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| Troops make inroads with Kurdish political parties By Seth Robson, Stars and Stripes European edition, Tuesday, March 23, 2004
DIYANA, Iraq — U.S. soldiers are using SUVs and snowplows to keep open the political inroads they’ve made in this northern Iraq region. Reservists from Task Force Olympia’s 416th Civil Affairs Battalion, out of Norristown, Pa., arrived in Irbil last month to find their Kurdish counterparts as new to the job as they were. Irbil’s governor, lieutenant governor, and 20 other top officials were killed in blasts last month, which rocked the headquarters of Kurdistan’s two main political parties, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and the Kurdistan Democratic Party. In all, more than 100 were killed in the Feb. 1 blasts. Task Force Olympia officials say they believe the blasts were intended to drive a wedge between the parties, which fought a bloody civil war between 1994 and 1998. The parties have actually come closer together, however, with the help of the civil affairs troops, the officials said. In the past week, a four-man team from the 416th drove high into the mountains of northern Iraq to supervise the delivery of 20 sport-utility vehicles and four snowplows to a group of district mayors in Diyana. In contrast to other U.S. soldiers serving in Iraq, the 19 soldiers from the 416th live off the land, eating local food and renting Iraqi houses. Other than a small contingent of Special Forces soldiers, they are the only U.S. troops working in the Kurdish parts of Iraq. The SUVs, which cost $350,000, were paid for by the Coalition Provisional Authority out of $24 million fund earmarked for projects started by the civil affairs soldiers. The pot-holed road to Diyana, where the mayors were waiting, passes some of the most scenic parts of Iraq. There are snow-clad mountains and spectacular canyons full of waterfalls and turbulent mountain rivers. The region was once a tourist mecca for Iraqis. When the soldiers arrived at Diyana, not far from Haji Omran, a border village whose inhabitants were gassed by Saddam Hussein, the mayors greeted them with tea and soft drinks. Team leader, 1st Lt. Tim Hilfiger, told them, “I know the tragedy the Iraqi and Kurdish people suffered on Feb. 1. A lot of this dark history will take a long time to pass but it is with the youth that the future will begin.” Irbil’s lieutenant governor, Tahir Abdulah, said the delivery of the vehicles was evidence that the U.S. military is in Iraq to help his people. “We have both shed blood to liberate Iraq. We both are working together to make sure Iraq has democracy,” he told the soldiers. To avoid arguments over distribution of the vehicles, Hilfiger held a lottery to determine where they would go. Before the meeting was concluded, however, an argument broke out when a mayor complained his district was not getting enough vehicles. “Today is a day that everybody in the room should be happy,” Hilfiger said, promising there would be more gifts in future. The civil affairs team inspected the SUVs to make sure they were in accordance with the military contract, which required models to be later than 1999 with less than 90,000 kilometers. The four snowplows were really front loaders used to dig trenches and move dirt. One of the soldiers in the team, Spc. Edward Schoenleber, who was working on his master’s degree in economics at the University of Pennsylvania before he got called to Iraq, oversaw the economic aspects of the vehicle project. “You can only learn so much in a classroom,” he said. “Here you see the effects that the U.S. government has on the economy, coming here with buckets of money and trying to devise a plan.” Other projects for the 416th included bringing water and electricity to remote mountain villages, supplying sports equipment to young people, rebuilding schools and fixing roads. Schoenleber said many Kurdish villages have lost access to comforts such as electricity and running water over the years. “Some of them had these things long ago, but after 25 years of constant war and 10 years of sanctions they have lost them,” he said. “Saddam gave these people nothing.” |
