is over the fate of article 140. 4. This is inevitably an impressionistic statement but one based on numerous interviews with Kurdish leaders. 5. The easiest way to verify or falsify this argument is to put it to the test by requiring the Kurds to renounce, unambiguously, any participation in the management or development of Kirkuk’s oil as part of a deal to return Kirkuk to the Kurdistan Region. If the Kurds are unwilling to sign off on this, then it seems reasonable to conclude that control of oil is the primary motivation for the Kurds’ interest in Kirkuk. 6. The remaining 7 percent of voters opted for parties, such as the INL, that did not define themselves ethnically. 7. For examples of this, see Visser, R. 2008. ‘‘The Kirkuk Issue Exposes Weaknesses in Iraq’s Ruling Coalition,’’ available at http://historiae.org/Kirkuk.asp; and Oppel, R. A. 2008. ‘‘Kurdish Control of City Creates a Political Powder Keg for Iraq.’’ New York Times, 19 August: 18. 8. Implicit in the ITF’s accusation is an innovative approach to conceptualizing ‘‘ethnicity.’’ Ethnicity, according to this reasoning, is a political rather than an ascriptive characteristic. In other words, a ‘‘Turkmen,’’ such as Irfan Kirkuki, is really a ‘‘Kurd’’ because he reliably supports Kurdish positions. The same reasoning enables the ITF to claim, as it has done on numerous occasions, that a Turkmen such as Songhul Chapouk is not a ‘‘real’’ Turkmen because she has never been affiliated with the ITF. The ITF is the only organization that legitimately represents the Turkmen community, according to the ITF. Hence, the ITF could dismiss Songhul Chapouk on the IGC, the two Turkmens on the Kirkuk Brotherhood List, and Tahsin Kahya on the Article 140 Committee as unrepresentative of the Turkmen community. When the ITF complains about the lack of Turkmen representation on political bodies, therefore, it is important to remember that the complaint is about lack of ITF representation. The difficulty for the ITF is to explain why an organization that claims to represent 95 percent of the Turkmen community in Iraq polled only 88,000 votes in the December 2005 federal elections. This vote implies a total Turkmen population throughout Iraq of approximately 150,000 people—way short of the 3 million often estimated by the ITF. 9. Dreyfuss, R. 2008. ‘‘Iraq on the Edge.’’ Nation, 27 July (http://www.the nation.com/blogs/dreyfuss/339676). 10. The terms ‘‘ethno-federalist’’ and ‘‘nationalist/centrist’’ are used by Reidar Visser (historiae.org); the terms ‘‘separatist’’ and ‘‘nationalists’’ are used by Raed Jarrar and Joshua Holland in a series of articles for Alternet (www.alternet .org); the terms ‘‘powers that be’’ and ‘‘powers that aren’t’’ were coined by Sam Parker of the U.S. Institute of Peace (see Parker’s anonymous post on the Abu Aardvark blog site, http://abuaardvark.typepad.com/abuaadvark/2008/06/ guest-post-the.html). 11. Examples of this line of argument include Visser, R. 2008. ‘‘The Kirkuk

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Issue Exposes Weaknesses in Iraq’s Ruling Coalition.’’ Historiae, 7 August; Jarrar, R., and J. Holland. 2007. ‘‘Majority of Iraqi Lawmakers Now Reject Occupation.’’ Alternet, 9 May; and Dreyfuss, R. 2007. ‘‘Iraqi Nationalists Gaining Power despite U.S. Efforts.’’ Nation, 22 October. 12. Quote is taken from Visser. ‘‘The Kirkuk Issue Exposes Weaknesses in Iraq’s Ruling Coalition.’’ 13. O’Hanlon, M., and O. Taspinar. 2008. ‘‘Time for Kurdish Realism.’’ Washington Post, 9 February: A15. 14. This solution was presented in the form of a handout, ‘‘Kirkuk . . . The Alternative Soluation [sic],’’ distributed by the head of the Iraqi Arabic Kirkuk Front, Akram al Obady, at the conference ‘‘Kerkuk Problem and Article 140: Defining Alternatives,’’ Brussels, 22 June 2008.

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People Interviewed

Shanaz Ahmed, PUK representative in the UK, several meetings, London, 2005–8 Mahdi Ali, member, Islamic Union of Iraqi Turkmen, London, March 2007 Nawshirwan Mustafa Amin, former deputy leader of PUK, several meetings, 2005–8 Dr. Muzaffar Arslan, adviser on Turkmen affairs to President Talabani, Brussels, June 2008 Dr. Hassan T. Walli Aydinli, ITF representative for Europe, Brussels, 2008 Nechirvan Barzani, KRG prime minister, several meetings, 2005–8 Abdul Qadir Bazirgan, president of the Turkmen Reform Movement, Erbil, April 2008 Ismail al-Hadidi, deputy mayor/governor of Kirkuk, Kirkuk, March 2004 Joost Hilterman, International Crisis Group, Middle East and North Africa deputy program director, London, March 2004, Montreal, December 2007 Dr. Fuad Hussein, chief of staff to KRG president Massoud Barzani, Erbil, April 2008 Hadi Ali, member of Kurdistan Islamic Union political bureau, Erbil, April 2004 Abbas Imami, London representative, Islamic Union of Iraqi Turkmen, London, March 2007 Jalal Jawher, head of PUK in Kirkuk, Kirkuk, April 2004 Sheth Jerjis, chairman of the Iraqi Turkmen Human Rights Research Foundation, Brussels, June 2008 Sonja Khalil, displaced Kurd from Kirkuk Rahimawa, Erbil, April 2008 Sarbest Kirkuki, head of Kurdish Cultural Centre, London, October 2007 Ali Mahdi, vice president of the Turkmeneli Party, member of Kirkuk Provincial Council, Brussels, June 2008 Kwehka Majeed, displaced Kurd from Kirkuk, Daratoo collective settlement, Erbil, April 2008

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People Interviewed

Hashim Miali, representative of Muqtada al-Sadr in UK, London, October 2007 John Michael, UK representative of the Assyrian Democratic Movement, London, March 2007 Abdul Fattah al-Mousawi, representative of Muqtada al-Sadr, Kirkuk, April 2004 Mohammed Khalil Nasef, Arab member of Kirkuk Provincial Council, member of the Iraqi Republican Gathering, Brussels, June 2008 Akram al-Obady, Iraqi Arabic Kirkuk Front, Brussels, June 2008 Dr. Mahmoud Osman, independent Kurdish politician, London, January 2006 Sadi Pira, former head of PUK in Mosul, Erbil, several meetings, 2005–8 Bayan Sami Abdul Rahman, UK high representative of the KRG, London, several meetings, 2005–8 Hawar Rasoul, head of UK organization of the PUK, regular meeting, 2005–8 Kosrat Rasoul, Chief Executive Committee, PUK Political Bureau, Sulaimaniya, March 2004 Shorsh Haji Resool, Kurdish academic expert on Kirkuk, regular meetings, 2005–8 Haseeb Rojbayani, assistant to Kirkuk’s governor (head of committee on resettlement and displacement, Kirkuk governorate), Erbil, November 2007 Ali Sadik, member of Turkmeneli Party, Brussels, June 2008 Waria Salhi, CEO, Kirkuk Business Center, Washington, D.C., January 2008 Barham Salih, prime minister, Kurdistan Regional Government (Sulaimaniya), March 2004 Khadr Aziz Samanchi, former ITF representative, ITF representative to the Iraqi National Congress, London, 2007 Kanan Shakir, head of the Iraqi Turkmen Front, Erbil, April 2008 Nijar Shemdin, adviser to the KRG, several meetings, 2005–8 Mohammed Ihsan Sulaivani, minister of extraregional affairs of the KRG, member of the Article 140 Committee, regular meetings, 2005–8 Tahsin Mohammed Ali Wali (Tahsin Kahya), member of Islamic Union of Iraqi Turkmen, Shi’a Turkmen member of Kirkuk Provincial Council, and member of the Article 140 Committee, Brussels, June 2008

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Index

al-Aaraji, Bahaa, 144 Aasi, Wasfi, 100 Abbasid empire, 14, 15 Abd al-Latif, Wael, 7 Abd-al-Rahman, Faruq, 127 Abd-al-Rahman, Turhan, 111 Abdul Hamid, Sultan, 19 Abdurrahman, Faruk Abdullah, 108, 122 Africa and Eastern Concessions, 20 Agha, San’an Ahmad, 102–3 Agrarian Reform Act (1970), 83 agriculture, 9, 13, 40, 217 ‘‘Algiers Agreement,’’ 39 Ali, Rizgar, 130, 137, 151, 156, 169, 273 n.6 Allawi, Iyad, 118, 119, 133, 134, 144, 179 American Chester Group, 20 Ammash, Salih Mahdi, 37 Anatolia, 15, 16, 23, 63 Anatolian Railway Company, 19 Anbar governorate, ix, 147, 149, 180, 260 n.61, 263 n.2 Anfal campaign, 41, 51 Anglo-Persian Oil Company (APOC), 19–20, 21 Ansar al-Sunnah, 148 Aq-Quyunlu (White Sheep), 16 Arab Consultative Council (ACC), 170, 270 n.5 Arabic language, 15, 43, 66 Arabism, 51 Arabization, 5–6, 44, 54, 98, 208, 236; Arabs as beneficiaries of, 79; Ba’th consolidation and, 36–39; Kurds routed or expelled by, 39–41; military rule and, 34–36; oil industry and, 23, 30–33, 45; Operation Desert Storm and, 41–42; population movements and, 58; return of expelled Kurds, 221; reversal of, 100,

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113, 115, 116, 156, 221; social engineering in Kirkuk, 27, 81, 249 n.21; as state atrocity, 51–52; Turkmens and, 62, 64–67; wafideen and, 83, 168 Arabs, 1, 2, 52, 78; Article 140 and, 153, 154, 155, 170–72; divisions among, 54; as dominant force in Iraqi nationalism, 242; elections and, 120, 122–24, 129, 237; extreme views among, 55; fall of Ba’thist regime and, 92; governance of Kirkuk and, 99, 100, 214–18, 238, 239; history of Kirkuk and, 10, 14, 79–80; Iraqi Governing Council (IGC) and, 102, 110; in Iraqi parliament, 3, 4; Israel and, 209–10; on Kirkuk Council, 151; Kurds in post-Saddam conflict with, 105–6, 156–57; nomadic tribes, 35, 40, 80, 81; oil industry and, 32–33, 54, 132; Ottoman Empire and, 18, 51; in police forces, 107; political boundaries of Kirkuk and, 28, 30; political parties, 122–23, 125; population statistics, 24–25, 43, 44, 58, 237; power sharing and, 239–40; status of Kirkuk and, 194–96, 277 n.9; Turkmens in alliance with, 107–9, 170; UN proposals and, 3. See also Shi’i Arabs; Sunni Arabs; wafideen Arif, Col. Khattab Abdullah, 132 Arkaj, Sa’d-al-Din, 201 Arrapha (ancient city), 14, 54 Article 140, 2, 3, 144, 150, 245 n.2; committee for implementation of, 151, 153–57, 183, 186, 193, 266 n.60; costs of failure of, 186–87; demise of, 163; disputed territories and, 267 n.66; insurgency and, 148; integrity of constitution and, 188; Kirkuk’s status and, 147; legal and logistical complexities of, 167–69;

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286

Index

Article 140 (continued ) opposition to, 169–73, 179, 231, 270–71 n.7; problems with, 178–80, 181, 182–84; ratification of, 178; as stalled project, 159–61; United States and, 159; wafideen resettlement and, 168–69. See also constitution, Iraqi (2005) Asayesh (KRG security force), 108, 132 al-Asi, Abd al-Rahman Mashed, 83 Asi, Sheikh Abdul-Rahman Munshid, 129 Association of Muslim Scholars (AMS), 122, 125, 156 Assyrian Democratic Movement (ADM), 52, 123, 125, 136, 154, 263 n.90 Assyrian National Party, 122, 128 Assyrians, 77, 78; ancient, 54; Arabization policy and, 42; history of Kirkuk and, 13–14, 15; Levi troops, 63; oil workers, 32. See also Christians, Iraqi Autonomy Law for Iraqi Kurdistan, 39 Azeris, 72 Aziz, Qadir, 155, 174, 267 n.78 Baghdad (city and governorate), 1, 102; Abbasid Caliphate in, 16; British control of, 21, 22, 234; insurgency in, 147, 149; Ottoman vilayets of, 5, 19; power sharing in, 242; ransacked in aftermath of war, 101; security situation in, 177 Baker-Hamilton Report, 159 al-Bakr, Ahmed Hassan, 36, 37 Baladruz (Baladrooz) district, 76, 182, 184 Balfour, Arthur, 22 al-Baraq, Ahmad, 155 Barwari, Nasrin, 131, 262 n.81 Barzani, Idris, 38 Barzani, Massoud, 7, 54, 118; on Article 140, 160; authoritarianism of, 173; elections and, 124; Iraqi flag lowering and, 150, 158, 265 n.42; KDP and, 68; on ‘‘Kurdish identity’’ of Kirkuk, 193; on PUK’s entry into Kirkuk, 92–93; Turkey and, 146 Barzani, Mulla Mustafa, 10, 26–27, 28, 41, 42, 248 n.7; assassination attempts on, 38; Kurdish nationalist politics and, 33–34; March Agreement and, 37, 39, 75 Barzani, Nechirvan, 155–56, 245 n.2 Barzinji, Maarouf, 34 Basra (city and governorate): British control

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of, 21, 22, 234; insurgency in, 147, 149; Ottoman vilayets of, 5; regional power and, 226 Batatu, Hanna, 17, 34, 59, 62 Ba’th Party, 45, 59, 81, 208, 265 n.42; administrative boundaries created by, 180, 181; Arabization policy, 6, 30, 36–39, 64, 65–66, 98; chemical weapons used on Kurds, 41; de-Ba’thification, 100, 101, 108; former officials of, 118, 145, 156; Kurdish autonomy demands and, 26; Kurdish nationalists suppressed by, 34; Northern Affairs Committee, 66; oil industry and, 46; overthrow of regime, 1; political boundaries of Kirkuk and, 28; in post-Saddam Iraq, 99, 105; Revolution’s Command Council (RCC), 65, 66; Turkmens and, 64, 65–66; uprisings against (1991), 75; wafideen and, 83. See also Hussein, Saddam al-Bayati, Abbas, 103 al-Bayati tribe, 195 Bazirgan, Abdul Qadir, 127, 197, 198 Begteginid dynasty, 14 Beyatli, Aydin, 102, 103 Beyreqdar, Anwar, 155 Brahimi, Lakhdar, 118 Bremer, Paul, 116, 131, 254 n.48, 259 n.41; agenda of, 101; Iraqi Governing Council (IGC) and, 102, 103; Turkmeneli Party proposal to, 199 ‘‘Brewing Battle over Kirkuk’’ (ICG report), 190 Britain and British Empire, 10, 24–25; Kurdish independent state and, 20, 23; Levies’ massacre of Turkmens and, 63; oil reserves of Iraq and, 5, 19–23, 234; United Kingdom in Desert Storm war, 42 Bruinessen, Martin van, 43 al-Bulani, Jawad, 154 Burns, Nicholas, 159 Bush, George W., 118, 264 n.17, 269 n.100 Caucasus region, 13, 16, 21, 71 census (1957), 42–44, 58, 81, 208, 214 census, proposals for new, 160–61, 178, 223; Article 140 and, 268 n.96; disputed territories and, 182–83 Chaldeans (Chaldo-Assyrians). See Assyrians; Christians, Iraqi

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Index Chapouk, Songhul, 102–3, 199, 200, 280 n.8 Christians, Iraqi, 1, 24, 41, 52, 70, 277 n.9; Arabization policy and, 51; on Article 140 Committee, 153, 154; elections and, 122, 124; extreme views among, 55; fall of Ba’thist regime and, 92; governance of Kirkuk and, 99, 100, 214–18, 238; history of Kirkuk and, 13–14, 53–54; Iraqi Governing Council (IGC) and, 102, 110; in police forces, 107; political irrelevance of, 6, 246 n.3 (Introduction); population statistics, 24, 25, 96, 253 n.30; power sharing and, 229. See also Assyrians Churchill, Winston, 20–21 civil war, prospect of, 177, 185, 270 n.4, 272 n.24 class differences, 61–62, 69–70, 86 Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), 102, 107, 110, 111, 130, 259 n.39; property disputes and, 116, 169; sovereignty of Iraq and, 118–19 Comez, Turhan, 158, 268 n.82 Communists, 33, 34, 62, 64, 119, 122 compromise, 4, 185, 189–90, 243–44, 277 n.67; dimensions of, 190–92; future governance of Kirkuk and, 206 consociational model, 209, 213, 228, 274 n.20 constitution, Iraqi (2005), 86, 175, 273 n.2; amendment of, 188, 230, 268 n.88, 278 n.18, 279 n.3; ‘‘Kurdish veto’’ and, 119, 136, 258 n.24, 268 n.88; oil reserves of Kirkuk and, 235, 262 n.88, 269 n.113, 278 n.15; power-sharing mechanisms and, 206, 207; ratification, 178; referendum on, 2, 134–38; on regions and governorates, 224–25; status of Kirkuk and, 197, 231. See also Article 140 Constitutional Review Committee (CRC), 231, 279 n.27 Crocker, Ryan, 159, 160 Damirchi, Sayfaddin, 198 Daquq (town and district), 88, 94 D’Arcy, William Knox, 19, 21 al-Da’wa Party, 64, 123, 144, 145, 171, 270 n.7 De Mistura, Stefan, 163 democracy, 3, 119, 190, 274 n.20; compro-

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mise and, 4; ethnic relations within, 210; majority rule principle, 208, 210–12, 228 Democratic Patriotic Alliance of Kurdistan (DPAK), 121, 125, 127 Democratic Socialist Party (DTP) (Turkey), 158 Deutsche Bank, 19, 20, 22 Dibis district, 28, 30, 35 Diyala governorate, 28, 35, 81, 126; administrative boundaries and, 180; disputed territory in, 182, 184; election results in, 143; insurgency in, 147, 149; oil reserves, 19; power sharing in, 242 Dohuk governorate, 147, 148, 180, 260 n.61 Dutch-Anglo-Saxon Oil Company, 20 Edmonds, C. J., 25, 58–59 Egypt, 36 elections (2005), 2, 139–40, 175, 193, 259 n.41; balance of political power and, 171; ethnic composition of governance and, 216; party lists, 121–24; results, 124–27, 140–43, 237; run-up to, 119–21 Emergency Services Unit, 132, 218 Erbil (city and governorate), 3, 35, 59, 61; Arab tribal network and, 81; Begteginid dynasty in, 14; demonstration in, 7; in Desert Storm war (1991), 42; as disputed territory, 182; districts, 28; election results in, 143; ethnic composition, 24; as KRG headquarters, 206; status of Kirkuk and, 191; Turkmen concentration in, 68; Turkmeneli and, 57, 57 Erdogan, Recip Tayyip, 144–45, 158, 276 n.57 Ergec, Sadettin, 201 ethnic cleansing, 82, 156, 208, 242 ethnicity, 73, 86, 280 n.8; administrative positions and, 216–18; ethnic conflict, 49, 80, 94; governance of Kirkuk and, 214–16; voting along ethnic lines, 212. See also violence, ethnic ‘‘ethno-federalists,’’ 240, 242 European Union (EU), 50, 271 n.11 Exploration and Production Sharing Agreements (EPSAs), 3 Fadilla, 171, 240, 263 n.3 Faisal I, King, 63 Fallujah, siege of, 118 France, 21, 22

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288

Index

Front of Iraqi Turkments (FIT), 122, 124 ‘‘The Future of the Iraqi Kurds’’ report, xi Garner, Gen. Jay, 101 Gawer Baghi incident (1924), 63–64 geography, 10, 12, 73 geopolitics, 20–22, 77, 86 Germany, Kirkuk’s oil reserves and, 19, 20, 21 gerrymandering, 27–28, 29, 30, 35, 182 globalization, 72 Go¨kyurt (Blue Homeland), 17 Gray, Col. David, 95, 96 Green Line, 42, 81 G-7 ‘‘Leadership Council,’’ 101 Guclu, Yucel, 189, 274 n.13 Gul, Abdullah, 126 Guthrie, William, 56 Gutium, 14 al-Hadidi, Ismail, 99 Hadidi, Yahya, 121, 258 n.29 al-Hadidi tribe, 40, 80, 81 al-Hahimi, Tariq, 180 al-Hakim, Abd al-Aziz, 85, 164 n.17 al-Hakim, Ammar, 195 Halabja, chemical weapon attack on, 52 al-Hani, Sheikh Khadem, 118 Hankey, Sir Maurice, 22 al-Hashimi, Tareq, 245 n.2 Hawija (town and district), 28, 30, 33, 80, 81, 106; elections (2005) in, 123; ethnic conflict in, 94; insurgency in, 107; map, 88; security situation in, 152 Hebrew language, 43 Higher Election Commission (HEC), 120, 122, 123, 124 Hittites, 73 Horowitz, D., 211, 228, 279 n.20 Human Rights Watch (HRW), 39, 40, 68, 93, 105; on Arabized Kurds, 221; Kurdish security forces accused by, 162; on property dispute resolution, 116 Hurmuzlu, Ershat, 59 Hurrians, 13–14, 73 Hussein, Saddam, 10, 47, 271 n.10; Ba’th regime consolidation and, 39; Kurdish leaders and, 37; Kurdistan Region and, 75; Kuwait invasion, 41; mass deportations of Kurds under, 51; removal from power, 2, 85, 86, 123, 137; Sunni Arabs in support of, 109. See also Ba’th Party

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INDX

identity, 55, 73, 86, 207; ethnosectarian, 242; ‘‘national’’ myths and, 6 Ihsan, Mohammed, 154, 156 Independent Electoral Commission for Iraq (IECI), 143, 264 n.9 India, 21 Indo-European tribes, 13, 14, 73 insurgency, Sunni postwar, 7, 54, 106–7, 147–50, 272 n.31 internally displaced persons (IDPs), 187, 273 n.7 International Crisis Group, 83, 151, 162, 189–90, 201 International Republican Institute, 194 Iran, 16, 34, 71, 172; involvement in Kurdistan Region, 86, 96; Kurds in, 72; support for Kurds in Iraq, 39, 75; Turkmens in, 56 Iran-Iraq War, 40 Iraq, 2, 72, 155; armed forces, 2, 34, 65, 148; cohesiveness of, 53; defeat in Kuwait, 75; disintegration of, 172, 235; governorates and, 130–31; government of national unity, 143–45; kingdom of, 23; Kirkuk issue at crossroads, 7–8; Kurds’ incorporation into, 74; maps, ix–xi, 57; military coup (1958), 33; oil fields and infrastructure, x, xi; Oil Ministry, 1, 47, 106, 162, 264 n.21; parliament, 3–4, 7; postwar governance of, 101–4, 118–21; roots of civilization and, 9; transitional government, 133–34; U.S.-led invasion (2003), 1, 86. See also National Assembly Iraqi Accord Front (IAF), 139, 141, 142, 144, 156, 271 n.20 Iraqi Communist Party (ICP), 33, 36, 37, 160 Iraqi Governing Council (IGC), 2, 101–2, 112, 155, 280 n.8; Kurdistan Region and, 108–9; office of president and, 118; property disputes and, 116; status of Kirkuk and, 195, 199 Iraqi Interim Government (IIG), 119–21 Iraqi Islamic Party, 180, 272 n.29 Iraqi National Dialogue Front (INDF), 139, 141, 142, 170, 264 n.21 Iraqi National Gathering (ING), 122, 124, 125, 259 n.49 Iraqi National List (INL), 133, 134, 140, 160, 240; Article 140 and, 154, 270 n.7;

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Index election results and, 141; Kirkuk issue and, 171; unity government and, 144, 264 n.12 Iraqi Petroleum Company (IPC). See Turkish Petroleum Company Iraqi Property Claims Commission (IPCC), 116, 155 Iraqi Republican Assembly (IRA), 122, 124, 125, 170, 259 n.48; Arab-Kurd deal and, 161; Article 140 Committee and, 154 Iraqi Republican Grouping, 129 Iraqi Transitional Government (ITG), 2 Iraqi Turkmen Front (ITF), 8, 52, 54, 115, 251 n.23, 280 n.8; administrative positions and, 216–18; Article 140 and, 155, 157, 187; constitution opposed by, 262–63 n.90; demographic basis of claim on Kirkuk, 208; election results and, 142–43, 146, 260 n.52; elections and, 120–23, 126–27, 140; ethnic tension and, 104–5; fear of Kurdish violence, 149–50; founding of, 56; governance of Kirkuk and, 99–100, 111, 129, 238; on ‘‘illegitimacy’’ of Kurdish returnees, 220–23; KDP relations with, 68–69; Kurdish parties’ fighting with, 67; normalization process and, 178; officials targeted for assassination, 118; peshmerga criticized by, 109; powersharing scheme of, 229, 233; PUK criticized by, 93; status of Kirkuk and, 192, 197–202, 232; as Sunni-dominated organization, 103, 254 n.41; transitional government and, 134; Turkey’s foreign policy and, 94, 147, 253 n.28; United States and, 98, 102–3, 276 n.51; unity government and, 145 Iraqi Turkmen Islamic Movement, 119 Iraqi Turkmen Islamic Union, 99, 103, 154 Iraqi Turkmen National Assembly, 197 Iraqi Turkmen National Party, 57 Iraqi Turkmen Union Party, 122, 128, 198 Iraqi Women’s Organization, 102 Iraq Study Group, 159 Islam, conquest of seventh century, 15 Islamic and Turkmen Coalition (ITC), 122–26 Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI), 85, 240–42, 273 n.8 Islamic Union for Iraqi Turkmen, 122, 140, 142, 145, 197

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Ismail, Ibrahim, 118 Ismail I, Shah, 16 Israel, 49, 209–10, 230 Izady, Mehrdad, 14 al-Jaafari, Ibrahim, 133–34, 137, 144, 173, 175; Article 140 and, 153; normalization process and, 179; Turkey and, 144–45 Jabal Hamrin mountains, 13 al-Jabouri, Lt. Col. Awad, 107 Ja’far, Jasim Muhammed, 134, 145, 154, 155 Jahid, Ra’id Fahmi, 160 Jerusalem, 49, 53 Jews, 25, 209–10 al-Jibbur tribe, 33, 35, 80, 81, 195 al-Jubouri, Muhammed Khalil, 154 Justice and Development Party (AKP) (Turkey), 158, 267 n.81 Kahya, Riyad Sari, 121, 126–27 Kahya, Tahsin, 99, 111, 129, 150–51, 280 n.8 Kakarash, Babaker Sadiq, 154 Kana, Yonadem, 125 Kandinawa district, 35 Karbala governorate, 149, 180 Karkha d’Beth S’lokh (ancient city), 14 Karkhina (ancient city), 14 Kashmula, Duraid Mohammed, 128, 260 n.62 Keegan, Howard, 161 Khalil, Muhammed, 156 Khalil, Sonja, 41 Khalilzad, Zalmay, 159, 276 n.51 Khanaqin, town of, 76, 182, 183 Khattab, Col. Rizgar Najim, 131–32 Kirkuk, administrative boundaries of, 178, 180, 182, 191; map, 181; pre-Ba’thist, 168, 174, 237 Kirkuk (city and governorate), 1, 3, 9–10, 139; Arab perspective on, 79–86; communities in competition over, 53–55; in Desert Storm war (1991), 41–42; as disputed territory, 167, 182, 183; in early twentieth century, 24; ethnic (demographic) composition, 89, 137–38, 180, 237; ethnic tensions in, 33–34, 104–6; fall of Ba’thist regime, 91–95; future status of, 2, 4, 8, 185, 187, 192; gerrymandering of, 27–28, 29, 30, 182; governance of, 130–33; history, 5–6, 10–11, 13–17, 17–19, 50, 85–86; insurgency in,

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Index

Kirkuk (city and governorate) (continued ) 147–49; as international issue, 145–47; Iraqi constitution and, 178; as ‘‘Jerusalem’’ of Kurds, 77, 161; Kirkuki distinctiveness, 84; ‘‘Kurdification’’ of, 27, 60–61, 62, 67–68; maps, 29, 31, 88, 89; as multiethnic city, 26, 84; ‘‘native’’ Arabs of, 80–82; population statistics, 43–44; postwar struggle for, 96–98; power sharing in, 204–5, 213–16; suicide bombings in, 7–8; Turkmeneli and, 57, 57 Kirkuk and Its Dependencies (Mudhir), 13, 274 n.13 Kirkuk Brotherhood List (KBL), 121–24, 260 n.63, 280 n.8; Arab-Kurd deal and, 161; Article 140 Committee and, 154; ethnic composition, 214, 215; governing council and, 128–30, 238 Kirkuk-Ceyhan oil pipeline, 46 Kirkuk Council, 129, 132; Arab bloc, 195–96; deadlock in, 150–53; power sharing on, 187; property disputes and, 169; status of Kirkuk and, 201 Kirkuk Election Commission (KEC), 120–21, 258 n.29 ‘‘Kirkuk-first’’ outlook, 82, 84 Kirkuki, Irfan, 100, 108, 130, 198, 277 n.9 Kirkuk Property Claims Commission (KPCC), 117, 137 Kirkuk special status proposals, 162, 189, 190–92, 200–205; inside Kurdistan Region, 204, 205, 230–33; outside Kurdistan Region, 204, 205, 223–30 Kiyha, Tashin, 200 Kordestan Province (Iran), 72 Kurdification, 62, 64, 67–68, 247 n.24 Kurdish language, 24, 37, 43, 257 n.4, 261 n.75 Kurdistan, geographical limits of, 13, 251 n.4 Kurdistan Alliance (KA), 140, 175, 193; election results and, 141–43, 263 n.3; unity government and, 145 Kurdistan Autonomous Region, 39 Kurdistan Communist Party (KCP), 122, 128, 152 Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), 33, 34; Arabization policy and, 39; Article 140 Committee and, 154; fall of Ba’thist regime and, 92; governance of Kirkuk

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and, 128, 129–30, 206; hard-line politics of, 54; institutionalization of, 68; internal security forces, 108; in Iraqi government, 119; ITF relations with, 68–69; Kirkuk as nationalist symbol, 52; ‘‘March Agreement’’ and, 75; peshmerga and, 81, 117; power struggle with PUK, 95, 260 n.63; reconstruction process and, 152, 153; status of Kirkuk and, 193; unity government and, 145; U.S. military forces and, 97 Kurdistan Islamic Union (KIU), 122, 128, 142, 143, 193 Kurdistan Region, 2, 6, 26, 270 n.118, 273 n.9; Arabization policy in, 30; Article 140 and, 163; boundary with rest of Iraq, 183, 184, 188; capital city, 3; compromise possibilities, 190–92, 243; demand for recognition of, 108–9; elections (2005) and, 128; establishment (1991), 42, 52, 67, 68, 75; Kirkuk’s incorporation into, 4, 54, 83, 95, 115, 136, 146, 204–5; Kurdish perspective on, 74–77; Kurds expelled to, 45; map, xi; oil reserves and oil industry, 46, 176; Palestine crisis compared with, 71; regional power and, 226; Turkmen perspectives on, 56, 68–70. See also territories, disputed Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), 4, 54, 70, 83, 146, 192; administrative boundaries and, 191; Arabization policy and, 42; Article 140 Committee and, 155; Asayesh security force, 108; Assyrian critics of, 52; Erbil governorate and, 28; governance of Kirkuk and, 206; infrastructure budgets and, 168; institutionalization of, 76; ‘‘Kurdification’’ of Kirkuk and, 27; oil industry and, 1, 46, 162, 226; power-sharing scenarios, 230; status of Kirkuk and, 194, 198. See also territories, disputed Kurdistan Toilers’ Party, 122, 128 Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), 71–72, 157, 271 n.12 Kurds, 1, 30, 55, 71–73; Arab Iraqi nationalism and, 240–44; Arabization policy and, 5–6, 30, 32–33; Arab perspective and, 82–84; Arabs in post-Saddam conflict with, 105–6, 156–57; Article 140 and, 153, 154, 170–73; Ba’th regime

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Index consolidation and, 36–39; chemical weapons used against, 41, 51; conflict with Iraqi state, 25–27; costs of alienation of, 187–88; diaspora, 173; divisions among, 54; election triumph of, 127–28, 237; expulsion under Arabization policy, 39–41; fall of Ba’thist regime and, 92, 94–96; flawed strategy of leaders, 173–77; future status of Kirkuk and, 189, 205–8; governance of Kirkuk and, 99–101, 110–12, 214–18, 238; governing council representation and, 110; history of Kirkuk and, 10, 13–14, 73, 74; Iraqi Governing Council (IGC) and, 102, 103–4, 116, 118–19; in Iraqi parliament, 3; ‘‘legitimacy’’ of proportional power, 220–23; military power, 2; oil industry and, 59, 62, 162–63, 176, 234–36, 272 n.24; Ottoman Empire and, 17–18, 51; in police forces, 107, 255 n.64; political parties, 119, 121–22, 131, 133; population statistics, 24–25, 43–44, 58–59, 237; power sharing and, 229–30; property returned to, 170; public opinion among, 7; return of deportees, 168; security apparatus and, 218–19; status of Kirkuk and, 192–94; territories controlled by, xi; Transitional Administrative Law (TAL) and, 115; Turkey’s tensions with, 157–59; Turkmen perspective and, 61–64; Turkmens in conflict with, 104–5; unity government for Iraq and, 143–44; UN proposals and, 3 Kurds, Turks and Arabs (Edmonds), 58 Kuwait, 41, 75 Law on Provincial Elections, 240 Law on the Formation of Regions, 201, 206, 223 Lazar, Sargon, 100 League of Nations, 24 Lebanon, 22 Levies, 63 Lijphart, Arend, 213, 228 List for the Iraqi Nation (Mithal al-Alusi), 142 Lolobians, 13 Long-Be´renger Agreement, 22–23 Lustick, Ian, 209–10 Lyon, Wallce, 25

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Mahabad, Kurdish Republic of, 72, 248 n.7 al-Mahdi, Abdul, 180 Mahdi, Ali, 100, 155 al-Majid, Ali Hassan (‘‘Chemical Ali’’), 41 Makhmour district, 28, 76, 88, 182, 183 al-Maliki, Nuri, 175, 245 n.2, 267 n.78; Article 140 Committee and, 153, 155, 160, 163, 186; Kurdish leaders and, 188; as replacement for al-Jaafari, 145 ‘‘March Agreement’’ (1970), 37, 38, 75 Mashadani, Mahmoud, 3, 4 Mayville, Col. William, 96–97, 109, 111 McDowall, David, 59 Medes, 14, 73 media: Kurdish, 97, 173–74, 235–36; Western, 170, 177 Mehdi, Abdul, 144 Mesopotamia, ancient empires of, 14 Middle East News Agency (MENA), 94, 97 minority rights, 50, 228 ‘‘minority veto,’’ 213 Mistura, Staffan de, 3 Mongol invasions, 16, 17, 74 Mosul (city and governorate), 16, 24, 82; British control of, 22, 23, 234; districts and subdistricts, 28; end of Ottoman Empire and, 61; incorporated into Iraqi state, 25; Kurdish autonomy demands and, 26; Ottoman vilayets of, 5, 19–21; population (1920s), 25; Turkmeneli and, 57, 57 Mosul Commission (League of Nations), 24, 25 al-Mousawi, Abdul Fattah, 108, 109 Mubarek, Omer, 132, 261 n.75 Mudhir, Kamal, 13, 15, 274 n.13 Mudros Armistice, 23 Mujahedeen Brigades of Iraq, 117 Munshid, Sheikh Abdul Rahman, 196 Murad, Sultan, 17 Muratli, Ahmet, 93, 260 n.57 Musa, Hamid Majid, 119 Mustafa, Abdul Rahman, 99, 129 ‘‘Muthanna model,’’ 110 al-Mutlaq, Saleh, 170 Najjar, Jawdat, 69 Nasser, Gamal Abdel, 36 National Action Party (MHP) (Turkey), 158 National Assembly (NA), 109–10, 122, 160,

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Index

National Assembly (NA) (continued ) 195; anti-Kurdish bloc in, 175; elections to, 124, 125, 126, 127; Transitional Administrative Law (TAL) and, 113, 114; transitional government and, 133, 134 National Council, 112 nationalism, 10, 11, 62, 186; Arab, 26, 76, 86; Iraqi, 56, 64, 80, 242–43; Kurdish, 33, 52, 72, 73–74, 128, 251 n.4; SunniShi’i relations and, 241; Turkish, 63; Turkmen, 197, 198 National Rafidain List (NRL), 123–25, 141, 259 n.38 National Turkmen Grouping, 197 National Turkmen Party, 118 National Understanding Project (NUP), 163, 195, 270 n.117 Nawruz celebrations (2008), 71–72 1920 Revolution Brigades, 148 Ninevah governorate, 82, 125, 126, 128; disputed territory in, 182, 184; election results in, 143; Hamdaniyya district, 76, 77; insurgency in, 147, 149; power sharing in, 242 nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), 143 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), 50 Northern Oil Company (NOC), 118, 132, 229, 230, 254 n.45 Noureddin, Kalkhi Najmaddin, 197 ‘‘November 15 Agreement,’’ 109 al-Obeidi, Sheikh Hatem al-Assy, 107 al-Obeid tribe, 33, 80, 81, 195 Odierno, Maj. Gen. Ray, 99, 101 Oghuz Turkmen tribe, 15–16 oil reserves and oil industry, 6, 10, 74, 162–63, 249 n.36, 269–70 nn.113–14; Arabization policy and, 30, 32–33, 44, 45, 51; boundaries of Iraqi state and, 25–27; British policy and, 5; constitutional referendum and, 135, 279–80 n.3; deposits and fields, x, xi, 270 n.115; disputed territories and, 163; history of exploitation efforts, 19–23; infrastructure, x; Kirkuk as center of, 2; Kurdish independence and, 234–36; management of, 1; migrants drawn to towns by, 62; political compromise and, 189;

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postwar (since 2003), 46–47; power sharing and, 225–26, 231, 232; production figures, 45; regional powers and, 278 n.15; Sunni insurgency and, 106–7 O’Leary, Brendan, 189, 192, 228 Omar, Rashad Mendan, 103, 119 Operation Desert Storm, 41 Operation Iraqi Freedom, 44, 94, 173 Othman, Nermin, 154, 160–61 Ottoman Empire, 2, 10, 17–19, 51; Arab tribes in time of, 81; defeat and end of, 5, 22, 24, 61, 76, 85; oil reserves of Kirkuk and, 19–22; Safavid conflict with, 74; Turkmens and, 59, 60, 67. See also Turkey Pachachi, Adnan, 118 Palestine and Palestinians, 49, 71 Parthians, 14 Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), 52, 54; administrative boundaries and, 180; Article 140 Committee and, 154; constitutional referendum and, 137; governance of Kirkuk and, 111, 128, 129–30, 206; institutionalization of, 68; internal security forces, 108; in Iraqi government, 119; Kurdish media criticism of, 174; peshmerga and, 81, 92–94, 104, 109; power struggle with KDP, 95, 260 n.63; reconstruction process and, 152, 153; status of Kirkuk and, 193; unity government and, 145; U.S. military forces and, 97 Persian Empire, 17, 21, 22 peshmerga (Kurdish fighters), 26, 27, 34–35, 39, 75, 163; Arabs expelled by, 105; Arab-Turkmen alliance and, 109; budget of Kurdistan Region and, 176; cooperation with U.S. forces, 91, 92; ethnic tension and, 104; future governance of Kirkuk and, 230; Kirkuk occupied by, 72, 255 n.64; ‘‘Kurdification’’ of Kirkuk and, 61; in post-Saddam Iraq, 81–82; reversal of Arabization and, 117; Turkmen fear of, 150; U.S. military forces and, 96, 107, 271 n.13 population statistics (demography), 28, 35, 96, 236–38. See also census (1957) power sharing, 204–5, 207–9, 277 n.8; administrative positions, 216–18; control model, 209–10; equal, 209, 213, 229,

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Index 232, 242; incentives and, 227–29; internal security and, 218–19; Kurdish ‘‘hegemony’’ and, 238–40; majority control, 209, 210–12; proportional representation (PR), 209, 212, 229, 232; special status for Kirkuk and, 223–30 Presidency Council (PC) of Iraq, 113 property disputes, 116–18, 160, 168, 169 Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT), 152, 168, 266 n.56 Provisional Governing Council, 102 Al-Qaeda, 8, 54 Qamus al-A‘lam (Sami), 18 Qara-Quyunlu (Black Sheep), 16 Qassim, Abd al-Karim, 26, 33, 36 Qizilbash (Redhead) tribes, 16–17 Quran, 15 Al-Rafidain List, 142 rapareen uprising (1990s), 75 Reconciliation and Liberation Bloc, 141, 142, 145 regions, governorates and, 224–25 Resool, Shorsh, 40 Riyadh district, 28 Romano, David, 189 Rozbayani, Hassib, 100 Russia, 21, 22 al-Saadun tribe, 195 al-Sa’di, Ali Salih, 36 al-Sadr, Muqtada, 1, 82, 108, 144, 259 n.37; election (2005) and, 171; ethnic cleansing and, 242; Mahdi Army militia of, 1, 170–71, 264 n.12, 270 n.6; opposition to a Kurdish-controlled Kirkuk, 157, 170–71; Turkmen Shi’i supporters of, 109 Safavid dynasty, 74 Salahadin (Salah al-Din) governorate, 28, 126, 147, 149, 180 Salih, Barham, 119, 145, 193, 262 n.81 Sami, Shamsaddin, 18, 247 n.23 San Remo Oil Agreement, 23 Sargaran district, 35 Sasanid dynasty, 14 Saudi Arabia, 41 Seljuk Empire, 14–16 al-Shahristani, Hussein, 162, 264 n.14 Shakira, Walid, 198

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Shammar tribe, 195 Shan, Jamal, 128–29 Shatt al-Arab waterway, 39 Shaways, Rowsch, 119, 262 n.81 al-Shibli, Hashem, 154, 157, 160, 267 n.79 Shi’i Arabs, 80, 82, 84, 102, 118; Article 140 Committee and, 153, 154; constitutional referendum and, 135, 136; elections and, 125; Kirkuk issue and, 171; political parties, 122–23; resettlement of, 168; status of Kirkuk and, 196. See also Arabs Shi’i Muslims: British colonial policy and, 20; elections and, 120; Mahdi militia, 1; post-Saddam governments and, 95; region in southern Iraq, 242; Safavid empire and, 16, 17; Sunni relations with, 54, 85, 177, 241, 242, 272 n.24 Shi’i Turkmens, 16–17, 56, 64, 103, 208; Article 140 Committee and, 154; constitutional referendum and, 136; elections (2005) and, 140, 142; political parties, 122; status of Kirkuk and, 197, 201; transitional government and, 134. See also Turkmens Sinjar (Shingar), 76, 77 al-Sistani, Grand Ayatollah Ali, 136, 185, 257 n.5, 258 n.24 Slade, Rear Adm. Sir Edmund, 22 Stafford, Lt. Col. R. S., 63 State Administrative Law, 120, 121, 201 Status of Forces Agreement, 1 suicide bombings, 7–8, 132, 148 Sulaimania (city and governorate), 38, 61, 97, 180, 260 n.61 Suleiman the Magnificent, 17 Sunni Arabs, 51, 102, 171; Arabs of Kirkuk, 79–84; Article 140 Committee and, 153, 154; constitutional referendum and, 135, 136; elections and, 120, 124, 139–40, 142, 259 n.42, 272 n.27; ethnic tensions and, 132; Iraqi constitution and, 231; status of Kirkuk and, 196; transitional government and, 134; withdrawal from political process, 175. See also Arabs; insurgency, Sunni postwar Sunni Muslims, 1, 20, 26; Shi’i relations with, 54, 85, 177, 241, 242, 272 n.24; Turkmens, 16–17, 122, 134, 146, 201 Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), 103, 123, 144, 171, 180, 195 Sykes-Picot Agreement, 21, 22

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Syria, 16, 22, 71, 172, 272 n.31; Kurds in, 72; struggle for Kirkuk and, 96; Turkmens in, 56 Syriac language, 43 al-Tabari, Abu Ja’far Muhammad Bin Jarir, 15 Talabani, Ghazi, 118 Talabani, Jalal, 3, 4, 7, 54, 118, 245 n.2; administrative boundaries and, 180; Article 140 and, 144, 269 n.100; authoritarianism of, 173; on ‘‘Brussels model,’’ 190; on elections, 121–22; on Kirkuk’s ‘‘Kurdistani’’ identity, 129; Kurdish media criticism of, 174, 235–36; peshmerga in Kirkuk and, 93; power-sharing proposal of, 111; selection as president of Iraq, 127, 133, 260 n.57; on status of Kirkuk, 193; Sunni-Shi’i relations and, 177, 235–36; unity government and, 145; veto of Law on Provincial Elections, 240, 241 Talabany, Nouri, 35, 38, 189 Tal Afar (city and district), 184, 197, 272 n.31 al-Tawi, Atar, 195 territories, disputed, 76, 77, 155, 183, 184, 269 n.101; Article 140 and, 160, 167, 267 n.66; Ba’th regime and, 75; boundary of Kurdistan Region and, 273 n.10; census/referendum process and, 182–83; Iraqi constitution and, 178; map, xi; oil fields in, 163; Transitional Administrative Law (TAL) and, 114; United Nations and, 3, 230 Tigris River, 13 al-Tikriti, Hardan, 37 Tikriti tribe, 81 Togru¨l, 15 Transitional Administrative Law (TAL), 113–16, 130, 271 n.9; on administrative boundaries, 180; Article 58, 177, 178; constitutional referendum and, 135, 137; elections and, 120; formation of unity government and, 144; higher judicial court and, 186; ‘‘Kurdish veto’’ and, 136, 258 n.24; negotiations over, 119; oil reserves and, 132; power of appointment and, 131; on size of regions, 262 n.78; status of Kirkuk and, 175, 200; Turkmen parties and, 200

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Turkey, 39, 54, 60, 127, 229; involvement in Kurdistan Region, 67–68, 70, 86, 96; Iraqi elections and, 126; Iraqi Turkmen Front (ITF) and, 197, 198–99; Kirkuk issue and, 145–47; Kurdish tensions with, 157–59, 171; military intervention option, 172–73, 271 n.11; Nawruz celebrations (2008), 71–72; oil reserves of Iraq and, 176; status of Kirkuk and, 144–45, 201, 202, 232; Turkmens in, 56; U.S. efforts in north of Iraq and, 81, 91–92, 94. See also Anatolia; Ottoman Empire Turkification, 18 Turkish language, 18, 24, 43, 51 Turkish National Bank, 20 Turkish Petroleum Company (TPC), 20, 22, 23, 32 Turkmen Brotherhood Party, 197, 198 Turkmen Cultural Association, 69 Turkmen Democratic Movement, 197 Turkmeneli (‘‘Land of the Turkmens’’), 56–57, 57, 197 Turkmeneli Party, 118, 121, 122, 126, 127, 199 Turkmen Front, 125–27 Turkmen Justice Party, 155 Turkmen language, 66 Turkmen National Association (TNA), 54, 69 Turkmen National Movement, 124, 258–59 n.36 Turkmen People’s Party, 100, 122, 128, 197, 198, 277 n.9 Turkmen Reform Movement (TRM), 54, 197 Turkmens, 1, 33–34, 52, 56–61, 78; ‘‘antiKurdistan’’ position, 56, 57; Arabization policy and, 42, 51, 60, 64–67; Arabs in common cause with, 84, 107–9, 170; on Article 140 Committee, 153–55, 280 n.8; divisions among, 54; elections and, 129, 237; extreme views among, 55; fall of Ba’thist regime and, 92; future status of Kirkuk and, 189; governance of Kirkuk and, 99, 100, 214–18, 238, 239; governing council representation and, 110; history of Kirkuk and, 10, 15–17; Iraqi Governing Council (IGC) and, 102–3, 112; in Iraqi parliament, 4; on Kirkuk Council, 151; Kirkuk’s importance to, 2;

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Index Kurdish language spoken by, 24; in Kurdistan Region, 68–69; Kurds in conflict with, 104–5; ‘‘massacre’’ by Kurds (1959), 5, 34, 60, 64, 70; in modern Iraq, 61–62; narrative of oppression, 62–68; officials targeted for assassination, 117–18; oil industry and, 33, 63; Ottoman Empire and, 17–18, 51, 59, 60, 61, 67; in police forces, 107; political boundaries of Kirkuk and, 30; population statistics, 24–25, 43, 44, 58, 220, 236–37, 280 n.8; power sharing and, 220, 239–40; property returned to, 170; status of Kirkuk and, 196–203, 277–78 n.9; Turkish foreign policy and, 146; UN proposals and, 3. See also Shi’i Turkmens Tuz Khurmato (town), 16, 28, 57, 57, 150 Tuzmana, Kursad, 158 al-Ubaid tribe, 35, 151 Ughlu, Usher Topal, 197 Ummayad empire, 15 United Arab Front, 122 United Iraqi Alliance (UIA), 122, 123, 125, 197; Article 140 Committee and, 154; constitutional referendum and, 136; election results and, 140–42, 171, 263 n.6; internal divisions, 143; transitional government and, 14, 133; unity government and, 145 United Nations, 47, 50, 76, 159, 245 n.2; Article 140 and, 186; displaced persons and, 42; disputed territories and, 3, 230; human rights report on Iraq, 162; interim Iraqi government and, 118; Iraqi elections and, 143; oil-for-food program, 75–76, 176, 258 n.28; Security Council resolutions, 119; special envoy to Iraq, 163; status of Kirkuk and, 190, 201; Transitional Administrative Law (TAL) and, 271 n.9; Turkish proposals and, 146, 158 United States, 86, 168; Article 140 and, 173; in Desert Storm war (1991), 42; invasion of Iraq (2003), 91–92, 93; Iraq’s sovereignty and, 110, 116; Kirkuk issue and, 157, 158–59; Kurdish interests and, 95, 96, 100, 104, 152–53; majority-control model in, 211; oil reserves of Kirkuk and, 20, 21, 23; Turkish diplomatic pressure on, 172. See also U.S. military forces

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Upholders of the Message (Risalyun), 142, 171 U.S. military forces, 8, 111, 137; Commanders Emergency Response Program (CERP), 101; governance of Kirkuk and, 98–101, 213, 214, 218, 219, 238; insurgency and, 118, 148; Iraqi Governing Council (IGC) and, 101; in Kirkuk, 93–96, 115, 187, 239; Kurdish parties and, 133, 245 n.45, 271 n.13; Mahdi Army militia and, 264 n.12, 270 n.6; property disputes and, 117; security transferred to Iraqi forces, 152; Sunni insurgency and, 106–7; surge in level of, 1; timetable for withdrawal from Iraq, 144 Vasquez, Maj. Victor, 151 violence, ethnic, 4, 7, 62, 98; KurdishTurkmen, 104–5; need for compromise to avoid, 244; property disputes and, 117; rarity in Kirkuk, 132 Al-Wafa Movement for Iraqi Turkmens, 122 wafideen (Arab settlers), 44, 79, 80, 81, 82; departure from Kirkuk, 85; involuntary, 83; logistics of resettlement, 168–69; in post-Saddam Iraq, 105 Washington Institute for Near East Policy, xi water supply, 74 Wilson, Ross, 159 Woods, John, 16 World War I, 5, 10, 51, 85; British power in Mesopotamia and, 22, 23; collapse of Ottoman Empire, 24; oil geopolitics and, 21 Yassin, Tashin Hamid, 117 al-Yawer, Ghazi, 118 Yaycili, Mustafa Kamal, 99, 199 Yazidi Movement for Progress and Reform, 142 Yelda, Ashur, 154, 266 n.61 Yezidis, 25 Zagros mountains, 13–16 Zebari, Hoshyar, 92, 119, 145, 193, 262 n.81 Zengi, dynasty of, 16 Ziad, Ubeidallah, 15

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Acknowledgments

This book could not have been completed without the help, resources, and encouragement generously extended by countless individuals and institutions. In particular, we would like to thank the University of Exeter and Wright State University for administrative and financial support. Both universities have been exceedingly generous in providing the time and space necessary to work on this project. A research fellowship provided to Gareth Stansfield by the Leverhulme Trust provided further financial support that proved essential for the undertaking of this project. All of the support received is deeply appreciated. During the preparation of this manuscript, we were fortunate to benefit from speaking with a range of people associated with the situation in Kirkuk over a number of years. We would like to express our gratitude to them for the time spent with us and for the insights they gave. In addition to those listed within these pages, there were some individuals who wished to express their views anonymously; we are happy to respect their wishes, but we would nonetheless like to thank them all for their valuable insights into the Kirkuk issue. During numerous research trips to Kurdistan and northern Iraq over the 2004–8 period we relied heavily on a number of people, both to keep us safe and to facilitate meetings with relevant individuals. We will forever be in debt to our ‘‘fixer’’ in Iraqi Kurdistan, Salar Abdullah Amin. Salar’s tireless efforts on our behalf, his cheerful enthusiasm, and his limitless capacity to open doors that would otherwise have remained closed were indispensable to this project; literally, we could not have written this book without him. Other individuals who went above and beyond the call of duty include Sheth Jerjis, who helped arrange for us extremely useful discussions with Turkmen and Arab members of the Kirkuk provincial council, and Shorsh Haji, whose knowledge of Kirkuki politics is second to none and whose diligent research assistance was invaluable. Particular thanks is due to the KRG’s prime minister, Nechirvan Barzani, and Mohammed Ihsan for the time they spent with us clarifying the position of the KRG on Kirkuk

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and for the resources made available by the Ministry of Extra-Regional Affairs and the prime minister’s office. Thanks are also owed to the University of Pennsylvania Press—to our more than patient commissioning editor, Peter Agree, and to Brendan O’ Leary, whose detailed suggestions greatly improved the quality of the finished product. Finally, a huge debt is owed to our families: to Jackie and Lise for their tolerance of fieldwork visits to Iraq and seemingly endless hours of Kirkuk-related discussion; and to our children—those already with us and those soon to come.

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