15 MINUTES OUTSIDE OF KIRKUK, Iraq — The high­way to Kirkuk is packed with thou­sands of civil­ian vehi­cles at mid-afternoon today, after news broke that pesh­merga had entered this oil-rich city that Kurds have claimed as their own, despite the Turkomen, Arab and Assyr­ian res­i­dents.
The mood is World Cup crazy as peo­ple were hang­ing off trucks and speed­ing to the city. Armed men stood up in the back of pickup trucks wav­ing the yel­low or green flags of the KDP or the PUK, respec­tively. As we passed, they waved to me and honked, chant­ing, “Amer­ica!” On the hori­zon, how­ever, four thick, black plumes rise up. The faint smell of burn­ing oil was in the air.
I met a B2I reader ear­lier, djoy, who now says I can use his real name: Delshad Fat­tah, 33, a for­mer res­i­dent of Kirkuk. He came with me to Mosul and was now on the way to Kirkuk with me and Frey­doon. I don’t think he expected this when he agreed to meet me for tea at 10 a.m.
He said many of the peo­ple on the road were going to Kirkuk to loot, and shook his head in sad­ness. “This is what Sad­dam has done to my peo­ple. He has turned us all into thieves.“
We hear news that there is an intifada in Kirkuk. Delshad is a lit­tle wor­ried about the con­flicts among the dif­fer­ent groups now and won­ders if we need a weapon.
Along the way, we stop at one of Saddam’s old pris­ons on the road. A pesh­merga tells us, when we ask if the road ahead is safe, that we should go ask his com­mand­ing offi­cer based in the prison.
Of course there’s no such offi­cer but there are about 300 Iraqi sol­diers there who have sur­ren­dered. They are happy to see me and the two pesh­merga guards let me inter­view them.
They sur­ren­dered this morn­ing around 9 a.m., said Motaz, 23. “We know that every­thing is over, so why fight?” he says. “The lead­er­ship is gone, so there is no need.” He’s a con­script and, like his bud­dies, glad to be done with the war. This group will be sent to Arbil for pro­cess­ing and then, the guards say, they will be sent home.
The Iraqis say they have been treated well, given good food, cig­a­rettes and tea. They show no signs of mis­treat­ment and even have a joc­u­lar rela­tion­ship with the two guards. These guys have no fight left, if they had any to begin with.
One Iraqi pris­oner, Hamid Abdu­lahus­sein Karin, tells me he has two broth­ers in the United States who fled after the first Gulf War. He knows noth­ing about them and asks me to pub­lish his name in the hope that some­one will be able to able. I promise him I will.
“They are too young for this,” said Delshad. “They have seen noth­ing good in this life.“
We’re close to Kirkuk now, and the smoke is heavy on the hori­zon. I think it’s a refin­ery, but I don’t know. It could be fires in the city. We’re going in, as the way seems safe.

AT THE KAZAR RIVER, Iraqi Kur­dis­tan — The bridge over this river to Mosul has been blown by the Iraqis last night as they retreated back toward Mosul. We’re about a 15 – 20 minute car drive to Iraq’s third largest city and a Sunni strong­hold. Well, 15 – 20 min­utes if the bridge weren’t demol­ished.
In last night’s destruc­tion, the Iraqis also hit a civil­ian truck, killing the fam­ily inside. (See attached pic­tures.) Kawa Ramadan, a 22-year-old pesh­merga, goes on to tell me that Kur­dish troops are 10 km beyond this bridge and advanc­ing on Mosul. But we’re stuck.
As we’re stand­ing there. the con­trails of a B-52 looms over­head. Kur­dish radio has just announced that Kirkuk has fallen. Off we go.

TAQTAQ, Iraqi Kur­dis­tan — There is no fight­ing in Kirkuk tonight. But we still got more than we bar­gained for.
The evening began with word from Sabah, my trans­la­tor, that the push for Kirkuk was under­way. J. and I, along with his new bud­dies Rex, Juan Car­los and Jason, were ready to go, espe­cially after Rex had heard of fight­ing near Cham­chamal, close to Kirkuk.
A word about Rex. He’s ex-Army Spe­cial Forces free­lanc­ing for — no kid­ding — Sol­dier of For­tune. I’ve never met any­one who read that mag­a­zine, much less any­one who writes for it. Rex looked the part, too, strid­ing around the hotel lobby in desert cam­ou­flage pants and a flak jacket, hooah! Phys­i­cally, he’s an impos­ing guy, shaved head, strong jaw. He is Mr. Clean at War.
Once our party was assem­bled, we headed out to Taq­taq, a town about 35 km from Kirkuk where I had been ear­lier in the day. Brig. Gen. Rabar Said, the regional com­man­der — and the one who would know what was going on — had invited me to stay the night but I had turned him down. Now, I won­dered if he had been send­ing me code, offer­ing me a front-row seat to some action. He was an old friend, after all.
Tear­ing through the dark­ened coun­try­side of Kur­dis­tan, we passed sev­eral check­points where bemused pesh­mer­gas told us all the same thing. No fight­ing in Kirkuk. All quiet. The gen­eral is in Taq­taq.
As we arrived at the com­mand post at around 11 p.m., a group of pesh­mer­gas greeted us. No, there was noth­ing hap­pen­ing in the region tonight, they said, and in fact, Said had left the post. There was a party down in the town and he had gone to cel­e­brate the fall of Bagh­dad. His staff had gone with him.
Hm, I thought. I doubt the Bat­tle for Kirkuk is on when the gen­eral staff is par­ty­ing in the vil­lage square. J. agreed. Rex, how­ever, wanted to find the gen­eral. Fair enough, as I wanted to go to a party.
When we arrived the vil­lage square was packed. Young men or every appear­ance were danc­ing to record­ings of Kur­dish singers but Said was nowhere to be seen. As we got out of our cars, sev­eral young men began to approach us. They pressed close and I could smell the sweat on them. They noticed we were Amer­i­can and began shout­ing, “George Bush!” “I love George Bush!” “Thank you, Amer­ica!” I began clap­ping to the music, and they started clap­ping and applaud­ing. Soon their hands were lift­ing me and the rest of my party up on their shoul­ders, hoist­ing over the crowd. It was a scene of gen­uine jubi­la­tion, which I have never expe­ri­enced first hand. They treated us like rock stars, grab­bing for us. My kafiyah dis­ap­peared, only to show up in the hands of an young boy who looked around 10-years-old. He care­fully placed it back around my neck.
I was lifted up again, amid cheers of “Amrika! Amrika!” “Thank you!” “We love you!” The raw emo­tion bub­bling up from this mass of Kur­dish Iraqis was over­whelm­ing. For the first time in their lives, they no longer felt the threat of Sad­dam Hus­sein hov­er­ing over their heads on moun­tains just a few kilo­me­ters away. And they found Amer­i­cans in their midst. Jubi­la­tion doesn’t do it jus­tice.
I was dis­ori­ented, turned around, I couldn’t get them to put me down. Peo­ple were slap­ping my back, shak­ing my hand. And they were every­where, every­one yelling out “George Bush!” They began kiss­ing me in thanks. I tried to get out of the crowd, and noticed J. and Rex still up on the shoul­ders of the youths. They were hav­ing a ball.
Sabah grabbed my hand and got me into Freydoon’s taxi. He had to shove peo­ple out of the way. I just tried to catch my breath. Faces and hands pressed against the win­dows, still shout­ing thanks to me. I gave them a thumbs-up and smiled, as I had been doing the whole time.
I was uncom­fort­able being in that flesh-press, wel­com­ing as it was. I felt like I had become the story and my pres­ence made it impos­si­ble for me to report or take pho­tographs. I was glad they were happy, though, and felt hon­ored that they would share their emo­tions with me. But I was glad to be out of the mosh pit of love, and on our way back to Arbil.
Tonight was a night for cel­e­bra­tion. Saddam’s gov­ern­ment seems to be kaput. I just wanted to get to bed.

ARBIL, Iraqi Kur­dis­tan — I returned from the front today south of Taq­taq near Cham­chamal to a party. Arbil was cel­e­brat­ing from the images from Bagh­dad. Crowds have taken to the streets in the cap­i­tal and were help­ing pull down stat­ues of Sad­dam Hus­sein. I had the feel­ing that I was wit­ness­ing an event that would pro­voke the kind of emo­tion in Iraqis that the fall of the Berlin Wall did to the world in 1989.
“We are very happy for what is hap­pen­ing in Bagh­dad,” said Salah Hussen, 36, as he watched al Jazeera among a crowd on the street. “We are sorry for the inno­cent peo­ple who are killed and we hope this is fin­ished as soon as pos­si­ble.“
“But we don’t hope for any­thing happy for Sad­dam,” he added.
Inter­est­ingly, and this ties back to the Jor­nal­ists’ Union’s state­ment yes­ter­day, but there is pal­pa­ble anger at al Jazeera in Kur­dish coun­try, and the pre­ferred Amer­i­can news chan­nel is … Fox News.
“Fox News is true!” Hussen said.
If Arbil was a city verg­ing on a rave, the north­ern front was as quiet as Sun­day night in Dubuque, Iowa. In Dubizna, a blasted vil­lage five kilo­me­ters from Kani Doma­lin, a moun­tain range that over­looks the oil fields around Kirkuk, fight­ers on all sides seem to have set­tled in to see what hap­pens now.
Kani Doma­lin is the last ridge that stands between the Patri­otic Union of Kur­dis­tan pesh­mer­gas and Kirkuk. I can see it in the dis­tance, down the road. While we’re stand­ing there, next to bombed out struc­tures that used to be bar­racks for Iraqi troops, artillery shells landed about two kilo­me­ters in front of us. I jumped. My pesh­merga escorts laughed. We were in no dan­ger. The Iraqis were shelling PUK for­ward posi­tions, but with­out much effect, it appeared.
But before the PUK can advance up that ridge with Amer­i­can air sup­port, a polit­i­cal bar­rier must be breached. The Kurds’ lead­ers have pledged no advance on Kirkuk or Mosul, which would pro­voke Turkey into invad­ing the Kuridish enclave, some­thing the Amer­i­cans are des­per­ate to avoid. Kur­dish fight­ers are not to advance past High­way 2, which is the cur­rent divid­ing line between the forces.
The last check­point before Dubizna is Redar, 18 km from the front. It’s the cen­ter of the strate­gi­cally impor­tant Chwan town­ship. Before that lies the town of Taq­taq, about 35 km from Kani Doma­lin. Until a few nights ago, this area was in Iraqi hands, and Taq­taq was being shelled. Today, I had lunch with the pesh­merga com­man­der Arez Abdulla there, in a room recently used by the Iraqi gen­eral staff for the region — until it was aban­doned and the Kurds occu­pied it, that is.
Abdulla’s supe­rior, Brig. Gen. Rabar Said, who I met last year near Hal­abja when we toured the Shriniwe Front against Ansar al-Islam together, said the Iraqis had with­drawn to Dira­man and Hasar — towns strad­dling the Kani Doma­lin ridge­line — in the last two weeks, leav­ing behind weapons and vehi­cles. I meet Said ear­lier that day in a happy — and ran­dom — reunion, and the gen­eral esti­mated the num­ber of troops defend­ing the Kirkuk area at 20,000, all in a state of very low morale.
The Iraqi com­man­ders can’t do any­thing with­out the OK of the Ba’athish Party polit­i­cal offi­cers assigned to the units, Abdulla said. And the troops don’t get any news except the Ba’ath Party pro­pa­ganda.
“They hear only lies,” he said. “They have no idea what is going on.” I got the feel­ing he felt sorry for them.
Said esti­mates that one divi­sion of the Nebukhidh-nezar Repub­li­can Guard, a divi­sion of the Sad­dam Feday­een and a “force” (qa’ qa’) of Divi­sion 44, which is reg­u­lar army. Throw in the police and local mili­tia, and you get 20,000, with their head­quar­ters in the neigh­bor­hoods of Hai Nasir and Qadisiya in Kirkuk.
Join­ing Said in Taq­taq was Brig. Gen. Jalal Aziz and a PUK mem­ber of the Kur­dish Par­lia­ment in Arbil, Mala Shaki. As he turned on the tele­vi­sion to Fox News (of course,) Shaki expressed his grat­i­tude to the United States.
“In the past 30 years, we have been suf­fer­ing from geno­cide and Anfal, chem­i­cal weapons,” he said. “We are very grate­ful and thank­ful for the Amer­i­can sup­port. They crossed thou­sands of kilo­me­ters to lib­er­ate the Iraqi peo­ple — “
” — and Kur­dish peo­ple,” inter­jected Aziz.
“Includ­ing the Kur­dish peo­ple,” Shaki responded. “We don’t think about revenge. Our aim is democ­racy and human rights for a coun­try that will be free.
“From now on, all of the Iraqi peo­ple will be happy.“
While the pesh­merga are being kept on a tight leash by the Amer­i­cans, what about the approx­i­mately 300,000 inter­nally dis­placed peo­ple who will want to return to Kirkuk and Mosul at the first oppor­tu­nity? Are there any plans to stop them? It turns out that there isn’t, accord­ing to Shaki, despite the fact that Turkey has said this, too, will be seen as a provo­ca­tion.
“The peo­ple are not armed and hope­fully they will not do that,” Shaki said. “The order from Jalal Tal­a­bani is to dis­cour­age peo­ple from loot­ing and revenge.“
Taq­taq wasn’t just a base for the pesh­merga. It was also a base for a num­ber of Amer­i­can Spe­cial Forces troops. When I wan­dered upstairs to try to talk to the Amer­i­can com­mand­ing offi­cer, who Said told me was avail­able, a young Air­borne ranger of the 101^st stopped me at the top of the stairs.
“You can’t be here, sir,” he said.
“Just wanted to talk to the com­mand­ing offi­cer, please,” I replied.
“He’s not here.“
Gotcha. I beat a hasty retreat with­out putting up a fight.
The feel­ing is that the troops in Kirkuk and Mosul will not stand and fight, Aziz said, accord­ing to two Iraqi pris­on­ers cap­tured yes­ter­day in fight­ing. With Bagh­dad seem­ingly under Amer­i­can con­trol, we may soon see a test of that the­ory. As we were leav­ing the region, we passed a com­pany of pesh­mer­gas who were rolling to Qush­tapa, a 45-minute drive to Kirkuk. When they stopped, we caught up with the leader and asked him what was going on.
“We going to join our com­man­der,” he said and smiled. He didn’t refuse to say any­thing more, but he didn’t tell me a damn thing. He knew what he was doing and I didn’t blame him. Who wants to talk to pesky reporters when you’re on a mis­sion?
As it is, I just heard a rumor that’s there’s a press on for Kirkuk-Chamchamal tonight. I’m head­ing out.