Posted by
Reeson on Tuesday, January 16, 2007 9:44:42 AM
This is potentially a very dangerous move. Putting Kurds in battle with Arabs could backfire. Excerpts from the
Washington Post:
By Walter Pincus, Washington Post Staff Writer
The Kurdish makeup of two of the three Iraqi army brigades due to be sent to Baghdad under President Bush's new strategic plan is drawing concern from Iraqi and U.S. experts.
Questions have been raised about whether the Kurds would fight Sunni insurgents in Baghdad at a time when some Sunni clerics and organizations have spoken out against aiding U.S. troops and the Iraqi government. But there is also concern that the soldiers would be heavy-handed if sent into heavily Shiite areas.
A former senior CIA operations officer who is familiar with Iraq said yesterday that sending the units into Baghdad "will not make many friends for the Kurds, depending on where they go." But, said the officer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, "if you are going in to clear a majority-Sunni area, better to use Kurdish rather than Shia troops. . . . They are obviously better than Iraqi police and more professional."
But the deployment holds appeal for the Kurdistan Regional Government, because in return, the Baghdad government would be ready to provide it an additional share of the national budget, a Kurdish official told the New Anatolian, a Kurdish newspaper, last week.
At a hearing Friday of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Marine Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that the deployment of the Kurds in Baghdad could bring "balance in that they are not either for Sunnis or for Shia but for Iraq." But Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) countered, "I think they are for the Kurds."