KIRKUK, Iraq — This newly lib­er­ated city was a scene of joy and jubi­la­tion as the peo­ple took to the streets, let­ting out a col­lec­tive breath they had been hold­ing for 35 years.
It had been a mostly blood­less cap­ture by the PUK and KDP pesh­mer­gas. It started this morn­ing, and the Iraqi defend­ers just gave up or melted away, leav­ing the Kur­dish fight­ers — with U.S. sup­port — to walk prac­ti­cally unop­posed into the city.
By the time I got there around 3 p.m., the loot­ing had begun. A gov­ern­ment shop­ping cen­ter was gut­ted and scorched from fire. Young men walked the side­walks car­ry­ing ceil­ing fans, chairs and any­thing else they could pick up and carry off.
But in a pleas­ant sur­prise, on the way back to Arbil, the pesh­mer­gas had set up check­points and were reliev­ing peo­ple of looted mate­r­ial. Frey­doon and Delshad were both pleased to see this. I was too.
But it seemed the major­ity of the Kirkukis were in the city’s cen­tral park where a large statue of Sad­dam Hus­sein stood. The scene yes­ter­day in Bagh­dad was replayed as the crowd noosed the statue with steel cable and pulled it down. There were no Amer­i­can troops to help them this time, and that seemed to suit the Kurds just fine. I’m told the Arabs and the Turkomen of Kirkuk are less than pleased by the Kurds’ ascen­dency, but I couldn’t ver­ify that. No one wanted to spoil the day with words of eth­nic strife. That can wait.
After the statue was felled, the crowd torched a por­trait of Sad­dam that adorned the main gov­ern­ment build­ing. Like the Iraqi regime under the firestorm of the last, lightening-quick three weeks, phoof! It was gone.
Majad, a friend of Delshad’s shook my hand warmly and then whis­pered in my ear, “Sad­dam, god­dammit!” Then he looked and me and grinned like a school­boy who had just got­ten away with some­thing. Then he asked me if the war was over. I didn’t under­stand his ques­tion, until Delshad told me that the Kirkukis didn’t know about the sit­u­a­tion in Bagh­dad. The para­noia of Saddam’s regime was such that no one trusted the radio and they hadn’t seen the images of the crowd pulling down the statue of Sad­dam in the cap­i­tal because the Iraqis had banned satel­lite dishes. So iso­lated was Kirkuk that peo­ple begged to use my satel­lite phone so they could call the out­side world. I accom­mo­dated as many as I could, but it wasn’t enough.
Inside the gov­ern­ment build­ing, there was noth­ing but bro­ken glass on the floor and a defaced mural of Sad­dam Hus­sein. Oh, and many, many milling pesh­mer­gas. This was their vic­tory and they knew it. There is a light Amer­i­can pres­ence here, out­side the city, but inside, the pesh­mer­gas are the new sher­iffs in town.
And none too soon. Peo­ple were being exe­cuted as recently as yes­ter­day, said Jalal Khoshna, a pesh­merga com­man­der who was born in Kirkuk.
“I feel like I am newly born!” he exulted.
The city had been one of the ones hard­est hit by Saddam’s pro­gram of “Ara­biza­tion,” which would dis­place Kur­dish fam­i­lies and give their homes and prop­erty to Arab fam­i­lies set­tled from the south. There are up to 300,000 inter­nally dis­placed peo­ple, as the United Nations clin­i­cally calls them. Many of them live in squalid refugee camps out­side the Kur­dish cities such as Arbil or Suleimaniya.
But in a vivid home­com­ing scene, Khoshna described how he returned to his family’s old home in Kirkuk only to find an Arab fam­ily liv­ing there. He said they were afraid of him and his troops, but he reas­sured them they could live there until they found a new home. Then he would like his house back, please.
We’re now on our way back to Arbil. I’m col­lect­ing my stuff and head­ing south toward Bagh­dad. I will post pic­tures very soon that can tell the rest of today’s extra­or­di­nary story.

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.