Kurdistan remains as isolated from the rest of Iraq as it was throughout the 1990s, when Baghdad withdrew from three Kurdish governorates, imposed an internal blockade and left them to fend for themselves. Today's isolation is more voluntary. The Kurds were allies of the US in their war against Saddam Hussein and when Baghdad fell on April 9. hundreds of thousands danced in the streets. "Now we are Iraqis," a young man had shouted in Sulaimaniyah over the celebratory honking of car horns. "I can study in Baghdad. I can travel. I can join the world," he added, echoing others who said they were celebrating not only the fall of a hated oppressor but the end of their seclusion. Seven months on there has been little reintegration. Prospering from increased security and trade, Kurdistan remains an entity unto itself, detached from the crisis gripping the rest of Iraq. Though the violence in the south is a topic of conversation, Kurds see it as "their" problem. Though less inclined to conspiracy theories than many Middle Eastern people, they ask if the Americans are stupid, or really want it to go so badly. "Us" meets "them" only in "newly-liberated" Kirkuk, Khanaqin, and to a lesser extent Mosul and the towns and villages in between. These traditionally Kurdish areas lay outside the "green line" separating the self-governing governorates from the rest of Iraq after 1991. But they were always seen as Kurdish, separated from the rest only by the force of the regime.
Please differentiate me from your other correspondents and address me directly (if at all), because I am NOT here claiming (as others are trying to do) that Saddam indeed "controlled" the area of Iraq in which the A-a-I base was set up.
Because, you see, I consider whether he "controlled" that area to be a *straw man*.
I'll grant you for the sake of argument that Saddam Hussein's forces didn't "control", militarily, or otherwise, the zone in which that base was located. That is was something of a lawless zone (because let's face it, it wasn't "controlled" by the Kurdish military either - are you claiming that it was? if it had been, the Kurds would have wiped out the camp - which contained their enemies you see - themselves).
Here's what you are missing however: the fact that Saddam's troops didn't "control" the region containing the camp, doesn't mean he didn't support it, monetarily, logistically, with personnel, etc.
The fact that something is in a lawless zone outside a region Saddam has "control" over, doesn't mean Saddam would not have been able to set up, or (more likely) encourage the creation of, a camp there. It especially doesn't mean Saddam would not have been able to support it financially, logistically, or with personnel.
In fact, as I said, if he *were* going to set up, or encourage to be set up, a camp of proxy jihadi warriors, a "no-fly zone" nominally out of his "control" would be the IDEAL place to do it.
He's not gonna let them set up camp in downtown Baghdad for crying out loud. See my point?