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BAGHDAD -- Ninevah province, home to the mixed city of Mosul and the besieged city of Tal 'Afar, is seeing some very strange numbers. I've done back of the Excel envelope calculations and have found this:

• In the January election, which was boycotted by Sunnis, there were 165,934 votes cast, according to the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq.
• In October, according to AP's preliminary results, there were 419,804 votes cast in Ninevah, an increase of 253,870 votes, or +152.99 percent.
• The number of people voting for the constitution in Ninevah, according to the AP, was 326,774 (78 percent), with 90,065 voting against it (21 percent). Less than 1 percent, or 2,965 votes, was disqualified.

By way of comparison, Tamim province, home to the disputed city of Kirkuk, saw 542,000 votes cast -- an increase of 35.2 percent over January -- with 341,611 voting "yes" (63 percent) and 195,725 voting "no" (36 percent). You mean we're supposed to believe that in Tamim, which is also a mixed province but which has had a steady stream of Kurds moving in for the last two-and-a-half years, had more than twice as many no votes as Ninevah? And with the Kurds already pretty much owning Kirkuk? Color me skeptical.

What's truly eyebrow-raising is that the number of constitutional "yes" votes -- 326,774 -- is more than the total increase in votes over January's turnout. That suggests that not only did all of the Sunnis in Ninevah province, who largely boycotted the January elections turn out, but that they all voted for the constitution. That's a very strange idea to me, as I've not met a single Sunni who voted for it here in Baghdad.

Ninevah is home to Mosul, a mixed city of about 2 million Arabs, Turkomans and Kurds, as well as Tal'Afar, the mostly Turkoman city of 500,000 that U.S. and Iraqi forces stormed last month. Anecdotal reports are that a) Sunni Arabs have come out in droves, mainly to vote down the constitution, and b) the constitution was very unpopular in Tal'Afar because of military actions there.

Now, several possibilities spring to mind: Sunni Arabs in the north really love the idea of the new national charter, but I find this unlikely, to say the least. In fact, I only suggest it for the giggle factor. Another possibility is that the vote was blatantly fixed. A third possibility is that the Kurds moved thousands of people into Mosul to skew the vote. Oddly enough, I heard Sunnis making just this charge in the run-up to the Saturday's referendum. A third possibility is a combination of the last two. The vote was rigged and the Kurds moved people in.

Now, contrasting points that prove I don't know what I'm talking about, suggested by colleagues:

1. Mosul is an Iraqi Islamic Party stronghold. The IIP called on its supporters to vote "yes" after a deal last week to open up the constitution to early amendments. This split the Sunni opposition to the charter.
2. The Sunnis simply don't make up 20 percent of Iraq. There hasn't been a reliable census in years and not only do the Sunnis not make up 42 percent of Iraq as Saleh Mutlaq, a member of the National Dialogue Council, claims, but they're much fewer than the 20 percent most people assume.
3. Ninevah and Mosul aren't Sunni strongholds. It's conventional wisdom, but maybe that's wrong.
4. Mosul was a lot more violent in January, keeping the vote there down. Perhaps now, with less violence, more Kurds -- perhaps half of the total increase -- were able to come out and vote.
5. The Turkomans aren't a factor. Money quote from cynical colleague: "There are more Turkoman parties than there are Turkomans."
6. The AP numbers are so preliminary, they're flat-out wrong.

The possibility exists that all of these possibilities have played into the dynamic in Ninevah, leading to wild numbers, and I've not been able to reach a stringer in Mosul yet to get more information. But if these numbers hold, there's something very, very rotten in the north.

(Hat tip to various commenters who alerted me to the numbers here.)

Technorati Tags: Current Affairs, Iraq, Middle East, News and Politics

Today was a bad one. Another friend was kidnapped last night, and this morning a mortar shell hit our compound. Thankfully, my friend was released after a day -- but he was very lucky. (More details to come tomorrow after he leaves the country.) The mortar caused no real damage, hamdillah, but hit a house near one of the hotels in the compound. The explosion, in size and intensity, sounded exactly like the car bomb that hit the Karma hotel back in May.

Staying here is becoming increasingly untenable. There's talk of TIME moving me up north for a couple of months, which would be a welcome change, to be honest. I've not been able to get out of the compound, and after the kidnapping, I'm disinclined to even make the attempt. The bottom line is I can't work like this and I'm getting more and more frustrated, as I've mentioned. Hopefully, by moving to the north for a little while, my work will improve and so will my state of mind.

More as the situation develops, but things are changing here in Baghdad -- for the worse.

UPDATE 2321 +0300 And now a large car bomb with many casualties -- in first reports -- has just gone off down the street from our compound.

Two suicide bombers attacked the offices of the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan in Arbil, the seat of the Iraqi Kurdistan parliament, today, killing dozens and wounding more than 200. Reports vary as to the number of dead, with some reports putting the number at 56, others 70 and still others at 100 or more. This is the worst bombing since the August "attack on the shrine of Imam Ali in Najaf":http://www.back-to-iraq.com/archives/000451.php#000451, which killed more than 100 people, including Ayatollah Mohammad Baqir al-Hakim, a key Shi’a cleric and then-head of SCIRI. Among the dead are:

• Sami Abdulrahman, Deputy Prime Minister KRG, politbureau Secretary, KDP
• Shawkat Shekh Yezdin, Coordination Minister, KRG, Central Committee Member, KDP
• Sa'd Abdulla, politbureau Member, Head of Branch 2, KDP
• Mehmmod Halo, Deputy Finance Minister, KDP
• Akram Mentik, Governor of Arbil, KDP
• Mehdi Khoshnaw, Deputy Governor of Arbil, KDP
• Ahmad Rojbeyani, Head of Administration of the City of Arbil, KDP
• Neriman Abdul-Hamid, Head of Police in Arbil
• Shakhewan Abbas, Leadership Member, PUK
• Khasro Shera, Leadership Member, PUK

At a news conference in Sofia, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari, a Kurd, blamed the attacks on the al Qaeda network or its allies.
Sami Abdulrahman, KDP deputy prime minister, in his offices in Arbil in July 2002. Christopher Allbritton ® 2002"It was an attack by terrorists, al Qaeda and Ansar al-Islam," he said. Several senior Kurdish officials have been targeted in assassination attempts in recent years, with the Kurds accusing Ansar as the culprit. Today's attack has the hallmarks of Ansar, who killed Australian cameraman Paul Moran on March 22, 2003 at a roadside checkpoint near Suleimaniya. PUK Deputy Prime Minister Barhim Salih has also been narrowly escaped assassination. Peter Galbraith, a former U.S. ambassador and expert on the Kurds, said the attacks would strengthen the hand of separatist Kurdish groups who want to break away from Iraq. He -- and I -- consider this a very bad idea. "It is too early to predict the fallout, but the bombings will strengthen those in the Kurdish movement who want to insulate Kurdistan physically and politically from the rest of Iraq," Galbraith said. The attacks came on Eid al-Adha, or the Feast of the Sacrifice, which is one of the holiest and most joyful holidays in the Islamic calendar. The suicide bombers apparently were able to get past security into the party headquarters because of lax security on the holiday. On a personal note, I knew Sami Abdulraham. I met him in July 2002, and was intensely impressed with him. He was a hero to many in the KDP for his unwavering loyalty to the Barzani clan -- first to the founder of the KDP, Mustafa Barzani, and then to his son, Massoud Barzani. He treated me with grace and hospitality, letting me have "drafts of the proposed constitutions for a Federal Republic of Iraq.":http://www.back-to-iraq.com/archives/000046.php#000046 He had written most of the drafts himself, hopeful even then for the future of his country and his people. I still have my last interview with him on tape. I considered him a friend. Several members of Abdulrahman's family were also killed, including a young member named Saleh, who was considered a rising star. A few family members have already been buried in Duhok in keeping with tradtion. To all the Kurds and other Iraqis who have felt this loss, my sympathies to you all. On a more critical note, what can be done to secure Iraq from this violence? Yesterday, 17 people, including three American GIs, died in three separate attacks. A car bomb in Mosul, mortars in Baghdad and an roadside bomb in Kirkuk. The insurgency or terrorists or whatever you want to call these killers are not confined to the "Sunni Triangle" as the Bush administration keeps insisting. The number of dead GIs for the month of January alone is 41, making it the second deadliest month of the occupation since President Bush declared Iraq a "Mission Accomplished" with the end of major combat operations on May 1. Wasn't the "capture of Saddam Hussein":http://www.back-to-iraq.com/archives/000495.php#000495 supposed to end -- or at least blunt -- the attacks? Some may consider that a cheap shot in light of today's death toll, but a hard question remains: Why are soldiers and civilians dying in numbers greater than ever while the White House continues to insist "we're making progress" against these killers? Iraqi Kurdistan is considered the safest part of Iraq, patrolled by _peshmergas_ and building on the burgeoning civil society the Kurds built in the last decade. What country can be considered secure when the safest part is attacked like this?

U.S. troops raided the KDP offices in Kirkuk Saturday night, seizing AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenades. The Americans also arrested a senior KDP leader. A PUK office also was raided. The raids are connected to the "recent ethnic violence":http://www.back-to-iraq.com/archives/000637.php between Turkmen, Arabs and Kurds in Kirkuk that has left almost 20 people dead since "August":http://www.back-to-iraq.com/archives/000445.php#000445. Six have been killed since last week. "We are disappointed by this," said Mohammad Sabir, chief PUK representative in Washington when I contacted him this afternoon. "We are very close to the U.S. but I don't know [the reason for] the raid. Maybe some Turkmen or Arabs gave them information that the PUK had many weapons. I don't know, really." He added that the PUK was working to clear up any misunderstanding. The KDP representative in D.C., Farhad Barzani, said he knew nothing about the raid and couldn't comment. The "Kurdistan Democratic Party":http://www.kdp.pp.se/ and the "Patriotic Union of Kurdistan":http://www.puk.org are the two main Kurdish parties in Iraq and have been pushing for a federal system guaranteeing Kurds "significant autonomy":http://www.back-to-iraq.com/archives/000046.php#000046 since last year. Arabs, Turkmen and surrounding countries have all expressed alarm and displeasure over the idea of significant Kurdish autonomy.

_TurkishPress.com_ reports that members of the Iraqi Turkmen Front will be trained by Egypt as part of the new Iraqi Army instead of Turkey.

Turkmen and Arabs have grown closer in the wake of the Kurds’ recent attempts to establish an ethnic-based federation in Iraq. The two ethnic groups have assumed a common stance, with both arguing that Kirkuk is an Iraqi city after the Kurdish groups revealed their ambition to include the oil-rich city within their territories. The Turkmen are waiting for the support of the Arab world. Last week Iraqi Turkmen Front (ITF) head Faruk Abdullah held a series of meetings with Arab League Secretary-General Amr Musa and Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmet Mahir. Sources say that Musa and Mahir’s stances were a relief to the ITF, and can be summarized as follows: "Iraq’s territorial integrity will be protected. We can't allow one group to dominate another. Kirkuk is an Iraqi city. It can't be left to the domination of one ethnic group. Egypt will do its utmost to protect both Iraq's territorial integrity and the rights of every ethnic group in the country."

While the Turks might seem an obvious choice to train the Turkmen, thanks to their historic ties to the Turkmen, ITF spokesman Ahmed Muratli says that "Turkey is now out of the picture. The U.S. signed training agreements with Jordan and Egypt, not Turkey." Kurdish leaders Jalal Talabani and Massoud Barzani have also expressed opposition to the Turks providing training, despite (or perhaps because of) its proximity and its NATO ties. A Turkmen-Arab alliance should be expected as the third largest ethnic group in Iraq finds common cause with the largest (Arabs) in the wake of Kurdish attempts to add Kirkuk to their possessions in the post-Saddam Iraq. Both Arabs and Turkmen have argued that Kirkuk is an Iraqi city and not Kurdish. Violence in that city last week left at least two people dead and more injured when _peshmergas_ fired into a demonstration of "Arabs and Turkmen protesting the Kurds' proposed plans for Iraqi federalism.":http://b2i2.thestonecutters.net/archives/000637.php

The Bush administration has decided the "Kurds can keep their special status":http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/05/international/middleeast/05KURD.html in Iraq, because the accelerated timetable for handing over sovereignty by June 30 is too quick to solve the problem.

"Once we struck the Nov. 15 agreement, there was a realization that it was best not to touch too heavily on the status quo," said an administration official. "The big issue of federalism in the Kurdish context will have to wait for the Iraqis to resolve. For us to try to resolve it in a month or two is simply too much to attempt."

Indeed, this will be a thorny issue. There is widespread fear that a loose federation -- what the Kurds are demanding -- could lead to independence for Iraqi Kurdistan, triggering instability throughout the region. Turkey is constantly making growling noises that the Iraqis Kurds should be kept on a tight leash in Baghdad through a centralized government. This decision basically formalizes the current status quo, with the Kurds having their own government that is more or less independent of Baghdad. They currently have control over their borders with Syria, Iran and Turkey, their own security forces with the _peshmergas_ and substantial ability to collect taxes and other revenues. Where Kirkuk fits into all this is unclear, but the Kurds want it. As Massoud Barzani, head of the Kurdistan Democratic Party "said:":http://www.krg.org/docs/mb-federalism-kurdistan-dec03.asp

The existing [self-rule] situation of the Kurds is their legitimate right and it is based on the right to self-determination, which is part of international law. After 12 years of self-rule, without the control of the Baghdad government, the Kurds will not accept less than their existing situation. They aspire for the inclusion of the other Kurdish areas in the Kurdistan region, which, before the liberation of Iraq, were subject to the policy of demographic change by the [former] central authority. Those who are interested in the issue of a united Iraq, should know very well that it would be difficult for them to convince the Kurdish people after all these tragedies, ordeals and displacement policies to remain deprived from their rights in Iraq. This makes it essential that the brother Arabs respect the Kurdish decision and would not be hesitant regarding [the fulfilment of] any right of the Kurdish rights in Iraq. By this I mean that there are now some Iraqi and foreign sides that, to some extent, point to the federalism of governorates, which is rejected by the Kurds, because the Kurdish people have not been struggling throughout history for separating the Kurdish governorates from each other. They have struggled for the safeguarding of Kurdistan’s historical borders and not dismantling it. The Kurds' achievements in 1970 [when their political movement signed the 11 March 1970 agreement with the Iraqi government, recognizing an autonomous status for the Kurds to be proclaimed within four years], were far more than federalism of the governorates, which is called for now. The Iraqi issue should not be settled separately from the Kurdish issue, because the Kurdish people, who have a cause, consider that federalism is the best solution for their issue. Therefore, all future [Iraqi] governments should avoid the fatal errors that successive Iraqi governments in Baghdad have committed, and not neglect the will of the Kurdish people, because it is a will which is generated from an endless strength. The Kurdish people will not allow its will, which is inseparable from the will of the Kurdistan parliament, to be neglected.

As for the Americans to just kind of pass this issue off on the Iraqis, it's worrisome, but not really surprising. The Americans originally planned to rapidly reintegrate Iraqi Kurdistan into the new Iraq, but the post-war chaos and the CPA's struggles to establish itself quickly caused that plan to be jettisoned. The _peshmergas_ were exempted from the general order to disarm Iraqi militia. And after the CPA asked them to dismantle checkpoints between their territory and the rest of Iraq, the Kurds were then asked to re-establish them when the security situation failed to stabilize. As Barzani said, this is _the_ issue that will literally make or break a new Iraq, and the wrong moves made in the heat of the moment could lead to the splintering of the country, civil war or a regional conflict involving Turkey and Iran. It really needs to be handled delicately, and the Americans -- as the dominant power in the region -- need to be deeply involved. (In the same way the Americans should be involved in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.) Nationalism runs deep in Iraq, Kurdish and otherwise, and I'm not convinced that events and the passions of a Kurdish populace won't get out of hand, despite the best intentions of politicians. Still, maybe this will work out OK. But don't forget the Turkomen and the Arabs of Kirkuk. They will protest loudly about this, and probably violently. The Kurds will have to be on their best behavior to prove to the Turks to the north and the Sunni Muslims to the south that they can be trusted to respect their rights in areas under Kurdish control. No, Kurds don't have their rights respected in Turkey to the degree that "Turkomen are protected in Iraq":http://www.back-to-iraq.com/archives/000360.php#000360 -- even now. Yes, it's a double standard. But it's a standard that has to be met if the Iraq is to stay unified. Boy, this just delayed my essay on the Kurds.

At least two people died and 10 were wounded today in Kirkuk when Arabs and Turkmen protested Kurdish efforts to control the oil-rich city.

Kurds on Iraq's U.S.-appointed Governing Council are proposing that a future, federal Iraqi government grant broad autonomy to the northern zone, with Kirkuk as its capital, and a say over other areas with large Kurdish populations. That plan is bitterly opposed by Turkmens and Arabs in Kirkuk, some 20,000 of whom took to the streets Wednesday, chanting "No to federalism! Kirkuk is Iraqi!."

This is the aftereffects of Saddam Hussein's efforts to "Arabize" the Kirkuk region. The city became a powderkeg of ethnic tensions when the "Kurds took Kirkuk":http://www.back-to-iraq.com/archives/000354.php in April and almost immediately began "Kurdishizing" the area by driving out Arab families that had been settled there. In August, "three Turkmen were killed":http://www.back-to-iraq.com/archives/000445.php#000445 in ethnic violence in Kirkuk. (If you want to see some of what the Kurds are looking for, I wrote about the proposed constitutions "here":http://www.back-to-iraq.com/archives/000046.php#000046.) I'm working on an essay about the political maneuverings among the Kurds, the Iraqi Governing Council and even Turkey, so I'm not going to say much more than this. But, as during the war, some of the most interesting -- and far-reaching -- events are bubbling in the north while most of the obvious bang-bang action is around Baghdad. While the southern events are important -- people are dying, for God's sake -- the Kurds could be the match that lights a larger fire.

Really interesting article here on a Brooklyn woman's passionate support for an independent Kurdistan. The kicker? Vera Saeedpour is a "feisty, diminutive and devoutly Jewish senior citizen." The widow of a Muslim Iranian Kurd who died in 1981, her Jewish identity has had a tremendous impact on her immersion in the Kurdish cause. "How could we as Jews complain about the world being silent when we were persecuted," she asks, "and ignore what has happened to the Kurds?" Pretty interesting stuff, and she's not alone. A friend of mine, who would prefer anonymity, is also passionately pro-Kurdistan and Jewish. And while Saeedpour calls herself an "advocate for justice," my friend has called himself a "Kurdish activist." What's interesting about my friend is that, unlike Saeedpour who has strong personal ties to Kurdish culture (marriage), my friend just developed a passionate interest from books and visits. (He has friends who are Kurdish, of course.) So I'm putting out a call, as I'd like to see how widespread this phenomenon is. If you're Jewish and _passionately_ believe that the Kurds should be independent -- if you might be considered obsessive on the subject, even -- I want to hear from you. I'd also like to find out if this is a common trend in the American Jewish community. Does it grow out of Jews' general sympathy for social justice? And what about in Israel? Is there much support for an independent Kurdistan there? How does this fit into the context of an independent Palestine? I don't know the answers to any of these questions and I'm just kind of brainstorming, but if I can find enough Jews who feel like Saeedpour and my friend, that might be a pretty good story.

Eyebrows should be raised, but the Turkish foreign minister Abdullah Gul is claiming that American forces have clashed with PKK/KADEK forces in northern Iraq. The BBC reports that U.S. forces exchanged fire with "unknown forces" in the area.

A spokesman for the US 101st Airborne Division, based in Mosul, said the incident took place near Dahuk, about 10 miles (15 kilometers) from the Turkey-Iraq border. One member of the Iraqi border patrol was killed, he said. The "unknown forces" were disbursed with the assistance of Apache attack helicopters and a quick reaction force team, he added.

"It is true that clashes took place yesterday," Gul has said. "Not only U.S. forces but also Kurdish 'peshmerga' fighters were involved in engaging the PKK. Some U.S. helicopters were also deployed." [UPDATE 1:40 PM EST: Agence France Press is reporting ambiguity in the parties involved, just as BBC did earlier, saying Iraqi border guards came under attack by "unknown forces." The "Kurdistan Democratic Party":http://www.kdp.pp.se/ office in Washington has no comment.] The "PKK/KADEK":http://www.back-to-iraq.com/archives/000119.php#000119 fought a brutal war with Turkey from 1984-1998, in which upwards of 30,000 civilians in southeast Turkey were killed and entire villages destroyed. In an effort to persuade Turkey to contribute 10,000 troops to Iraq, Washington promised to help crackdown on the Kurdish group, which ended its 5-year cease fire against Turkey in September. At the time, Qubad Jalal Talabani, the deputy representative for the "Patriotic Union of Kurdistan":http://www.puk.org in Washington -- which has had sometimes warmer, sometimes cooler relations with the PKK -- told me via email:

There is much talk about US-Turkey action towards the PKK, but in reality, the US are already fighting a war on a few fronts (Al-Qaeda, Ansar, Saddam loyalists etc). The last thing would want to do is open another front. Secondly, the US and the Kurds (Iraqi), are on a very new and different playing field, in terms of the respect that each shows the other. The US would never do such actions with first consulting, and second receiving permission, from us. Our advice to the US and to Turkey has always been, the PKK are tired, regardless of what some idiots from within them think, the majority of them are ready to lay down their arms and go back to their homes. If the US can pressure Turkey into providing them with an amnesty (a real one!) then this problem will be resolved.

Turkey apparently withdrew its offer of troops Nov. 7 and said, "The government has decided not to implement the (parliamentary) motion to send troops to Iraq," an unnamed government official was quoted as saying. The next day, Gul warned the U.S. "not to show bias towards Iraqi Kurds." Tellingly, Gul also

told NTV that the US had reaffirmed its determination to eliminate the PKK threat, but insisted that that Ankara reserved the right of intervention in case of a "threat or attack" coming out of its neighbour's territory.

The next day, Sunday, we see the U.S. [possibly] attacking PKK/KADEK forces. Gul's comments can only be seen as a maneuver to get the U.S. to act, [and thus should be looked at skeptically.] But why? Running through all this is the American desire to have some kind of help -- any kind -- to help with increasingly successful insurgents in Iraq. Stratfor says a Turkish force is still not out of the question, especially if Washington fields a Shia anti-guerilla force with the help of Iran -- Turkey's old nemesis in Iraq. Is it so out of the question that the action in the north, which runs the risk of alienating a substantial portion of the Kurdish population in Iraq, which is anti-Turk, is a show of good faith by the U.S. in an effort to get Turkey's civilian government to change its mind? (By all accounts, the Turkish military, unlike Ankara's civilian government, sees sending troops as a chance to deal with the "Kurdish Problem" once and for all and establish control over northern Iraq.) If, in the future, fighting between PKK/KADEK and U.S. forces is seen, I wouldn't be surprised to see Turkish troops close behind.

A knowledgeable friend who was in Kirkuk a few weeks ago wrote in to tell me that the Kurds -- and other political parties such as the Turkoman Front -- had been flying their flags since at least the beginning of August. Three days ago, when the Coalition Provisional Authority instructed the flags be taken down, Kurds pelted U.S. soldiers with stones. The CPA soon reversed itself, the reason for the previous entry. As my friend wrote: "When I was there [in early August], the city was FILLED with Kurdish flags. It is truly unbelievable, and quite beautiful. Every single building had a Kurdistan flag flying. Many walls had Kurdish flags painted on them. Even the lightposts had Kurdish flags painted on them." The flagrant flag flying was news to me. I had heard from friends in the area that the Iraqi flag (minus Saddam's post-1991 Arabic additions) had been flying since the early summer or so. In fact, when I was there in April on the day of Kirkuk's liberation, there were many old-style Iraqi flags being waved about -- in addition to the political parties' flags. When did the Kurds and others begin putting up their own flags? I don't know. Anyway, the decision to let the Kurds wave their banner high in Kirkuk seems to be a reverting to the status quo, although one that I still think is decidedly shaky. Regardless of the validity of the Kurds' claims on Kirkuk (and I think they're pretty damn valid), flaunting the Kurdish nature of the city in the face of Turkey and its Turkoman brethren is asking for trouble. Anyway, this flag lag reveals a source of major frustration for me. My sources communicate too slowly to allow for timeliness. Trying to parse Kurdish and Arabic English-language media over the net is a bit of a fool's game. In short, there's no good way to cover Iraq from New York, and I have no way to get to Iraq any time soon.

I'd like to apologize about the Paul Moran piece below. I don't know that Paul Moran was working for Rendon Group at the time of his tragic death and I should not have said or insinuated that he did. I stepped over the line from valid criticism of government and private firms to smearing a man who can't defend himself, and that was wrong.

A commenter, calling himself Eric Campbell, who was the reporter with Moran at the time of his death, wrote in and said this:

I am the ABC reporter who was working with Paul Moran when he was killed. The immense grief his family is suffering has been compounded by the unending repetition of false claims about him on the internet.

It is probably too late to repair the damage, but in the interests of decency, people should recognise the following:

Paul's assignment for the ABC in northern Iraq Iraq was as my cameraman. He was not the reporter. It is absurd and wrong to say there was a conflict of interest.

Paul was not working for the Rendon Group at the same time. He was never any employee of the Rendon Group. Like many freelance journalists, he did occasional audio visual production work Rendon and other PR companies.

His work was never propaganda. It was corporate videos, news webs-sites, and in the case of his original work in Kurdistan, production and training work to help the Kurds set up a TV station.

He rightly felt sympathy for the plight of Kurdish civilians after seeing the suffering they had been through under Saddam Hussein. He felt the media should do more to report this, as well as many other issues he felt strongly about such as the plight of refugees and asylum seekers. There is no contradiction between that and his work as a cameraman or reporter for such broadcasters as the BBC and ABC.

He obtained the interview with an Iraqi defector through a contact at the INC he had worked with in Kurdistan. That is not sinister. It is how journalists get stories.

Paul never made any secret about his freelance production work. He simply did it to pay the bills betwen broadcast assignments, like any other freelancer.

He was a man of great integrity who was widely loved. The fact that John Rendon came to his funeral in Adelaide, along with dozens of others from around the world who had worked with him, is simply a reflection of that.

Go ahead and criticise the INC, the CIA, the Pentagon, whoever. But do not make Paul the villain, because he wasn't.

He took on a risky assignment to work for the ABC during the war Kurdistan because he believed the Kurds were an important part of the story. He was disdainful of journalists who just got news from press briefings, believing they should always go to where the story was. He paid for this with his life.

Eric Campbell
Reporter
ABC TV

The IP number that showed up with the comment traceroutes back to a machine in Australia, so I'm going to accept that Campbell is the author of this note.

I'd like to extend my apologies to Moran's family and to his friends. But most of all, to my readers. It was shoddy journalism.

However, I should have made it more clear that I did not consider Paul a "villain" in this. I felt that the most stinging criticism was rightfully aimed at Rendon and the Pentagon. I still consider it questionable for a journalistic enterprise such as ABC to hire someone with ties to a PR firm so closely tied to the Washington power structure, but that should not be read as a criticism of Moran. As Campbell pointed out, he took jobs to pay bills -- something every freelancer has to do. Including myself. (Never for a PR firm, but for magazines that don't contribute to my foreign policy aspirations.)

My sincerest apologies to Moran's friends and family.

Three Turkomen were shot dead in ethnic violence in Kirkuk on Saturday, ending months of relative calm in the Kurdish region of Iraq. It's unclear exactly what's happening, but that seems to have been the cap on two days of violence in Kirkuk and Tuz Kharmato to the south, with at least 10 people being killed, some of them at the hands of American troops. The Associated Press reports that in addition to police shootings, artillery or mortar fire "rocked" the city on Saturday. While a single weekend does not an internecine conflict make, the fallout has reached Ankara, where a "mob" of about 100 Turks attacked the office of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan there. KurdishMedia.com reports that about 23 Turkish police officers and a number of protesters were injured in the melee. "Kirkuk is Turkish and it will remain Turkish," shouted the protesters. "Damn Talabani, damn the peshmerga." (Jalal Talabani is the Secretary-General of the PUK.) In Kirkuk, the Turkmen representative to the interim Iraqi Governing Council called for the Kirkuk police to be disarmed. All this is happening as the Middle East Newsline reports that Turkey will contribute 10,000 troops to patrol the Sunni Triangle extending west and north of Baghdad. They will remain under Turkish command and separate from the two international divisions rumored to be en route to Iraq. This is most alarming. I wrote, during the war, that I felt the Turkomen were crying wolf about the threat to their security in a bid to play Turkey and the United States off one another so as to reign in the Kurds when it came time to establish a government in Kirkuk.

[Salim Otrakchi, a Turkoman spokesman] said the Turkomen were especially worried about Kirkuk because the PUK had promised it would not go into the city with its forces and it did anyway. At this point, it’s probably a good idea just to tell you that I don’t believe what anyone is telling me at face value. The Kurds, deep in their hearts, really do want an independent Kurdistan and this talk of federalism is the practical side of Kurdish nationalism. If they thought they could get away with it, they would bolt Iraq and never look back, I think. The Turkomen don’t really feel that threatened, but they see the Kurds with their new buddies, the Americans, and worry they’ll be left out of any settlement and development plans in the north. So, they’re trying to play the Turks off the Americans to keep the Kurds in check. And the Turks … Well, actually, I believe them when they say they’re worried about their security. They’re a truly paranoid bunch.

While this may be an isolated incident, as I mentioned, I could also be wrong in my original thoughts on the subject. I watched with dismay as in the days following the capture of Baghdad and Kirkuk as the Kurds drove Arabs from land they felt had been taken from them under Saddam Hussein's Arabization program. Revenge was being taken and the U.S. wasn't doing enough to stop it. Well, now the U.S. has its hands full with the Sunni Triangle and the guerrilla fighters there. Most of Iraqi Kurdistan has had but a sprinkling of American troops with most of the security being provided by Kurdish forces. Perhaps long-simmering tensions are starting to boil over after a brutally hot summer. I hope not. But -- and I apologize for again referring back to myself -- as I wrote on Jan. 12, 2003:

Instead of a nice, clean occupation that results in the first Arab democracy -- and a network of Army bases from which to project power throughout the region -- I predict the United States will have years of guerilla insurgency from nationalistic Iraqis (some of the fiercest nationalism in the Arab world), the dirty job of suppressing Kurdish and Shi’ite independence movements and Sunni power grabs, the problem of al Qai’da slipping across the borders (with the help of Iran and sympathetic Saudis) into the country to stike at American troops and meddling in Iraq’s internal affairs by Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Russia. And don’t forget the resentment in the region that will occur when the United States begins exploiting the Iraqi oil fields for its own purposes. No one will like that, least of all the Iraqis.

So far, it appears only the last prediction hasn't come to pass. Let's hope this latest incident isn't the start of something far worse.

Thank goodness for a little good news from Iraq. Mudira Abu Bakr has been appointed town prefect of the Dukan region near Suleimaniya, making her the first woman "governor" since the founding of modern Iraq in 1921. "I will work according to my action plan to provide the best public services for the people of the Dukan region and I will do my best to ensure the rule of law," Abu Bakr told journalists at a ceremony to mark the occasion. Good for the Kurds. Abu Bakr joins Nasreen Mustafa Sideek Barwari, the minister for reconstruction and development in the Kurdistan Regional Government, in rebuilding Iraqi Kurdistan. The appointment of Abu Bakr and Sideek Barwari's continued duties is in marked contrast to developments to the south, where conservative religious leaders are encouraging, or even forcing, women to cover up and pull back from the relatively equal status they held under Saddam Hussein's reign. ("Relative" is the operative word here. They were more or less oppressed equally.) Interestingly, women attained much of their equal status in the 1980s during the Iran-Iraq war, when the men were sent to the front lines to die and women entered the workforce to replace them -- a similar dynamic to what happened in the United States during World War II. After the 1991 Gulf War and the imposition of sanctions, however, jobs disappeared and Saddam began encouraging a religious revival to hold on to power. Women were usually the ones who paid the price, and the _hijab_ became more common as Sunni clerics railed against Western immorality. But in the north, the Kurds were one their own. When I was there last July and, more recently, during the war, I often saw women working in stores or in businesses and not wearing head scarves. One of the women, an Arab from Baghdad who had moved up to Arbil, worked at the Arbil Towers, the hotel I stayed at, and came out to a Fox News party I attended. The Kurdish _peshemergas_ at the table seemed not to mind (or notice) as she flirted with one of the network's cameramen. And Arbil, in the Kurdistan Democratic Party's territory, is much more conservative than Suleimaniya and the nearby Dukan region, which is controlled by the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. Women _peshmergas_ are unthinkable to the KDP, but on the day of the liberation of Kirkuk, I ran into an all-woman squad of PUK _peshmergas_, fully armed with Kalashnikovs and wearing the yellow green headband of their party. I was surprised when I saw them lounging in the back of a truck, and it must have showed. They looked at me, then smiled and laughed at my expression. So Abu Bakr's appointment is good news, indeed. Now let's hope the rest of the country can see the good that women such as Sideek Barwari and Abu Bakr have done and can do, and learn from their example. [NOTE: I had a color-blind moment when I wrote this and said the PUK's color was yellow. It's green.]

BAGHDAD -- This is the farewell note, both to Iraq and to you, the readers. Tomorrow I will drive to the Jordanian border through Baghdad and thence to Amman.

The war here is winding down, and the long, laborious process of rebuilding has started. Much of the activity in Baghdad involves the U.S. command looking for qualified people to help get the city back on its feet. Water and power still have to be restored. A state economy now lacks the state, so people have no jobs; no one is there to pay them. Kurds, Arabs and Turkomen in Kirkuk are a hair's breadth away from Yugoslavia-style ethnic clashes. Mosul is still savage, with little order. One reporter who returned from there yesterday described it to me as "like Mogadishu" with the city divvied up into territories for armed gangs and almost no civil authority. There are fewer than 300 American troops for a city of two million peoplel. This has gone almost completely unreported from what the journos in Arbil are hearing from editors back home. No one seems to care about Mosul, they say.

"They [the Americans] have given up on Mosul," said one reporter, who asked to remain anonymous. "It's terrifying." He could have been talking about his editors, too.

At the same time, other cities are calming down -- at least during the day. Kirkuk sports traffic lights that work, cops in the street and a bustling street merchant community. At night, however, there is still shooting and thuggery.

All of this will settle down eventually -- or explode into civil war -- but the question is how long will it take? I think the violence will continue at a low throttle for months, but even that would be a welcome contrast to 35 years of Ba'ath Party systematic terror and three wars since 1980.

Whether Iraqis gets the government they deserve, however, is a different story. Their neighbors don't wish to see a new American client state in their midst and can be expected to meddle most mischievously. Also, the fractured nature of Iraqi society, thanks the Ba'ath Party's repression and playing one group off another will take a long time to heal. Free-wheeling democracy is not in the cards for quite a while, if ever, thanks to the majority Shia population and the ethnic divisions in the north. If elections were to be held in the next few months (not likely) they would probably bring to power a government friendly to Iran and hostile to the United States and everyone else in the region. The Kurds would walk out and demand de facto -- or even de jure -- independence. The United States can not allow this.

Still, many Iraqis are optimistic about the future. "We are happy," said Hoshang Sadraddin, 22, a Kurd in Arbil. "We want a democratic government, a future. And for all the people in Iraq to live in peace."

"I look for a better life in the future," said Jasim Khidhir, 18. "I look forward to success in life, getting an education, that is my dream."

And in Baghdad, an Arab who wouldn't give his name smiled at me and said in halting English that he was happy that democracy had come to Iraq. The sentiment was genuine, if a little premature.

We'll see. The Kurds I've talked want the United States to stay "forever" as Assan Ahmen Awla, 30, a taxi driver, told me. America is seen as the Kurds' insurance against control by Baghdad and Arab violence. The marchers in Baghdad demanding a quick end to American occupation, he said, were incited by Ahmed Chalabi and the INC to stir up trouble against the Americans, so they will leave and the INC can seize complete control. Chalabi, obviously, isn't popular up here. Neither are Arabs in general.

"I think forever I will chose American troops to keep us away from the Arabs," said Taha Muhammed Hassan, 30, a fruit vendor. "We know what the Arabs will do if they have control."

Sentiments like these, as well as threats against Kurds in Tikrit, Baghdad and the southern part of the country are ominous signs, both for a coherent country and a democratic future. Delshad wrote me to tell me his thoughts:

"The heavy heritage of more than three decades of dictatorship and oppression will need many, many years to be overcome and Iraqis to get a better understanding of what is liberation and its limits. And if the Americans keep in their current role [of] being only observers standing aside then things can't get better!!"

Others suggest democracy isn't that big a deal to them, that jobs are a priority rather than self-government. "We choose jobs, not democracy," said Hemin Sultan, 28, a translator.

Given that much of the country is working at subsistence levels, even in the relatively prosperous cities of Iraqi Kurdistan, his opinions are understandable. But I worry that unless the Iraqis demand democracy for themselves the United States won't give it to them... I believe the White House would prefer a docile Iraq to one that can say no to American interests. But of course, I'm constitutionally inclined to oppose the idea of an American empire based on commercial ties, so I do hope the Iraqis realize that real democracy -- unruly, nettlesome and untidy -- is in their long-term best interests.

But while the Iraqis have just started a long journey into the future, the Back-to-Iraq.com journey is coming to an end. B2I has succeeded beyond what I expected or envisioned when I began writing it in September 2002. Through the months, the site has managed to provoke, entertain and -- hopefully -- enlighten people. It's garnered some attention and people have said it's a new form of journalism and that it's history making.

I don't know if it's all that, but I'm certainly flattered by the compliments and the accolades. This was journalism without a net (although it was on the Net.) I've stumbled a few times, almost losing my balance, but looking back over the site, I hope it was good enough.

Now I'm going home. The stories that I'd like to do require money and time that I simply no longer have. The looming ethnic conflict in northern Iraq, the role of the Turks, the treatment of women, the fate of the political prisoners and the new government's faltering first steps are all stories that I would love to pursue, with the style and techniques I've developed on the site. I'd also wanted to find Salam Pax.

As for the future of B2I, I'm working on that. The site and listserv will remain up for as long as the server has power, but I'm still undecided on what to do next to push forward the concept of independent, reader-funded journalism. I will use the site and the premium email list to announce anything new, so stop in every now and then to say hello.

I do plan on returning to Iraq in a few months to check in on how things are going. Those dispatches will also be published here and on the listserv. Donors who have donated will continue get premium content and photos whenever the site is active.

A note about donations: I am no longer actively soliciting them. The mission is over -- for now. Save your cash or donate it to other indy journalists. It's important to develop this genre of journalism, and reader contributions are key. We all proved that this kind of endeavor is possible. I may be the first, but I sincerely hope I'm not the last. I believe other independent journalists will soon strike out and cover major events alongside the major media. I hope they break more stories than I did, and challenge their mainstream colleagues to keep up.

A few of those mainstreamers here -- most enthusiastically from Fox News, oddly enough -- think the ideals that B2I brings to the table are grand and think something like this site could be the future of the craft. They bemoan the top-down editorial control and like the idea of readers' input in deciding what to cover.

That can wait for a bit, however. For now, I must bid you farewell. I'm disappointed and sad to do so, as I feel like I'm leaving early. The reality of a limited budget is an inconvenient fact of life, however. I hope you all don't hold it against me.

It's been a truly fantastic journey and I am sincerely grateful to everyone who donated, read, sent in feedback, argued on the comment boards or wished me well. While truth may be the first casualty in war, I hope I was able to save a small shard of it. But it's hard to say. Many times since I've been here, listening to the claims of Turks, Kurds, Arabs, Turkomen or Assyrians, I've thought that there is no such thing as Truth, only myths that people tell their children to get them through to the next generation. History doesn't exist here, at least not in the American sense; the past is never really past and history isn't something that happened long ago; it's very much alive and kicking. In this ancient place, a land of empires, gods, gardens, wars, blood and beauty, at the heart of it, you will find only stories. I hope I've been able to bring a few of them home to you.

Sincerely,
Christopher