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August 05, 2004, 12:20 p.m.
The PKK Factor
Another critical enemy front in the war on terror.
The road was badly pitted, in some places washed away. There had been no maintenance to the old military road since the end of the Iran-Iraq War, 15 years before. Only local farmers and smugglers used the road.
It was mid-October, 2003. We descended into a valley 20 kilometers northwest of Hajji Umran, the northernmost official border crossing between Iran and Iraq. Snow remained on the mountains to our north and east, although melting streams descended from the diminishing snow packs. In the distance, on the ridge marking the border, were lookout posts belonging to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Some rusted and twisted mortar shells remained on grassy fields, which narrowed and terraced as they approached the Iranian border. Farmhouses were scattered on the narrow plain. Pickup trucks stacked high with tomatoes sat beside fields or meandered slowly down the dirt road.
As we came around a curve at the foot of the valley, three young men ran out of one farmhouse, pointing Kalashnikovs at our convoy of five Toyota SUVs. They were fighters with the Partiya Karkaren Kurdistan, better known by their acronym, the PKK.
We stopped. Ten armed guards got out of our vehicles. Two walked down to meet the PKK fighters. A few minutes later they returned. "It's no problem. They wanted to know where we were going," one of my guards said. "They don't bother people more heavily armed than they are."
A bloody legacy
Many Iraqi Kurds are not so lucky. The PKK has denuded villages in the mountains of the "triangle border" where Iran, Iraq, and Turkey come together. The PKK occupies homes and farms, extorts illegal taxes, and metes out summary justice to those who do not comply. On occasion, the PKK mines roads. In a region where adults and children pile into the back of pick-up trucks for transportation, carnage from PKK mines can be immense.
The PKK's terror in northern Iraq stretches more than a decade. In 1994, PKK terrorists rained mortars down on the rooftops of the mountaintop settlement of Amadya. Touring the ancient town in March 2001, residents showed me the damage to their homes.
PKK members also sabotaged bridges, cutting off villagers from their fields and disrupting the local economy. No matter how poor were Masud Barzani's Kurdistan Democratic party and Jalal Talabani's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan at their nadir, neither cultivated nor smuggled drugs. The same is not true of the PKK, which facilitates drug smuggling from Iran through Iraq and Turkey and into Europe.
In November 2000, fighting erupted on Qandil mountain between the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan [PUK] and PKK after the PKK sought to take over the nearby town of Rania. More than 400 died in subsequent battles. Fighting was so severe that PUK television every evening broadcast the names of its murdered peshmurga. Municipal governments in towns like Darbandikan and Kuysanjaq erected to better accommodate mourners.
The PKK's most bloody legacy is in Turkey. In the mid-1980s, the PKK initiated a violent campaign responsible for over 30,000 deaths in Turkey. The PKK raided villages and executed civilians. More Kurdish civilians died at the hands of the PKK than at the hands of the Turkish army. On July 18, 2004, I ducked into a teahouse in Konya, a large town in south-central Turkey. With no empty tables, I joined a middle-aged man reading a newspaper. Originally from Bursa, he had trained as a schoolteacher. Upon graduation, the Turkish government sought to assign him to Mardin, a largely Kurdish town in southeastern Turkey. But, the PKK had begun executing schoolteachers (whom they called state collaborators), and so he, as with of his classmates, refused to take their positions. The Turkish economy and education system suffered; southeastern Turkey continues to lag behind the rest of the state. Many Turks blame the PKK insurgency for the hyperinflation which plagued Turkey until three years ago (one U.S. dollar is equivalent to over 1.4 million Turkish lira today). Real-estate firms advertise homes costing trillions liras).
I spent August 2000 in Diyarbakir, the largest town in southeastern Turkey, waiting for permission to cross into northern Iraq. Diyarbakir was emerging from years of terrorism and insurgency. Hotels were empty and streets deserted at night. Taking a public bus to Van, seven hours away near the Iranian border, police stopped us more than a dozen times to check identity cards and bags, and to make sure there were no PKK among us.
Undermining the war on terrorism?
The continued PKK presence in northern Iraq is an embarrassment to the United States. Under terms of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1483, the United States assumed legal responsibility as occupying power for the territory of Iraq. While our legal responsibility ended with the June 28, 2004, transfer of authority, moral responsibility continues. That a terrorist group ?- listed as such by the State Department since such designations were first made ?- operated with impunity from an area under U.S. responsibility undercuts the moral authority of the White House in waging the global war on terrorism.
The Bush administration's failure to address the PKK presence in Iraq creates a dangerous precedent. It legitimizes the Lebanese government's decision to allow Hezbollah to conduct terrorist operations with impunity, for example, despite Lebanon's responsibilities under terms of U.N. Security Council Resolution 425.
U.S. toleration of the PKK threatens to emerge as a hot issue in coming weeks. Since the PKK ended its ceasefire on June 1, southeastern Turkey has suffered a renewed wave of roadside bombs and assassinations. On July 27, PKK fighters killed a Turkish policeman and a soldier in the southeastern province of Bingol. On August 2, Turkish soldiers and PKK fighters clashed in southeastern Turkey. Those incidents that Turkish newspapers report may be the tip of the iceberg. In Konya and Kayseri, Turkish students spoke of a recent PKK execution of three Turkish conscripts along the Iranian border.
Turks contrast Washington's foot-dragging with positive noises coming from Iran, long a sponsor and facilitator of PKK terrorism. On July 28, following a meeting with Iranian Vice President Muhammad Reza Arif, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced that Iran would declare the PKK a terrorist organization and shut them down. The Iranian pledge may be insincere ?- previous Iranian promises to crack down on the PKK and al Qaeda were empty ?- but the perception of the Turkish public matters, especially as terrorism-related casualties rise.
Bureaucratic divisions
As the PKK issue threatens to sour further the U.S.-Turkish partnership, the U.S. government is handicapped by its own bureaucracy. The problem is not the philosophical divide between the State and Defense Departments, at least at the upper levels. Undersecretary of State Marc Grossman is a former ambassador to Turkey, and both he and his equivalent at the Pentagon, Undersecretary of Defense Doug Feith have a long history of supporting Turkish-American relations. The current ambassador to Ankara, Eric Edelman, assumed his post after 28 months as Principal Deputy Assistant to the Vice President for National Security Affairs; he receives rave reviews from both Turks and Americans across the political spectrum, especially after the fumbling missteps of his predecessor.
Instead, as with much in the global war on terrorism, the problem is in implementation. President Bush may enunciate a no-nonsense approach to policy, but the National Security Council neither coordinates effectively nor enforces policy discipline. Some NSC staff members have gone so far as to question the war on terror. Bush recently promoted a career diplomat who spoke of "Bush's stupidity" among not only American, but also foreign colleagues. A recent NSC appointee has argued that the U.S. should take a more forgiving attitude toward terrorism, whereby "lesser penalties would apply to lesser levels of state sponsorship." Such nuance flies in the face of Bush strategy, since it implies some terror to be permissible.
There remains, however, a major problem with clientitis, both at the lower levels of the State Department and at the upper levels of the military. The State Department dominated the Coalition Provisional Authority's governance wing. Many U.S. diplomats serving in Baghdad spent their careers in the Arab world. Reading translated Arabic newspapers and drinking tea with government elites in Beirut, Damascus, and Riyadh takes its toll: Many had adopted the biases of the societies in which they served.
Among these biases was a cynical distrust and dislike of Turkey. One U.S. diplomat with recent service in the region scoffed at the idea that northern Iraq's safe haven originated with Turkish president Turgat Ozal. Talking points drawn up by U.S. diplomats often failed to remind Kurdish politicians that it was Turkey's contribution of Incirlik airbase which made possible for more than a decade the no-fly zone and, by extension, the existence of the Kurdistan regional government. Few U.S. diplomats reminded the Kurdistan Democratic party about significant Turkish subsidies that went to the peshmurga during the 1990s. American diplomats coming from the Arab world neither were aware nor appreciated Turkey's democracy. One foreign-service officer described Syrian-occupied Lebanon as more democratic than Turkey.
A sour military relationship
Clientitis is greater among U.S. military officers. The problem is exacerbated by the geographic divisions between commands. Whereas U.S. military relations with Turkey fall under the European Command (EUCOM), U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) oversees Iraq and the Arab world. Many CENTCOM officials interact only with Arab elites. They listen to their complaints about U.S. policy and the inapplicability of democracy to their region. They fail to realize that it is neither U.S. policy nor democracy that is the problem, but rather Arab elites themselves. "We never had a problem with EUCOM," a senior Turkish military official told me last week. "But CENTCOM was different. They looked at Turkey as a banana republic. They thought they could dictate to our leaders the way they dictate to Arab dictators. They forgot we were a democracy."
The personal relationship between CENTCOM officers and the Turkish general staff has gone from bad to worse. On July 4, 2003, U.S. forces in Sulaymaniyah detained a Turkish commando force operating illegally in Iraq. Turkish authorities leaked the incident to the press. U.S. officials say that the Turkish commandoes had in their possession documents indicating that they sought to assassinate a Kirkuk political figure; Turkish authorities deny this. One CENTCOM official told me they had warned Ankara after previous incidents. During March 2003 negotiations in Ankara, U.S. envoy Zalmay Khalilzad made clear that the U.S. would not tolerate Turkish incursions not coordinated with CENTCOM. While some elements of the Turkish military appear at fault, the failure of CENTCOM liaison officers to establish the close working relations with Turkish general staff that EUCOM personnel enjoyed exacerbated the situation.
Regardless of the fault or blame, the July 4 incident has had a deeper lasting impact in Turkey than did the dispute over passage of U.S. troops. Many U.S. officials serving in Baghdad trace Coalition Provisional Authority administrator L. Paul Bremer's hardening attitude ?- if not antipathy ?- toward Turkey to the Sulaymaniyah incident.
The difficulty with fighting the PKK
As war in Iraq approached, Turkish diplomats and generals both raised concern about the presence of the PKK. They have continued to do so since. American officials respond that Washington takes seriously Turkey's concerns. But, a gap remains between U.S. rhetoric and actions, severely straining Washington's credibility. "You guys simply don't understand how seriously we take this," a long-time Turkish diplomatic acquaintance told me at an Ankara teahouse last month.
According to both Turkish and U.S. sources, CENTCOM has promised to share with Turkey plans which address the PKK, but consistently fails to deliver. There may be legitimate reasons for planning delays, but CENTCOM leaves the impression that it is filibustering. "I can understand their concerns," said a Turkish general, acknowledging that rooting PKK out of inhospitable terrain is difficult, "But I can't understand why they won't be honest with us."
CENTCOM also suffers a credibility gap at home. Even as I was stopped by PKK fighters, the Defense Intelligence Agency and the Joint Staff continued to claim ignorance of the PKK's exact location. This was dishonest or disingenuous. As we continued on from the de facto PKK checkpoint, we could see from the roadside a well-tended PKK graveyard and also a permanent PKK compound under camouflage, mesh netting. Twice rounding bends beneath high bluffs, we saw automatic weapon-toting PKK fighters over looking the road.
The Joint Staff's claims are more troubling given rumors that, last autumn, apparently without interagency authorization, some members of the 101st Airborne met with PKK representatives in Mosul, thereby legitimizing the terrorist group in direct contravention to the policy of the commander-in-chief.
High Stakes
While I lived in Iraq, every few months I would visit Sidikan, a mountainous district northeast of Diana, sometimes spending the night on a floor of a mud brick farmhouse so as to not have to rush back to the CPA's hotel in Erbil. Local farmers would complain about the PKK, which extorts taxes and seizes land and property. "All of us know where the PKK is. Any of us could point out where they are, if the U.S. army asked," one old farmer said. It was a sentiment that was expressed by various elders in different villages. Karim Khan Bradosti, the tribal leader in the area, has repeatedly offered assistance and cooperation to American forces in the fight against the PKK.
Ironically, proactive deployment might obviate the need for a confrontation. Despite the proximity to the unguarded Iranian frontier, many of the areas occupied by the PKK have no U.S. military, Iraqi military, or peshmurga presence. Villagers, Kurdish officials, and peshmurga all say that small garrisons of Coalition forces in valleys and along the Iranian frontier would fill a vacuum, and force the PKK back across the border into Iran which, continues to provide aid and comfort to the group.
One thing should be clear, though. Terrorists exploit a vacuum. Nearly 3,000 Americans would be alive today had the Clinton administration not left unaddressed a vacuum in Afghanistan. Our impotence toward the PKK threatens to undermine our credibility not only in Turkey, but also in our fight against terrorists and states like Lebanon which provide them safe haven. With regard to the PKK, the stakes are higher. Not only is the president's credibility on the line, but so too is a 50-year partnership with one of our most valuable allies.
?- Michael Rubin is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and editor of the Middle East Quarterly.
The zealots will buy this woman's 'story' for about a week, making a lot of noise about it, to no avail. It will go the way the story of the tank that supposedly 'deliberately' targeted the hotel full of journalists during the taking of Baghdad <eyeroll>.
The bottom line is if we'd wanted to kill her, she'd be dead. She isn't.
This was either an accident or a set-up.
In order to believe the woman's story, you also have to believe that the soldiers to a man (or woman--not sure who all was there) all agreed with murdering unarmed civilians and all concocted and are sticking with the same manufactured story. You also have to assume they knew this woman was coming, had advance information on her ETA and the vehicle they should expect, and they hated her sufficiently to open fire. And you have to further assume that they did not hate more those who have opened fire on and killed, wounded, maimed their fellow solders as much as they have not presumed to kill them when unarmed and defenselsss.
Until there is reason not to do so, I will believe the solders were acting prudently and properly in their presumed self defense just as I'm going to give the cop the benefit of the doubt in similar circumstances every time.
BAGHDAD, Iraq - A series of attacks claimed by an al-Qaida-linked group in Iraq (news - web sites) left at least 16 people dead and dozens wounded on Monday, as the country took its first major step toward forming a government whose most crucial task will be dealing with the insurgency.
Most of Monday's fatalities occurred in Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, where insurgents launched a series of apparently coordinated attacks that killed seven soldiers and five police, said Tariq Ibrahim, a medic at Baqouba's main hospital. He said at least 26 people were wounded, including one civilian caught in the crossfire.
The assaults included a car bomb, three roadside bombs and small arms attacks three checkpoints, one of them just south of Baqouba in Muradiyah, said police Col. Mudhafar al-Jubbori.
Guerrillas also fired a mortar around near the blue-domed governor's office, causing no casualties, a spokesman for the U.S. 42nd Infantry Division, Maj. Richard Goldenberg. He said Iraqi police came under small arms fire shortly afterward on a highway south of the city.
An Internet statement purportedly by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's al-Qaida in Iraq claimed responsibility for the Baqouba attacks.
In Baghdad, gunmen killed two police and wounded a third in a drive-by shooting in the eastern slum of Sadr City, said Dr. Abdul Jabar Solan, director of a hospital where the casualties were brought.
Two civilians were also killed when a roadside bomb targeting a joint U.S.-Iraqi military convoy exploded in the southeastern New Baghdad suburb. The explosion missed the convoy, damaging two passing cars and wounding four people, including two girls, said 1st Lt. Ali Hussein Hamdani.
In the latest in a wave of abductions, Jordan's Foreign Ministry spokesman said a Jordanian businessman was kidnapped in Iraq by abductors demanding $250,000 in ransom to release him.
More than 190 foreigners have been abducted in Iraq over the past year. At least 13 remain in the hands of their captors and more than 30 were killed. The rest were freed, some through the payment of ransom, or escaped.
Elsewhere, Bulgarian Defense Minister Nikolai Svinarov said in Sophia that a Bulgarian soldier killed last week in Iraq was likely shot by friendly fire from troops of the U.S.-led coalition.
In Baghdad, a U.S. military spokesman, Tech. Sgt. Patrick Murphy, said the commanding general in the region had appointed a special commission to investigate.
Monday's violence came a day after politicians set March 16 for the opening of the country's first democratically elected parliament in modern history as a deal hardened Sunday to name Jalal Talabani, a leader of the minority Kurds, to the presidency. The day marks the anniversary of the 1988 Saddam-ordered chemical attack on the northern Kurdish town of Halabja, which killed 5,000 people.
The more powerful prime minister's job will go to Ibrahim al-Jaafari, a deeply conservative Shiite who leads the Islamic Dawa party. His nomination, which the Kurds have agreed to, has been endorsed by the most powerful Shiite cleric in Iraq ?- Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.
"This was one of our firm demands and we agreed on it previously. The agreement states that Jalal Talabani takes the presidential post and one of the United Iraqi Alliance members takes the prime minister's post," Talabani spokesman Azad Jundiyan told The Associated Press.
He said the clergy-backed United Iraqi Alliance also reached a preliminary agreement with the Kurds on their other conditions ?- including extending their territories to include Kirkuk.
Jundiyan said they wanted the deal on paper before going though with it, while alliance officials, including Ahmad Chalabi, said those negotiations were not over.
Al-Jaafari and the alliance agreed on Talabani's presidency during a March 3 meeting with Kurdish leaders in northern Irbil. Kurds had long wanted the job for Talabani, the leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan.
The alliance, which won 140 seats in the assembly, needs the 75 seats held by a Kurdish coalition to gain the two-thirds majority needed to elect a president and two vice presidents, the first step toward setting up a government under a prime minister.
Interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, who controls 40 seats in the assembly, also has been negotiating to keep his job.
Officials have said the post of speaker probably would go to a Sunni Arab ?- either interim President Ghazi al-Yawer or interim Minister of Industry Hajim al-Hassani.
A Sunni Arab speaker would go far toward appeasing the minority, which is believed to make up the core of the insurgency and, like the Kurds, represents 15-20 percent of Iraq's estimated 26 million people. But unlike the Kurds, Sunni Arabs largely stayed away from the election to protest the U.S. presence in the country.
Kurdish demands include an autonomous Kurdistan as part of federal Iraq and a share of region's oil revenues. They also want to maintain their peshmerga militia and want a bigger share of the national budget.
Their demand for a federal state, though, would require redrawing the Kurds' current autonomous state borders to include Kurdish areas ?- oil-rich Kirkuk among them ?- that were dominated by Saddam loyalists and Sunni Arabs.
___
Associated Press reporter Yahya Barzanji in Kirkuk and Hana Abdellah in Baqbouba contributed to this report.
8. Public Support for Iraq War Collapsing Majority of...
Public Support for Iraq War Collapsing
Majority of Americans want to Bring Some Troops Home
Zogby international found that in late February the percentage of Americans who felt that the Iraq War was worth the cost plummeted by 20 percent. Is this because of the further $83 billion Bush requested for Iraq? If so, the support is likely to fall a good deal further, since this thing is not getting any cheaper.
Question: Do you think the war in Iraq is worth its costs?
Feb. 25-27
Worth it 39%
Not worth it 54%
Feb. 14-17
Worth it 52%
Not worth it 46%
Moreover, a majority of Americans now believes that the US should begin withdrawing troops from Iraq, according to a Marist College Institute poll of last week. This poll confirms the Zogby finding that a majority now says that the war was not worth it. A majority of Americans now also questions whether Iraq will be a "stable democracy" any time soon.
This poll also shows that Americans know very well that neither Iran nor Syria constitutes a threat to the US. Interestingly, more Americans think Iraq still poses a threat to the US than think Iran does (10 percent versus 8 percent). Interestingly, the perception of a threat from Syria has fallen to almost nothing from 12 percent two years ago. You have to wonder if the revelations about Iraq's lack of WMD and of the ramshackle state of its government and military have taught us all a lesson about seeing threats realistically. (David Wurmser will be upset at this attitude toward Syria, since he's been trying to get up a US war against Damascus).
On February 25, The Marist College Institute for Public Opinion poll reports:
Bring them home: A majority of Americans think the U.S. should withdraw at least some troops from Iraq.
Question Wording: What do you think the United States should do about its number of troops in Iraq: send more, keep the same number, withdraw some, or withdraw all troops from Iraq?
Americans
February 2005
Send More 12%
Keep Same Number 24%
Withdraw Some 23%
Withdraw All Troops 33%
Unsure 8%
Second thoughts? A majority of Americans think the war in Iraq is not worth it.
Question Wording: All in all, do you think the war in Iraq is worth it or not?
Americans
February 2005
Worth It 43%
Not worth It 53%
Unsure 4%
A long road to democracy ahead: Americans are not optimistic about the realization of a stable democracy in Iraq in the near future. Only about one in three Americans believe a stable democracy in Iraq will emerge in the next two years.
Question Wording: Two years from now, do you think it is very likely, likely, not very likely, or not likely at all that Iraq will be a stable democracy?
Americans
February 2005
Very Likely 6%
Likely 28%
Not Very Likely 39%
Not Likely at All 22%
Unsure 5%
Americans see other imminent threats in the world: Many Americans see North Korea as the biggest foreign threat facing the United States.
Question Wording: Which one of the following do you see as the biggest foreign threat facing the United States today?
Americans
February 2005
North Korea 43%
Al Qaeda 24%
Iraq 10%
Iran 8%
Syria 2%
November 2004
North Korea 22%
Al Qaeda 43%
Iraq 11%
Iran 9%
Syria 1%
May 2003
North Korea 38%
Al Qaeda 22%
Iraq 9%
Iran n.a.
Syria 12%
Sun, Mar 6, 2005 0:06
Roadblocks to Nowhere
Plus--kf vs. Not-on-Time-Warner
By Mickey Kaus
Updated Monday, March 7, 2005, at 2:24 AM PT
Have U.S. generals ever been through a U.S. roadblock? Drudge briefly linked to this excellent CSM piece which asks that question after describing how easy it is for innocent, law-abiding Iraqi drivers and their passengers to get killed by U.S. fire. There's also a horrifying account in Evan Wright's Generation Kill. ("[A U.S. Marine] asks the father, sitting by the side of the road, why he didn't heed the warning shots and stop. The father simply repeats, 'I'm sorry,' then meekly asks permission to pick up his daughter's body.") ... Can average drivers detect so-called warning shots? Wright writes:
In the dark, warning shots are simply a series of loud bangs or flashes. It's not like this is the international code for "Stop your vehicle and turn around." As it turns out, many Iraqis react to warning shots by speeding up. Maybe they just panic. Consequently, a lot of Iraqis die at roadblocks.
Surely our roadblock practices have done much more to alienate Iraqis than the Abu Ghraib abuses. Roadblocks wind up killing innocent families, not humiliating suspected insurgents. ... Wright does describe some efforts by Marines to improvise a better policy, with spotty results. ... Update: WaPo, NYT. ... 1:12 A.M.
Today's stories
03/07/2005
What Iraq's checkpoints are like
A speeding sedan and a close call for one marine unit
more stories...
Specials > Iraq in Transition
from the March 07, 2005 edition
What Iraq's checkpoints are like
By Annia Ciezadlo | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor
Editor's note: On Friday, an Italian intelligence officer was killed and Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena was wounded as their car approached a US military checkpoint in Baghdad. The US says the car was speeding, despite hand signals, flashing white lights, and warning shots from US forces. Ms. Sgrena says her car was not speeding and they did see any signals. This personal account, filed prior to the shooting, explains how confusing and risky checkpoints can be - from both sides.
It's a common occurrence in Iraq: A car speeds toward an American checkpoint or foot patrol. They fire warning shots; the car keeps coming. Soldiers then shoot at the car. Sometimes the on-comer is a foiled suicide attacker (see story), but other times, it's an unarmed family.
(Photograph)
BACK HOME: Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena arrived in Rome Saturday, injured after US troops fired on her car.
ALESSANDRA TARANTINO/AP
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As an American journalist here, I have been through many checkpoints and have come close to being shot at several times myself. I look vaguely Middle Eastern, which perhaps makes my checkpoint experience a little closer to that of the typical Iraqi. Here's what it's like.
You're driving along and you see a couple of soldiers standing by the side of the road - but that's a pretty ubiquitous sight in Baghdad, so you don't think anything of it. Next thing you know, soldiers are screaming at you, pointing their rifles and swiveling tank guns in your direction, and you didn't even know it was a checkpoint.
If it's confusing for me - and I'm an American - what is it like for Iraqis who don't speak English?
In situations like this, I've often had Iraqi drivers who step on the gas. It's a natural reaction: Angry soldiers are screaming at you in a language you don't understand, and you think they're saying "get out of here," and you're terrified to boot, so you try to drive your way out.
'Stop or you will be shot'
Another problem is that the US troops tend to have two-stage checkpoints. First there's a knot of Iraqi security forces standing by a sign that says, in Arabic and English, "Stop or you will be shot." Most of the time, the Iraqis will casually wave you through.
Your driver, who slowed down for the checkpoint, will accelerate to resume his normal speed. What he doesn't realize is that there's another, American checkpoint several hundred yards past the Iraqi checkpoint, and he's speeding toward it. Sometimes, he may even think that being waved through the first checkpoint means he's exempt from the second one (especially if he's not familiar with American checkpoint routines).
I remember one terrifying day when my Iraqi driver did just that. We got to a checkpoint manned by Iraqi troops. Chatting and smoking, they waved us through without a glance.
Relieved, he stomped down on the gas pedal, and we zoomed up to about 50 miles per hour before I saw the second checkpoint up ahead. I screamed at him to stop, my translator screamed, and the American soldiers up ahead looked as if they were getting ready to start shooting.
After I got my driver to slow down and we cleared the second checkpoint, I made him stop the car. My voice shaking with fear, I explained to him that once he sees a checkpoint, whether it's behind him or ahead of him, he should drive as slowly as possible for at least five minutes.
He turned to me, his face twisted with the anguish of making me understand: "But Mrs. Annia," he said, "if you go slow, they notice you!"
Under Saddam, idling was risky
This feeling is a holdover from the days of Saddam, when driving slowly past a government building or installation was considered suspicious behavior. Get caught idling past the wrong palaces or ministry, and you might never be seen again.
I remember parking outside a ministry with an Iraqi driver, waiting to pick up a friend. After sitting and staring at the building for about half an hour, waiting for our friend to emerge, the driver shook his head.
"If you even looked at this building before, you'd get arrested," he said, his voice full of disbelief. Before, he would speed past this building, gripping the wheel, staring straight ahead, careful not to even turn his head. After 35 years of this, Iraqis still speed up when they're driving past government buildings - which, since the Americans took over a lot of them, tend be to exactly where the checkpoints are.
Fear of insurgents and kidnappers are another reason for accelerating, and in that scenario, speeding up and getting away could save your life. Many Iraqis know somebody who's been shot at on the road, and a lot of people survived only because they stepped on the gas.
This fear comes into play at checkpoints because US troops are often accompanied by a cordon of Iraqi security forces - and a lot of the assassinations and kidnappings have been carried out by Iraqi security forces or people dressed in their uniforms. Often the Iraqi security forces are the first troops visible at checkpoints. If they are angry-looking and you hear shots being fired, it becomes easier to misread the situation and put the pedal to the metal.
A couple of times soldiers have told me at checkpoints that they had just shot somebody. They're not supposed to talk about it, but they do. I think the soldiers really needed to talk about it. They were traumatized by the experience.
Traumatic for soldiers, too
This is not what they wanted - really not what they wanted - and the whole checkpoint experience is confusing and terrifying for them as well as for the Iraqis. Many of them have probably seen people get killed or injured, including friends of theirs. You can imagine what it's like for them, wondering whether each car that approaches is a normal Iraqi family or a suicide bomber.
The essential problem with checkpoints is that the Americans don't know if the Iraqis are "friendlies" or not, and the Iraqis don't know what the Americans want them to do.
I always wished that the American commanders who set up these checkpoints could drive through themselves, in a civilian car, so they could see what the experience was like for civilians. But it wouldn't be the same: They already know what an American checkpoint is, and how to act at one - which many Iraqis don't.
Is there a way to do checkpoints right? Perhaps, perhaps not. But it seems that the checkpoint experience perfectly encapsulates the contradictions and miseries and misunderstandings of everyone's common experience - both Iraqis and Americans - in Iraq.
Interesting article and it probably explains what happened unless more news come up, thanks Gelisgesti.
It's also interesting that already before you posted it you probably know the responses you are going to get from both sides. Somehow the mystique has gone out of threads. However, I learn more here in a2k than I have in years about everything from just better words to world history and current events.
I have been trying to find more places to find more up to date news on Iraq and other world news, do you have any suggestions?
August 5, 2004
The PKK Factor
Another criical enemy front in the war on terror.
...
— Michael Rubin is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and editor of the Middle East Quarterly.
Instead, as with much in the global war on terrorism, the problem is in implementation. President Bush may enunciate a no-nonsense approach to policy, but the National Security Council neither coordinates effectively nor enforces policy discipline. Some NSC staff members have gone so far as to question the war on terror. Bush recently promoted a career diplomat who spoke of "Bush's stupidity" among not only American, but also foreign colleagues. A recent NSC appointee has argued that the U.S. should take a more forgiving attitude toward terrorism, whereby "lesser penalties would apply to lesser levels of state sponsorship." Such nuance flies in the face of Bush strategy, since it implies some terror to be permissible.
There remains, however, a major problem with clientitis, both at the lower levels of the State Department and at the upper levels of the military. The State Department dominated the Coalition Provisional Authority's governance wing. Many U.S. diplomats serving in Baghdad spent their careers in the Arab world. Reading translated Arabic newspapers and drinking tea with government elites in Beirut, Damascus, and Riyadh takes its toll: Many had adopted the biases of the societies in which they served.
Ironically, proactive deployment might obviate the need for a confrontation. Despite the proximity to the unguarded Iranian frontier, many of the areas occupied by the PKK have no U.S. military, Iraqi military, or peshmurga presence. Villagers, Kurdish officials, and peshmurga all say that small garrisons of Coalition forces in valleys and along the Iranian frontier would fill a vacuum, and force the PKK back across the border into Iran which, continues to provide aid and comfort to the group.
One thing should be clear, though. Terrorists exploit a vacuum. Nearly 3,000 Americans would be alive today had the Clinton administration not left unaddressed a vacuum in Afghanistan. Our impotence toward the PKK threatens to undermine our credibility not only in Turkey, but also in our fight against terrorists and states like Lebanon which provide them safe haven. With regard to the PKK, the stakes are higher. Not only is the president's credibility on the line, but so too is a 50-year partnership with one of our most valuable allies.
"... Bush assured Berlusconi that "the incident will be fully investigated," McClellan said, adding that the two spoke for about five minutes."
Expressing "regret" in a five minute telephone conversation hardly makes ammends for a catastrophic and tragic accident. So its becoming clearer from what Giuliana Sgrena has said, and by the American reaction that it wasn't an accident.
And if it wasn't an accident it was an act of war against Italy. Now if Berlusconi sends more troops to Iraq, can the Americans be sure they are friendly and not hostile forces?
Another ally Bush has lost. The ignorance arrogance and brutality which characterises the American handling of Iraq knows no bounds.
White House Rejects Italy Hostage's Claims
Monday March 7, 2005 3:31 PM
WASHINGTON (AP) - The White House on Monday said it was ``absurd'' for a former hostage in Iraq to charge that U.S. military forces may have deliberately targeted her car as she was being rushed to freedom.
White House press secretary Scott McClellan said the car carrying Giuliana Sgrena was traveling on one of the most dangerous roads in Iraq when it was fired upon. An Italian intelligence officer in the car was shot and killed.
Responding to Sgrena's statement that the car may have been deliberately targeted, McClellan said. ``It's absurd to make any such suggestion, that our men and women in uniform would target individual citizens.
Bush should insist that Italy pull all its' soldiers and citizens, including reporters, out of Iraq to prevent the terrorists from going back to the ATM.
