COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS CLAIBORNE PELL, Rhode Island, Chairman JOSEPH R. BIDEN, Jr., Delaware PAUL S. SARBANES, Maryland ALAN CRANSTON, California CHRISTOPHER J. DODD, Connecticut JOHN F. KERRY, Massachusetts PAUL SIMON, Illinois TERRY SANFORD, North Carolina DANIEL P. MOYNIHAN, New York CHARLES S. ROBB, Virginia Geryld B. Christianson, Staff Director James P. Lucier, Minority Staff Director JESSE HELMS, North Carolina RICHARD G. LUGAR, Indiana NANCY L. KASSEBAUM, Kansas LARRY PRESSLER, South Dakota FRANK H. MURKOWSKI, Alaska MITCH McCONNELL, Kentucky HANK BROWN, Colorado ORRIN G. HATCH, Utah (ID CONTENTS Page Letter of Transmittal v Summary of Key Findings vi I. Civil War J A. The Revolution Begins B. The Kurdish Rebellion 2 C. Defeat in the South 3 D. The Collapse of the Kurdish Rebellion 4 II. The Humanitarian Crisis in the North 6 A. March 30-31, 1991 6 B. The Destruction of Kurdish Villages 7 C. The Concentration Camps 8 D. The Killing Machine 10 E. A Program for Effective Relief. 10 III. United States Policy and the Lost Revolution 13 A. The "No Contacts" Policy 13 B. The Iraqi Opposition 14 C. An Opportunity Lost 15 D. The Relief Effort: Too Late for Too Many 1" IV. Prospects 20 A. The Kurdish-Iraqi Deal 20 B. Saddam Hussein's Future 21 Appendixes A. Background on the Kurds 23 B. "Last Stand: A Report From Kurdistan" 26 (in) SUMMARY OF KEY FINDINGS Humanitarian Issues • Iraq's civil war has cost tens of thousands of lives in the Kurd- ish and Shi'a regions of the country, and has precipitated an im- mense humanitarian catastrophe. In northern and southern Iraq, forces loyal to Saddam Hussein have shelled cities intensely, have leveled neighborhoods, and have engaged in wholesale massacres of civilians. More than 2 million Iraqi Kurds have sought refuge on the Iraq-Turkey and the Iraq-Iran borders and they are dying at a rate of up to 2,000 a day. • The safe haven created by U.S. and coalition forces around the northern Iraqi city of Zakho will draw thousands of Kurdish refu- gees out of the mountains. However, the Kurds are likely to remain in the Zakho vicinity only as long as foreign forces are there to protect them. Other refugees may not go to the safe haven because of uncertainty over the duration of international protec- tion. The Kurds are at risk of slaughter as long as Saddam Hussein remains in power, and so the foreign protection will need to contin- ue indefinitely. • The more than 1 million Kurds languishing in Iraqi resettle- ment areas are the invisible victims of Iraq's civil war and repres- sion. The resettlement areas, euphemistically known as "victory cities" but really concentration camps, were set up to accommodate rural Kurds made homeless by the regime's program to destroy all the villages of Kurdistan. Mostly unemployed since their arrival in the settlements in the mid-1980's, these Kurds have had little food and no transport to facilitate an escape to the mountains. Prior to the collapse of the Kurdish rebellion, the situation of these concen- tration camp Kurds was precarious. After a month of possible star- vation and retribution, the death toll in the resettlement areas could be very high. • Only an expanded safe haven encompassing towns along Iraq's borders with Turkey and Iran can accommodate all 2 million Kurd- ish refugees. The large size of the zone required is one byproduct of Iraq's policy of destroying the villages of Kurdistan. The current policy of permitting the Baghdad administration and police to remain in the safe haven risks U.S. and coalition involvement in the conflict between the Kurds and the Saddam Hussein regime. Such a result can be avoided, and law and order better preserved, if the Kurds are themselves allowed to administer and police towns in the safe haven. (VI) VII Policy Issues • The United States was unprepared for the peace that followed the gulf war. Although President Bush fueled the rebellion inside Iraq by calling on the Iraqi people to overthrow Saddam Hussein, the administration did not anticipate the uprising either in north- ern or southern Iraq. As a result, the United States may have lost an opportunity to overthrow Saddam Hussein in mid-March, and it was unprepared to cope with the humanitarian crisis that followed the brutal repression of the rebellion. • The administration's surprise at events inside Iraq is directly traceable to a policy of no contact with the Iraqi opposition. This policy, originally dictated in response to Iraqi and Turkish protests over a 1988 State Department meeting with a Kurdish leader, con- tinued until the end of the gulf war and even after Turkey initiat- ed its own dialog with the Iraqi Kurds. • Perhaps as a result of not speaking with the Iraqi opposition, the administration mischaracterized the goals of both the Shi'a rebels in southern Iraq and the Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq. This mischaracterization may have contributed to the decision not to assist the rebels at a time when they might have ousted Saddam Hussein. • As the anti-Saddam rebellion gained force in March, several strategically located Iraqi military figures were in contact with the Joint Action Committee of the combined Iraqi opposition. Accord- ing to opposition sources, these leaders looked for a signal that the United States supported the rebellion. Not only was no signal given, but the public snub of the Iraqi opposition combined with background statements that the Administration sought a military, not a popular, alternative to Saddam Hussein, served to deter de- fections to the rebellion, thus helping to doom the anti-Saddam cause. The United States also failed to respond to a Saudi proposal to assist the rebels. • In spite of clear warnings, the administration responded too late to the humanitarian crisis precipitated by Iraq's civil war. Military efforts now underway are at last providing effective relief. • Saddam Hussein has greatly strengthened his internal position in the two months since the end of Operation Desert Storm. While he no longer poses a military threat to the region, he continues to menace his own people. Therefore, unless the United States is pre- pared to abandon the Iraqi people, it will be involved in the Iraqi quagmire for a long time to come. Base 504065 3-79 (544444) E3 Proposed expanded safe haven (see p. 12). 4 In addition to these activities, the Ba'ath regime apparently in- dulged its favorite pacification technique in the south. Whole neighborhoods were destroyed in March and early April, depriving urban rebels of sanctuary and punishing a hostile population. The south's flat terrain, combined with the absence of experi- enced Shi'a guerrilla fighters, facilitated Saddam Hussein's repres- sion of the southern revolt. The refugee flow out of the south—ap- proximately 40,000 to the U.S. zone and 70,000 to Iran—did not compare to that which subsequently occurred in the north, in part because the Iraqi army was able to surround cities and close off exit points prior to initiating the slaughter. The plight of Iraq's Shi'as, while far less visible than that of the Kurds, is certainly more severe than currently depicted. D. The Collapse of the Kurdish Rebellion By March 28 the military tide was beginning to turn against the Kurds. Iraqi forces, backed up by helicopter gunships, launched a ferocious assault on the city of Kirkuk. As parts of the city were retaken, Kurdish insurgents reported that remaining residents of Kurdish neighborhoods were machinegunned and slaughtered. Within days Iraqi army forces moved into other Kurdish cities and towns: Dihok and Irbil fell on March 31, Zakho, and Sulaymaniyah on April 1. The fierce Iraqi attack accounts in part for the Kurdish defeat. Cities were subject to intense bombardment. Dihok, for example, was shelled incessantly the night before it fell. Phosphorous shells, which can instantly cremate their victims, were used extensively and with maximum terror impact. Unlike the Iraqis, the Kurdish leaders were unwilling to subject their own people to this sort of devastation. Kurdish forces pulled out of cities not only because they believed they could not hold them over the long term, but also because they wanted to spare civilians and facilitate their flight to safety. While the Kurds captured large quantities of Iraqi weapons, they were unable to make effective use of them. Artillery pieces were often idle for lack of firing pins. The Kurds had quite a collection of captured Soviet-made tanks (some disabled in the capture were restored by the Kurds) but did not necessarily have the ordnance to go with the tanks. All Kurdish military operations were hampered by a lack of gasoline and in some cases food for the guerrillas. The Kurds also suffered from command and control deficiencies. Communication between commanders was often by written note and, when they had electronic communications, these were limited and not effectively utilized. Logistically, the Kurds had difficulty matching ordnance with weapons. Tank drivers, for example, would not necessarily know of a supply of ordnance stockpiled in a different part of Kurdistan. From the cities of Kurdistan hundreds of thousands of Kurdish refugees fled to the high mountains along the Turkish and Iranian borders. The flight was not easy. After 8 months of sanctions and 2 months of war, little gasoline remained in Kurdistan. Thus, most refugees traveled by foot. The vehicles seen heading out of Dihok, presumably typical of the flight from other cities, were heavily 5 overloaded. Dump-trucks carried loads of 50 or more; private cars were filled and even carried adults and children in the trunks. Not all the refugees were Kurds. Living among the Kurds in the north were more than 500,000 Christian Assyrians and Chaldeans. In Dihok, on Easter Sunday, Yacoub Yousif, an Assyrian leader, was eager to take his American visitor to the midnight service in an ancient Assyrian church, the first such service there since the Ba'ath regime had closed it years before. Heavy shelling of the city forced the priest to postpone the midnight mass to 2 a.m. and then, as the shelling continued unabated, to postpone it to Easter morn- ing. Easter morning the last of the Dihok residents were moving out and the Easter service was not held. And a day which Kurds, As- syrians, and Chaldeans hoped might be part of their national resur- rection instead marked the beginning of a new chapter of suffering and death. The Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani (center) with Yacoub Yousif (left), Dihok, March 30, 1991. 42-653 - 91 - 2 II. THE HUMANITARIAN CRISIS IN THE NORTH A. March 30-31,1991 As the Easter weekend concluded, it was clear an immense catas- trophe was about to overtake the Kurdish people. People walking to the mountains carried little food and not much with which to shelter themselves; adults shepherding children or assisting the el- derly were able to bring even less. Those with cars and trucks were better off as they could carry more and arrived in the mountains less exhausted. However, even before the Kurds left their cities, little food was available. Typically a family group of 10 finding refuge in the high mountains on the Iraqi side of the border ar- rived on Easter Sunday with 100 pounds of rice and perhaps some other more perishable foodstuffs. It would be another 3 weeks before any significant international relief reached these people, and the Easter Sunday arrivals were the lucky refugees: they had come by truck or car. Ultimately, some 800,000 Kurds actually reached the Turkish border while up to 1,500,000 are in Iran or along the Iranian border. The television images of these refugees—desperate people living in filth, fighting for food, and burying their babies—have shocked governments into action. Yet they only represent part of the catastrophe. Refugees in flight from Dihok, March 31, 1991. (6) 8 A Kurdish village destroyed by the Saddam Hussein regime. Together with the villages, the Iraqi regime killed sheep and farm animals, and burned orchards. A particular target were the donkeys and few of these once ubiquitous beasts of burden can now be found in Iraqi Kurdistan. The donkey, like the village, was a key support system for the Peshmerga. By destroying rural Kurdistan, the Iraqi regime also deprived the inhabitants of this pastoral land of any indigenous food supply. As a result, the Kurds have become entirely dependent on import- ed food, and in particular, U.S. rice and wheat. With the U.N. sanc- tions, the American war, and the civil war, these imported supplies disappeared. Kurds fleeing the cities at the end of March could find no food in the countryside and no village shelter in a still freezing mountain environment. The absence of indigenous food and shelter has greatly exacerbated the humanitarian crisis overtaking the Kurds. C. The Concentration Camps Perhaps as many as 2 million Kurds, Assyrians, and Chaldeans were moved from their villages after 1985. The luckier ones went to the cities to stay with relatives. There they were able to find em- ployment or at least could live off the income of employed rela- tives. When the Kurdish military collapse came, these newly ur- banized villagers, along with other city dwellers, had the food re- sources (often acquired at exorbitant blackmarket rates) and some- times even the transport to flee. Not so the inhabitants of the concentration camps, who number, according to Massoud Barzani, 1.1 million in 104 separate settle- ments. (This writer's independent estimate of the population was 1 million.) Mostly unemployed since the destruction of their villages, 10 D. The Killing Machine On August 25, 1988—five days after the end of the Iran-Iraq war—the Iraqi air force launched massive chemical weapons at- tacks on Kurdish villages along the Iraq-Turkey border. The vil- lages had been in areas where the Peshmerga operated, and be- cause the Peshmerga had sided with Iran during the war, the area was marked for retribution. But in seeking retribution the Iraqi regime did not attack the Peshmerga camps on the mountains above the villages, camps pre- sumably quite visible from the air on the barren Kurdish hillsides. Rather, the regime targeted villages inhabited almost exclusively by women, children, and noncombatant men. The terror impact of poison gas was thus maximized. This history, and others like it, is well known to the people of Kurdistan. With the entire region under Kurdish control during the recent rebellion, entire urban populations feared a retribution aimed at maximizing civilian deaths. The actual experience of the March 1991 revolt—the shelling of cities, the use of phosphorous and napalm, the killing of Kurds in recaptured neighborhoods— seemed to justify these fears. E. A Program for Effective Relief The United States and its coalition partners, the United King- dom and France, are now creating a safe haven in northern Iraq so that Kurdish refugees can return to areas where they can be shel- tered, protected, and more readily fed. This plan is a variant on one proposed by British Prime Minister John Major. In its present form, however, it is questionable whether it will work. The coalition has so far created a safe haven around the city of Zakho, 10 miles from the Turkish border. The Iraqi army has been ordered out of a zone within a 30-kilometer radius of Zakho, and tent cities are being set up in a green valley along the Zakho-Ama- diyah road. Many of the refugees in nearby Isikveren refugee camp are from Zakho, and the hope is that these people will return home. Kurds from other areas are to be accommodated in the tents. Supplies can be readily brought in from Turkey, and one of the two bridges that connect Zakho with Cizre in Turkey has been repaired. The road system is a good one, and as soon as bureaucrat- ic impediments on the Turkish side are swept away, ample food and other supplies can be brought in. The safe haven now is in the process of being extended to the town of Amadiyah and vicinity, some 50 miles east of Zakho. Many Kurds are now abandoning their miserable mountainside existence for the comforts of Zakho and its vicinity. As things now stand, they are not likely to stay. Others will not come at all. The reason, quite simply, is the absence of sufficient guarantees for the safety of the Kurdish civilians. Initially the Kurds were concerned that the army and the muk- habarat would continue to stay in Zakho under the guise of being ordinary police. They feared these professional killers could contin- ue to murder even while the allies surrounded Zakho, or alterna- tively, that the mukhabarat would take names in anticipation of a coalition withdrawal. 12 are kept at a distance from Kurdish towns and camps, and only if the military force between the Kurds and the Iraqis is sufficiently strong so as to convince the Iraqis that a renewed attack on the Kurds will involve renewed hostilities with the United Nations or the coalition. Second, any protected enclave for the Kurdish civilians must be sufficiently large to house the more than 2 million displaced Kurds, Assyrians, and Chaldeans. Zakho and the surrounding tent camps can accommodate between 200,000 and 300,000 or 2 to 3 times the area's normal population. To accommodate all the displaced Kurds with adequate shelter, water, and sanitation, the protected zone, currently being extended east to Amadiyah, will have to be further enlarged. Extending the zone to all cities and towns within 50 miles of the Iraq-Turkey border and the Kurdish-inhabited part of the Iraq-Iran border could accommodate all displaced Kurds, Assyr- ians, and Chaldeans. Under this plan the safe haven protected by foreign military forces would include such cities and towns as Zakho, Amadiyah, Dihok, Rawanduz, Shaqlawa, Sulaymaniyah, Khanaqin, and Halabja. The Baghdad regime's destruction of vil- lages that might otherwise have accommodated such a large number of people in a more compact area necessitates this exten- sion of the safe haven. The zone suggested here is the minimum needed to accommodate all the Kurdish refugees, and yet does not contest Iraqi sovereignty over Kurdistan itself. Excluded from the proposed zone are the po- litically critical cities of Mosul, Irbil, and Kirkuk. Within the zone, the Kurds should be permitted to rebuild their villages and resume agricultural activities. This will ease the financial burden of pro- viding for Iraq's Kurds; it will also serve as a first step toward righting a terrible wrong. 14 again snubbed the opposition on March 1, was apparently unpre- pared for the uprising that began March 2. B. The Iraqi Opposition Iraq is a nation divided on confessional and ethnic grounds. Fifty-five percent of the population are Shi'a, 40 percent are Sunni, and 5 percent are Christian. Ethnically the division is 70 percent Arab, 25 percent Kurd, 5 percent Assyrian, Chaldean, and others.2 The Iraqi opposition is as diverse as the country itself. However, it has achieved a degree of coherence that its critics (especially those who do not talk to the opposition) never imagined. The Iraqi opposition consists of Shi'a parties, Kurdish parties, and ideologically based parties. The Shi'a parties include religious parties (the Dawa, or "Call" party, the Islamic Action party of the Ayatollah Mudarassi, and the Supreme Assembly of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq of Baqir Hakim) and secular independents, of which the London-based leader Ahmad Chalabi is the most articu- late spokesman. The Kurdish parties include the Kurdish Demo- cratic Party (KDP) of Massoud Barzani and Jalal Talabani's Patri- otic Union of Kurdistan (PUK). The ideological parties, dominated by Sunni Arabs, include the Iraqi Communist Party and a dissident Ba'ath Party. The most prominent Sunni Arab opposition figure is Damascus-based former Iraqi General Hassan Nequib. In March these parties met in Beirut to forge an alliance and a common program. Brought together by a shared objective—the re- moval of Saddam Hussein—they achieved agreement on a broad program for a democratic and federal Iraq with very substantive provisions for Kurdish autonomy. Strikingly, each of the parties in the Joint Action Committee— the cumbersome name the opposition coalition arrogated to itself— made tangible concessions in the interests of opposition unity. The Kurdish parties abandoned their dream of an independent Kurdis- tan, accepting that their rights can only be accommodated within Iraq. The Shi'a religious parties abandoned the idea of an Islamic state, recognizing the rights of religious minorities as well as those of the more secular Sunni Arabs and Kurds. The ideological parties accepted the idea of democracy in lieu of Fascist or Communist dic- tatorship. The Beirut compromises reflect the reality of Iraqi politics. Based in the south and without a strong force in the army, the religious Shi'a could not hope to impose their will on all of Iraq. At a mini- mum they would need the assistance of the Kurds in the north, who would hardly subscribe to a fundamentalist agenda. The Kurds could never rule Iraq by themselves and likely could not obtain independence without either outside intervention or the ac- quiescence of the other Iraqis. The Arab Sunni opposition had a choice between Saddam Hussein (or a comparably repressive struc- ture aimed at preserving the Sunni Arab monopoly of power) or a powersharing arrangement with the more populous Iraqi groups. 2 Virtually all of Iraq's Shi'a are Arabs while the Kurds are Sunni, Sunni Arabs, who domi- nate Iraq politically, are only 15 percent of the population. 15 Meanwhile, official Washington continued to see the opposition in caricature. The Iraqi Shi'a were viewed as pawns of Iran seeking to impose a Khomeini-style regime, in spite of a very different his- tory. Theologically the Iraqi Shi'a follow the Najaf school of reli- gious thought, Najaf being a more modern and influential center of Shi'a learning than the Persian holy city of Qom. Politically, the Iraqi Shi'a never responded to Iranian calls for rebellion during the Iran-Iraq war. And, unlike the strong tradition of anti-U.S. sen- timent among the Iranian clerics, the Iraqi Shi'a parties, including the Dawa and the Islamic Action, have been desperately seeking U.S. support and military involvement in the effort to liberate Iraq from Saddam Hussein. (There are also many fewer clerics in Iraq than Iran, Saddam Hussein having killed most of them.) All this was apparently never comprehended in Washington. Similarly, the Iraqi Kurds have long made clear their recognition that an independent Kurdistan is not realistic. To his followers in Dihok, Jalal Talabani made much the same statement as he had to the Foreign Relations Committee: It is very difficult to change the borders of five coun- tries. We are not for an independent Kurdistan; we are asking for our national rights within the framework of Iraq. I know of dreams and reality. All Kurds dream of an independent, unified Kurdistan, but we have to face the reality. Nonetheless, official Washington characterized Talabani as seek- ing the breakup of Iraq and of being antagonistic to Turkey. Inter- estingly, after being snubbed by the State Department on February 28, 1991, ostensibly because a meeting would upset Turkey, Tala- bani departed Washington for Ankara and a series of meetings re- quested by Turkish President Turgut Ozal. C. An Opportunity Lost As the anti-Saddam rebellion gained force in March, several stra- tegically located Iraqi military figures contacted principals in the Joint Action Committee, according to both Arab and Kurdish oppo- sition leaders. As the Iraqi military figures contemplated bringing possibly decisive force to the side of the rebels, they looked for a sign that the sponsors of the rebellion had the support of the United States, the one country preeminent militarily and political- ly in Iraq. No such signal was given. On the contrary, the public snub of Kurdish and other Iraqi opposition leaders was read as a clear indi- cation that the United States did not want the popular rebellion to succeed. This was confirmed by background statements from Ad- ministration officials that they were looking for a military, not a popular, alternative to Saddam Hussein. As one NSC aide put it on March 1, "Our policy is to get rid of Saddam Hussein, not his regime." 16 The Peshmerga in Saddam Hussein's palace in Sarsanq, March 31, 1991. Any potential defector to the rebel cause put everything at risk: his position, his life, his family's lives, the lives of his relatives. Given the negative signals from Washington, the potential military defectors sat on the fence. And while they did so, the anti-Saddam rebellion was crushed. Other countries in the region were eager to assist the forces bat- tling Saddam Hussein. Syria was the country in the region most strongly supportive of the anti-Saddam rebels and provided signifi- cant support to Shi'a, Sunni, and Kurdish opposition groups. Par- ties from all three ethnic/confessional groups make their head- quarters in Damascus. During the time the Kurds controlled northern Iraq, Syria gener- ously permitted access to liberated Kurdistan through its territory. Syrian officials responded enthusiastically to suggestions of assist- ance from coalition countries to the Iraqi opposition to oust Saddam Hussein. However, Syrian officials were reluctant to go too far alone, and looked to the United States for leadership. None was forthcoming. One reason suggested for U.S. reluctance to aid the anti-Saddam rebels was Saudi fears over the subversive impact of Shi'a or demo- cratic success in Iraq. However, while the anti-Saddam rebellion was still underway, Saudi officials proposed that the United States and Saudi Arabia together militarily assist both Shi'a and Kurdish rebels. The Saudis indicated they had only recently developed con- tacts with the mainstream Iraqi opposition groups, but said they were prepared to support the Shi'a foes of Saddam as well as the Kurds. The Dawa party has sent Saudi Arabia a message assuring the Kingdom it has no intention of causing problems among the Shi'a in the strategically sensitive Eastern Province, and the 21 knows it is not likely to move back in. The Kurds understand this which is why many wish the coalition forces to remain in northern Iraq and why the Kurdish leadership seeks international guaran- tees for any autonomy deal. B. Saddam Hussein's Future The developments in the 2 months since the end of Operation Desert Storm have very much strengthened Saddam Hussein's posi- tion inside Iraq. He has defeated serious challenges in both the north and the south. The Kurdish autonomy deal threatens to split the unity of the Iraqi opposition, as it was a sine qua non of the Beirut declaration setting up the Joint Action Committee that there be no separate deals between opposition groups and the regime. Worse, the price paid in blood by Kurdish and Shi'a civil- ians is almost certain to deter potential opponents and coup- makers, absent a very strong likelihood for success. In the immediate aftermath of Desert Storm, Iraq's army was dissolving and the regime's security apparatus fading away. Secret police went underground, as did many Ba'ath officials. Few wanted to risk the retribution associated with a doomed regime. Now that Saddam has survived the crucible of civil war, his instruments of control—the mukhabarat, the Ba'ath party, and the army—are ral- lying around him. Having lost the best opportunities for removing Saddam Hussein both during Operation Desert Storm and the March rebellion, it now appears that the United States, the coalition, and the region will have to endure this dictator for some time to come. Iraq is no longer a significant military threat to its neighbors or to the region. United Nations Security Council Resolution 687 will force Iraq to destroy all of its weapons of mass destruction and will effectively keep it from rearming. Saddam Hussein does, however, continue to menace his own people. Unless the world community is prepared to consign the Iraqi people to a fate which many have fought to avoid, the United States and its coalition partners are stuck in the Iraqi quagmire. Only the removal of Saddam Hussein and his regime can get us out, and the best hope for this result has passed. Saddam Hussein just turned 54 and could be around for years to come. APPENDIX APPENDIX A Background on the Kurds (From Chemical Weapons Use in Kurdistan: Iraq's Final Offensive, a staff report to the Committee on Foreign Relations, October 1988) A. BASIC CHARACTERISTICS Kurdistan is a crescent-shaped region encompassing the mountainous region sur- rounding the junction of the borders of Turkey, Iraq, and Iran, with extensions into Soviet Armenia and into northern Syria. The greater part of this area is inhabited by the Kurds who, from antiquity, have been portrayed as a tribal people possessing their own language and cultural traditions and a historical reputation for resistance to outside rule. The total number of Kurds is estimated at 20 million. Of these, some 15 million live in Turkey, between 2.5 and 3.5 million in Iraq, and 2 to 3 million in Iran. The majority are Sunni Muslims but there are some Shiites in Iran and Turkey. The Kurdish language is of Indo-European origin, making the Kurds linguistically and ethnically more akin to the Persians than the Arabs or the Turks. Iraqi Kurds are concentrated in the mountainous northeast of the predominantly Arab country and represent about one-fifth of the total population. Of all Iraqi mi- nority groups, the Kurds have been the most difficult to assimilate because of their numbers, geographic concentration, inaccessibility, and cultural and linguistic iden- tity. The mountain Kurds are tough, hardy warriors with a tight-knit, semifeudal organization. In recent history, Kurds have migrated to the foothills and plains, many settling in and around Mosul, in the north, and in towns along the Diyala River, in the south, and these have become essentially detribalized. A smaller but increasing proportion of the Kurds is urban. They have settled mainly in Sulayman- iya and Halabja, virtually wholly Kurdish cities, and in Arbil and Kirkuk. B. THE QUESTION OF NATIONAL IDENTITY The Kurds have never formed an independent political entity. From the 16th to the early 20th century, Kurdistan was divided between the Ottoman (Turkish) and Persian empires. The Kurdish tribes enjoyed extensive autonomy until the 19th cen- tury when there occurred repeated Kurdish uprisings against both the Ottomans and the Persians that were put down harshly. During a revolt of 1880, led by Shaikh Ubaidullah al-Nahri, the concept emerged of uniting the Kurdish people as a nation separate from the Ottomans and Persians. However, Kurdish society is es- sentially tribal and on this point unity efforts have essentially foundered. In Iraq, Kurdish nationalists have always faced at least equal numbers of Kurdish tribes- men fighting on the government side (thereby receiving arms and financial aid and maintaining a degree of independence from outside interference). With the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire in World War I, the Treaty of Sevres, signed in August 1920 by the allies and the Turkish sultan, created the inde- pendent Arab states of Hijaz, Syria, and Iraq, and offered the Kurds their first and only prospect of a separate Kurdistan. Alter the overthrow of the Turkish monarchy and the proclamation of the Republic in November 1922, however, the new regime under Kemal Ataturk refused to recognize the Sevres provisions. Ataturk concluded a new treaty with the allies in June 1923 in Lausanne, and this agreement con- tained no mention of the Kurdish question. The fixing of new national boundaries, which divided the Kurds among five states with no regard to ethnic, cultural, or economic principles, created further complications for Kurdish aspirations. In recent years, Kurdish nationalist movements in Iraq, Iran, and Turkey have functioned largely independent of each other, although considerable cross-border ac- (23) 24 tivity has taken place. While both Iraq and Iran have sought to pacify their own Kurds, each has maintained an obvious interest in keeping alive Kurdish resistance in the neighboring country. Only in Iraq has the movement had the strength to pose a significant internal threat to the central government in Baghdad. Since the end of World War I, therefore, the Kurdish question increasingly has been centered in that country. C. IRAQI KURDISH REBELLIONS IN THE INTERWAR PERIOD Following British occupation during World War I and the subsequent establish- ment in 1920 of the British mandate which created the Iraqi state in its present boundaries along with the beginnings of modern government, the Iraqi Kurds became involved in recurring conflict with the central authorities. An underlying cause for such rebellion was the progressive erosion of promises for Kurdish state- hood or, at the least, Kurdish cultural and administrative autonomy in the north. Unlike its neighbors, Iraq both under the mandate and as an independent state after 1930, was faced with constitutional requirements by the League of Nations for a degree of Kurdish autonomy. The first rebellion, led by Shaikh Mahmud Barzinjah of Sulaymaniyya, began in 1919 and was put down in a month. Shaikh Mahmud, with Turkish support, de- clared himself King of Kurdistan in 1922 and it took the British until May 1924 to subdue the rebellion. Shaikh Mahmud continued until 1926 to conduct guerrilla warfare in mountainous terrain near the Persian border. With Iraqi independence in 1930, the Kurds, fearful of their status, demanded specific safeguards from the League of Nations. Several uprisings in the north, one led by Shaikh Mahmud in October 1930, and another led by Shaikh Ahmad Barzani in the Barzan district in November 1931 had to be put down by military force with the help of the Royal Air Force. Peace was never fully maintained in Iraqi Kurdistan and local rebellion con- tinued, particularly in the Barzan area, until World War II. Such insurrections in the interwar period appeared in large measure to be expressions of traditional aspi- rations for tribal independence from the imposition of Arab central government rule, as well as of the ambitions of local leaders. D. THE MATURING OF KURDISH NATIONALISM The Kurdish rebellion of 1943, led by Mulla Mustafa Barzani, brother of Ahmad, compelled the Baghdad government to consider administrative reforms and Kurdish cultural autonomy in the north. The rebellion flared up again in 1945 and, as gov- ernment forces moved to suppress the uprising, Barzani retreated to Iran in October together with several hundred Pesh Merga and women and children of his tribe. In Iran, they joined the Kurdish Republic of Mahabad (established in 1945 in the Soviet zone) where Barzani was granted the rank of general. The republic collapsed in 1946 when the Soviets withdrew their forces from Iran and the Iranian Army moved in. Barzani and his men were forced into exile in the Soviet Union where he remained until 1959. Comparative tranquility prevailed in Iraqi Kurdistan during the years of Bar- zani's exile. A Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) was formed in the latter 1940's by intellectuals and tribal elements that sought to lead the Kurdish national move- ment and to achieve Kurdist aspirations within the framework of Iraqi national unity. E. THE KURDS AND THE IRAQI REPUBLIC The July 1958 overthrow of the Iraqi monarchy by military officers brought to power a regime that was characterized, at least initially, by a change in the attitude of the central government toward the Kurds. Kurds were given key roles in admin- istration and the provisional constitution gave official recognition to Kurdish na- tional rights within Iraq. Mulla Mustafa Barzan was welcomed back to Iraq in 1959 and the KDP was legalized. Within a year, however, relations between the Baghdad regime and the Kurds deteriorated as the regime proved unwilling to give the latter the self-rule to which they aspired. In July 1961, Barzani sent an ultimatum de- manding a substantial degree of autonomy to the central government which re- sponded at first by inciting Kurdish tribes hostile to Barzani and subsequently launching an offensive by the army. The Iraqi military failed in attempts to sup- press the rebellion and a growing number of tribesmen joined Barzani's forces. With the frequent changes of Iraqi regimes during the 1960's, the rebellion contin- ued until 1970, interrupted by cease-fires, openings of negotiations, failures of nego- tiations, and resumptions of hostilities. Many Kurdish villages were destroyed in the fighting and the rural population suffered heavy losses but the Kurdish rebels never 25 relinquished their control of the mountainous region. In effect, they achieved de facto autonomy with the institution of a Kurdish administration in the region. The KDP played a central role by integrating into the rebel forces and building a nation- al consciousness in its ranks and among the rural population. After the Ba'ath Party came to power in 1968, the government, faced with a stale- mate and under pressure to end the war, negotiated a "Manifesto on the Peaceful Settlement of the Kurdish Issue" on March 11, 1970. It promised that the Kurds would be granted self-rule, to be exercised by a local administrative council and an elected legislative assembly. Guarantees were provided to recognize the Kurdish language as officially coequal with Arabic in the Kurdish district and to promote Kurdish culture and traditions. The manifesto constituted a compromise between Kurdish national and Ba'athist pan-Arab aspirations. But the compromise was not destined to materialize in large part because of continuing and substantial disagree- ment among Kurdish leaders who were divided on the matter. An increasing number of younger Kurds were prepared to accept self-rule as embodied in the manifesto. Barzani, however, rejected the Ba'ath offer and insisted on autonomy as he understood it. In so doing, he sought external assistance from Iran, Israel, and the United States. F. THE 1974 REBELLION Between 1970 and 1974, the Ba'ath regime, as it consolidated its position in the country, did little to strengthen Kurdish confidence in Baghdad. Measures for achieving autonomy specified in the 1970 manifesto, including determination of Kurdish districts by census and decision as to jurisdiction over the Kirkuk oil center, were never carried out. Because of a worsening internal political situation and deteriorating relations with Iran, the Baghdad regime proclaimed unilaterally determined autonomy statute on March 11, 1974, demanding at the same time that Barzani accept the statute within a 2-week deadline and join the stalled National Front. Barzani rejected this demand and issued a counterultimatum, declaring that failure to meet Kurdish demands within 2 weeks would result in a renewal of hostil- ities. Behind Barzani's rejection were the promises of aid from Iran and the United States. During the spring of 1974, the Iraqi Army moved gradually into the Kurdish area, relieving besieged garrisons and opening roads. In July and August, the Pesh Merga was pushed into the mountains along the Turkish and Iranian borders. From this time, the Pesh Merga had to rely on Iranian assistance, without which it could not resist the Iraqi offensive. The offensive resumed in the spring of 1975 but the pros- pect of victory by either side appeared uncertain. The Shah of Iran realized that the war appeared stalemated and there were limited prospects for a change of regime in Baghdad. With Algerian mediation, Iraq and Iran signed an agreement in March 1975 settling a series of disputes between the neighbors and closing the border be- tween Iran and Iraqi Kurdistan. This proved disastrous to the Kurdish rebels. Bar- zani and the KDP leadership took refuge in Iran. G. GUERRILLA WAR AFTER 1976 With the collapse of the Kurdish movement in 1975, Baghdad embarked on a two- pronged policy of coopting large numbers of Kurds and, at the same time, imple- menting drastic measures against a revival of Kurdish hostilities. The government- created autonomous region comprised only a small part of Iraqi Kurdistan, but it was favored with economic development projects benefiting much of the population. "Arabization" measures continued in the oil-producing districts by the resettlement of Kurds and their replacement by Arab peasants. In 1976 the government began evacuation of zones along the Iraq-Iran border, destroying villages, and resettling the inhabitants near urban areas. These measures instigated a resumption of small- scale guerrilla warfare. At the same time, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) was established, with Syrian support, under the leadership of Jalal Talabani in 1976. The PUK and the KDP engaged in a number of clashes in disputes over territorial control following its move to Iraqi Kurdistan 1977. H. THE IRAN-IRAQ WAR Following the outbreak of war between Iran and Iraq in September 1980, military operations in the south forced the Iraqi military to relinquish its close control of Kurdistan. Thousands of resettled Kurds were permitted to return to Kurdistan but many escaped to areas controlled by the Kurdish parties. The Iranian revolutionary regime gave military and financial support to the KDP, but guerrilla activity initial-