A detour with Kurdish secret police

Scott Taylor | June 14

(Halifax Herald) - As we approached the checkpoint, my driver became visibly nervous. The soldiers who were searching the cars ahead and questioning the drivers were neither Iraqi police nor American troops - they were Kurdish peshmerga militiamen loyal to tribal warlord Massoud Barzani.

Recognizing my driver to be a Turkmen, the Kurdish soldiers were instantly gruff with him, demanding to know why he was driving a Canadian journalist.

My identification was taken, and I was ordered out of the car.  Minutes later, I was told to collect my bags and pay Mustafa. He was not allowed to enter this Kurdish-controlled area of Iraq, and I was informed that I would be driven 20 kilometres away to the city of Dohuk. There I was to be "processed" by the Kurdish Democratic party's secret service, the Asaish.

I had hired Mustafa, an ethnic Iraqi Turkmen, in the town of Talafer to take me to the Turkish border.

"Mister, tell them you came today from Mosul or there will be a problem," Mustafa said to me as we approached the peshmerga.

...

I protested that I had a flight to catch after crossing the Iraqi-Turkish border, and had little time to spare, but to no avail. "What is the problem?" I asked repeatedly only to have the peshmerga captain smile broadly each time and reply, "No problem, mister."

En route to Dohuk, my Asaish driver-escort questioned me in his broken English. "George Bush is No. 1, no? Massoud Barzani good man?"

My noncommittal responses prompted him to launch into his own diatribe about the regional problems in northern Iraq. "Saddam was bad, but the problem was not only him. Arabs are bad, and Turkmens are bad."

I was already well aware of the post-war inter-ethnic problems in Iraq, but normally, when speaking to the media, Kurdish officials dutifully recite the KDP's party line that they are eager to work within a united Iraqi federation. Sweeping his arms about to encompass the surrounding landscape, the Asaish operative told me, "This is Kurdistan," and therein revealed the ultimate objective of the Iraqi Kurds: an independent state.

Upon our arrival at the well-protected Asaish headquarters, I was impressed with the scale of the Kurdish secret service's operation. Funded for the past 13 years by the CIA, the Asaish was seen as a valuable American ally in gathering intelligence on Saddam's regime.

After 1991's post-Gulf War Kurdish uprising, the Kurds gained control of Iraq's three northern provinces and were autonomous from Baghdad. Now, the existence of the Asaish and the peshmerga is proving somewhat problematic as Iraq struggles to rebuild itself into a unified country. There are obviously no clear rules as to the jurisdictional limits of these private armies and intelligence services.

It was on this point that I continued to pressure my "hosts."

"Under what authority have you detained me?" I asked a senior Asaish officer when I was presented to him. "You are not being detained; you are simply our guest," he explained with a smile. "We want to record the details from your identification."

While I wanted to argue that their seizure of my travel documents at gunpoint could be construed as "detention," instead, I asked him what purpose was served by collecting such data from me.

"Will this be passed on to the coalition forces or the Iraqi police?"

"You don't understand," replied the officer. "This is our governate, and we are responsible for ensuring that no terrorists enter our territory to bring harm to our people."

After more than one hour had passed, and I realized that I was in serious risk of missing my flight, I threatened to inform the Canadian Embassy in Ankara, Turkey, that I was being held captive by the KDP.

The threat worked, and my passport was hastily returned to me, and a Kurdish taxi driver was found to replace the long-since departed Mustafa.

In the end, the delay proved relatively insignificant as I was able to (just) make my flight. But the experience clearly illustrated that there are still numerous obstacles on the road to rebuilding Iraq.

Although continued American tolerance of the Kurdish peshmerga in northern Iraq may give the false impression of a secure environment, the situation will eventually have to be rectified. Undoubtedly, there could be a violent backlash against the U.S. forces if they try to forcibly disarm these private armies.