Posted on 04/22/2003 2:22:18 PM PDT by Pokey78
JAY GARNER, the retired US general appointed to run postwar Iraq, received a hero’s welcome yesterday when he returned to the region where he is fêted for helping to create a save haven for Kurds after the first Gulf War.
Crowds of students cheered the 65-year-old head of the Pentagon’s Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance for Iraq as he arrived in Sulaimaniyah, providing a stark contrast with his reception in Baghdad a day earlier.
But even as Kurds assured General Garner that they wanted autonomy within Iraq, and he in turn praised the 12-year Kurdish experiment with democracy as a “model for the whole country”, it was possible to detect the seeds of future problems.
As he thanked America and Britain for ridding the country of Saddam Hussein, Jalal Talabani, leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), made clear that Kurds expected a reward for loyalty to the coalition forces.
“We have chosen our allies and our camp, the United States of America, against tyranny and terrorism,” said Mr Talabani, sitting alongside General Garner and his recently reconciled rival Massoud Barzani, the head of the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP).
“President Bush liberated Kuwait and the Gulf. Another Bush came and liberated Iraq. Let us hope that something will happen for the Kurdish people.”
Mr Barzani thanked the US and Britain after the meeting, describing it as “constructive and productive”. He said: “We are very pleased that eventually the Iraqi people will be the masters of their destiny.”
Both the KDP and PUK are careful to insist that they seek only autonomy, Mr Talabani said, dismissing as irresponsible those who dream of independence, at least for now. “In this moment we want to deal within the framework of Iraq,” he said.
The issue of ethnic cleansing also hangs over the region, with widespread reports of Kurdish militia groups forcing Arab Iraqis out of their houses in villages and towns south of Kirkuk, in a mainly PUK- controlled area. It is unclear whether the expulsions are being carried out by PUK forces, or if the party is failing to rein in extremists.
Challenged on such reports, General Garner indicated that there would be an arbitration committee to resolve problems and that the committee would be “a mosaic of the cultures”. But he failed to provide specifics, preferring to blame the previous regime.
In his trademark clipped manner, dwelling on the big picture without providing details, he said: “The only ethnic cleansing that has been done in Iraq was done by Saddam Hussein. This is a different area with different leaders who don’t want to see that again. Next question.”
Such issues were far from the agenda when he arrived in Sulaimaniyah. Crowds were eager to hail the man who, as commanding general of Joint Task Force Bravo in Northern Iraq in 1991, was in charge of Operation Provide Comfort, giving food and shelter to thousands of Kurdish refugees.
Taking the stage of a university lecture hall to sit alongside a line-up of local dignitaries, he abandoned the table and walked to the front of the stage, microphone in hand.
“Thank you so very much for this gracious welcome. This day for me is like returning home,” he said, to loud cheers. One young man shouted: “You are welcome.”
Then he spoke through an interpreter of his experiences in Baghdad the previous day, when he visited a hospital, sewage plant and power plant.
“Yesterday I was in Baghdad and I went to the hospital that had five kidney patients that could only be cared for for two hours each day. Then last night I walked into one of Saddam Hussein’s palaces and I looked at the grandeur and the wealth of that place and I got sick because none of that was ever shared with the people.
“What you have done here in the last 12 years is marvellous and it is a wonderful start to self-government and democracy, and what you have done here can serve as a model for the rest of Iraq.”
Some have noted that on his introductory visit he will not visit the south, where Iraq’s Shia majority is flexing its political muscles. The rise of the Shias and calls for an Islamic democracy with sharia (Islamic law), poses perhaps the greatest problem for the incoming administration.
Challenged on his vision for a post-Saddam Iraq, he was, again, long on generalities and vision, but short on detail. “Our desire is that the new government of Iraq represent all Iraqi people — Kurdish people, Shiites, Shias, Turkomans, Assyrians, Chaldeans . . . all people. It will be a mosaic of the cultures and religions and ethnicity of Iraq,” he said.
Seriously, I think some Shiite mullahs in Southern Iraq need to be threatened with Kurdish rule if they don't shut their yaps.
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