Chapter Sixteen

Operations Northern Comfort
and Northern Watch

After the Gulf War the Kurds staged another uprising against Saddam in 1991. They were relying on a promise of support from President Bush Senior. However, the Americans changed their strategic objectives and decided that they were satisfied with the liberation of Kuwait and would not now go ahead with regime change in Iraq. This left the Kurds exposed to Saddam’s wrath as were the Shia in the south; Saddam countered savagely. The Kurds had no option but to flee through the snow-laden Zagros Mountains and make for the Turkish border for succour. A worldwide appeal went out asking for warm clothing for the unfortunate refugees. My wife and I contributed our new sheepskin coats that were very much in fashion at the time in the West. The atrocities of the Iraqi Army and the plight of refugees coupled with the reports of the earlier use of chemical weapons woke the rest of the world up to what was going on. As a result the United Nations Security Council Resolution 688 gave birth to a safe haven for the Kurds centred on the Old Silk Route town of Amaydia in northeast Kurdistan. A multi-national force took part supplying troops for protection as well as food and aid supplies. The operation was officially sanctioned by the UN on 6th April 1991.

Kurdish refugee children run toward a German Army helicopter during the multinational Operation Provide Comfort on 1st April 1991.

Photo: PH2 Mark Kettenhofen.

When operation ‘Provide Comfort’ was wound down operation ‘Northern Watch’ was begun on 1st January 1997. This was to enforce the northern No Fly zone above the 36th parallel wherein no Iraqi planes were permitted entry. It was carried out by US and British war planes operating out of the Turkish Air Base at Incirlik (Turkish for ‘place of fig trees’). A total of 90 B61 nuclear bombs are stored there, 40 of which may be used by the Turks themselves. The Incirlik Concession gave great leverage to the Turks with regard to their attitude to the Kurds. Northern Watch continued until 2003 and was a constant feature of life in Kurdistan during my time there. We could hear the noise of the jets every day but I never saw one of them. There were constant clashes as the Iraqis tried to destroy the planes with their missiles but never managed to bring one down. It just underscored the difference in the technological abilities of the two sides. It also conditioned the attitude of the Iraqi soldiers to the odds they would face when the inevitable final conflict would be on them. The sparring between the two sides became quite vicious in December 1998 as a result of President Clinton’s bombing campaign. Operation Northern Watch continued on a 24/7 basis with the planes being refuelled in mid-air. The costs must have been enormous.

The photo above, taken exactly one year to the day of my first trip to Kurdistan, shows the terrain in winter. This was the very difficult country through which we travelled on our first journey to Kurdistan. It was frightening going at speed without ice chains and travelling along roads halfway up precipices without any protection barriers whatsoever. It was also very challenging country in which to erect and reconstruct Transmission High Voltage lines. The terrain of the ground beneath the F-15 in the photo above demonstrates why the Kurds have survived so long in such a hostile environment and have produced such doughty warriors.

The No Fly zone was de facto recognised when Iraqi forces were forced to withdraw from the area in October 1991 and they imposed a blockade of sorts on Kurdistan. The 1992 elections there resulted in a tie between the two main parties, the KDP of Barzani and the PUK of Talabani. In 1993, differences that emerged between the parties led on to warfare. The KDP was involved in the oil sanctions-busting trade between Iraq and Turkey whereby oil was smuggled from Iraq through Dohuk to Zakho and on to Turkey. As it passed through KDP country it had to pay customs revenue to the KDP at Dohuk. The profits from the smuggling were allegedly divided between Saddam’s son Uday, the KDP and Turkey. The KDP also had another lucrative source of income from custom duties they imposed on the trade with Iran that enter Kurdistan via the Choman valley and Rowanduz in the northeast of the country. Barzani’s area was thus relatively rich and could use some of the custom dues money to buy electrical power from Talabani’s people who controlled the only hydro-power stations in Kurdistan. Talabani wanted some of this action and with help from Iran in 1994 he drove the KDP out of their capital Erbil and consequently the KDP called on Saddam for help in 1996. This war was in full swing when I arrived in Iraq and was ended when the US mediated a peace settlement in Washington in September 1998.

In the agreement, the parties agreed to share revenue, share electric power, deny the use of northern Iraq to the PKK, and not allow Iraqi troops into the Kurdish regions. The United States pledged to use military force to protect the Kurds from possible aggression by Saddam Hussein. This was a turning point for Kurdistan and it is to the credit of these great guerilla leaders that led their people against hopeless odds over many years and prevailed. They now hold council with the greatest on earth.

Naturally to be able to fight a civil war both the PDK and the PUK had their own armies of peshmergas (meaning ‘those who face death’). The modern Kurdistan Regional Government now has a Peshmerga Army and police force that maintains the peace and security of Kurdistan. A feature of these forces is the number of women enlisted e.g. in the Erbil Police Academy out of a total of 200 students, 21 are women. Indeed, women fought in the Peshmerga armies from the beginning. I remembered a poem from one of my mother’s books. She was a member of the Irish Cumann na mBan (League of Women) in the 1920s and early 30s and is very idealistic in her views. The words that danced in my head were:

‘And we will march with our brothers to freedom.’

The soldiers of Cumann na mBan.

Lady Police Officers at their graduation from the Police Academy Erbil.

Photo source: KRG.

To return to our arrival in Kurdistan I could not help but notice the men, particularly in the rural areas, who wore the Kurdish national costume. This consisted of dark trousers and jacket similar to a boiler suit. It was usually coloured beige, black or navy and was tied at the waist by a wide cummerbund or pestern sash of the same colour. This cummerbund was folded in such a way as to make pockets for the wearer. The headgear was a large turban (jama dama) made by a square of fabric folded into a triangle and folded in on itself many times like a large bandage. This was then wound around the head many times with the inside end hanging down on the left shoulder. The most notable feature was, of course, the baggy trousers called a shawal or salwar. The colour, pattern, and style of the Kurdish costume indicate tribal and territorial associations.

A group of Kurdish men, some in national costume celebrating the Assyrian New Year or Nuz Roz.

Photo by kind permission of Rojgar Hamid.

In contrast, the girls in rural areas and elsewhere on festive occasions wore very colourful costumes. In fact, the ladies wore colourful costumes at work be they in the fields or queuing for water at the communal wells.

When we reached Sulaymaniyah we paid the usual courtesy calls on the PUK Government ministers. The governmental meetings all took the same form. The UN delegation arrived in the government offices, was shown into the audience room and seated themselves around the walls on empire style gilded armchairs. Photographers went around photographing everyone and for the entire length of the meeting one of them constantly circled the room with a video camera capturing everyone’s expression. It was difficult to concentrate under such conditions. Edited snippets would appear on the local television station that evening.

When we visited the Minister of Industry and Energy, Sade Pere, he invited us out for a meal. Two bodyguards went in his car; tough looking chaps, one with a submachine gun and the other with a Kalashnikov. Sadi Ahmed Pere, born in Erbil in 1954, was a stocky, ebullient man and was among the first members of the PUK. It was said by our local staff that he ran a restaurant in Austria and was one of many ministers who returned to Kurdistan when the autonomous area was established. They reputably had multiple passports and were organized to escape the country at a moment’s notice if Saddam should invade the territory. It was easy to do business with Sade. He was a pragmatist and had acquired much of the Western mindset. He lived a convivial lifestyle and it was difficult to contact him after working hours as he appeared to change his contact number frequently. He was recognized as one of the most powerful politicians in the PUK.

In later years he worked as a troubleshooter for Kurdish policies and secured the PUK’s interests as plans were being prepared for the invasion of Iraq and the fall of Saddam. Afterwards he assumed the role of strongman when he became head of the Mosul bureau of the PUK and was a vital factor in supporting the American forces with his band of 2,000 tightly disciplined peshmergas when they came to grips with the Iraqi Army and later insurgents in Mosul.

Sade was a ruthless opponent as he pursued his objectives. In 2006 he was making peace overtures to Turkey urging that PKK fighters should leave Iraqi Kurdistan and continue their fight from their home bases in Turkey. The PKK or Parti Karkerani Kurdistan (Kurdistan Workers Party) is regarded as a terrorist organisation by the UN and most democratic states. Its objective is to create an independent Kurdish State. Part of this state would involve the southern part of Turkey and consequently the Turkish government is very active in its attempts to destroy them. The Turkish Army maintained a tank squadron in the northern Iraqi Kurdish town of Amaydia and I frequently met them there on my subsequent travels. The PKK were socialistically inclined and the Western powers were not unduly worried by the Turkish occupation. In actual fact the Turkish army had fought the PUK and the KDP in a very unequal contest as they asserted that they were giving aid and arms to the PKK. So it was a total volte face for Pire to turn on the PKK. He is presently head of the Diwan (office) of President Talabani in Baghdad.

The 40-year old Tahsin Qadir Ali, a civil engineer by profession, was the Deputy Minister for Industry and Energy and was a different kettle of fish altogether. He was severely tortured by the Iraqi secret police, the Mukhabarat in their barracks, the Amna Suraka in Sulaymaniyah. He was very direct in his speech and did not beat about the bush in his comments on the UN. He was removed from his position by Talabani some time after I had met him because he made a speech criticizing Turkey at a time when Talabani (PUK) and Barzani (KDP) had ended their civil war. They had thrashed out an agreement in the US (the Washington Agreement) under the auspices of President Bill Clinton and were returning home with a hefty American cheque for arms purchases. Talabani was stopped over in Turkey on his way back, to begin mending fences with the Turks, when Tashin made his unfortunate speech. When I worked with him I met him socially on a number of occasions and I used to quote words from the Irish Ballad Wrap the Green Flag Around Me Boys to him.

Wrap the green flag round me, boys,
To die were far more sweet,
with Erin’s noble emblem boys,
To be my winding sheet.

Tashin was very taken with the song as the flag of his beloved PUK was the Green Flag. The Irish and the Kurds have much in common, they both have a long sad history of fighting for their freedom and while the Irish are obsessed by the Blood Sacrifice the Kurdish Proverb ‘The male is born to be slaughtered’ encapsulates their psyche.

Tashin asked me to get the words of the song and the music when I was next in Ireland but by the time I returned he had been dismissed by Talabani on account of his Turkish speech. In view of the hothouse atmosphere of Iraqi and Kurdish politics I did not think it prudent to seek him out. However, he has bounced back and was appointed Minister for Water Resources in the unified cabinet on 7th May 2006. The PUK based in Sulaymaniyah and the KDP based in Erbil have now formed a united government called the Kurdistan Regional Government based in Erbil. It has ministers from the PUK and the KDP as well as a Chaldean (Christian), an Assyrian (Christian), a Yezidi (so called devil worshipers), a Faili (Shia Kurd) and an independent Turkoman.

A sign displayed at the entrance to all UN offices in Iraq. This one was in the Canal Hotel in Baghdad.

Photo source: Aramais Alojants, UN.

We then had a meeting with the Manager and the heads of department of the Sulaymaniyah Electricity Company in the UN offices. When they arrived for the meeting they were armed and had a heavy machine gun with them. It transpired that they had returned from the front in the civil war with the KDP, hence the heavy machine gun that was mounted on their vehicle. They were informed that they had to leave their arms outside as we could not countenance them in a UN building. This caused some consternation but we insisted and eventually the meeting went ahead with the Electricity Company Manager, Salam, retaining his side arm, in this case a pistol stuck in his belt. Salam was quite aggressive and did not pull punches. Our meeting with his political colleagues earlier in the day was a very tame affair indeed. Salam walked out of the meeting a number of times in protest and had to be coaxed back. The substance of the meeting went over the same ground as the politicians had covered in the morning.

I found out subsequently that Salam was married to Jalal Talabani’s daughter. He was a macho man and the local UN staff told me that he was wanted in three countries for murder. This may have been true, it may have been exaggerated or wishful thinking but it indicated that already Salam was a man of legend. It was said that he and his peshmergas were responsible for some of the damage done to Dokan and Derbendikhan hydro power stations and that Salam made off with the turbine governors. These are devices for maintaining the output of the turbine constant despite variations in water pressure etc. Their loss would mean that the station staff would have to control the output of the turbines manually on a 24/7 basis. It is akin to losing the auto-pilot on a jumbo jet. This was a recurring feature of Kurdistan. The Kurds regarded anything to do with the Iraqi administration as a legitimate target for destruction not realizing or not caring that the infrastructure they were destroying was essential for their own survival. When I returned to Baghdad Odeh (UN Residential Representative) made arrangements for Salam to be employed by the UN in Sulaymaniyah. This was a masterstroke as it meant that Salam was now on our side and it was borne out when he played a pivotal role in harnessing local effort in the subsequent repair work on the two dams. He always came to work with his own bodyguard who waited outside the office in a large limousine. One day I got a call to go to see the Prime Minister urgently. I put on an all-purpose necktie we kept in the office for such occasions but when I went out the door discovered that all the UN transport were out on site. Salam offered me the use of his limo and when I gratefully accepted went out with him to the driver. I saw the driver hurriedly take out a Thompson sub-machine gun from the front passenger seat and load it together with a number of its magazines into the car boot. I felt like Al Calpone as I drove down to the PM.

That evening I walked with Michael Higgins from the UN office to our hotel. A lightning storm was raging in the Zargos Mountains to the south. It was awe-inspiring to see the forked lightning bolts flicker their zigzag route across the sky to strike on one peak after another.

Lightning was endemic in the mountains in eastern Iraq. The above photo shows a strike near a US airbase.

Photo: Staff Sgt. Michael S. Powell, U.S. Air Force.