Iraqi Kurds recall broken promises 20 years after US invasion

Twenty years after the US-led coalition invaded Iraq in 2003, most Kurds who The New Arab spoke to were dismayed by the development in the country and the rampant corruption that crippled the institution of their state, and the failure to deliver on the promises of their liberators.

Former US President George W. Bush, on 20 March 2003, announced the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom, launching the invasion of Iraq after rallying a multinational military coalition.

The unilateral decision was taken without the permission from the United Nations Security Council, over weapons of mass destruction that were never found. The prolonged occupation killed hundreds of thousands of people and displaced many more.

For the Iraqi Kurds, the toppling of Iraq's former Baath regime and dictator Saddam Hussein was a historic moment to rid the country of a dictatorship that massacred thousands of Kurdish citizens and used chemical weapons against its own people in Halabja in 1988. In fact, many Kurds not only supported but also fought alongside US troops in 2003. 

"Twenty years after the controversial invasion, however, many Kurds see little difference between their past oppressor and their current Iraqi and Kurdish rulers"

Twenty years after the controversial invasion, however, many Kurds see little difference between their past oppressor and their current Iraqi and Kurdish rulers.

Since the invasion, Iraq has suffered politically, economically, and socially. The country has witnessed civil unrest driven by ethno-sectarian divisions that had profound impacts on regional and international security.

Kurdish support for ousting Saddam

Jabbar Yawar, a former commander in the Peshmerga forces related to the ruling Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), as well as the former Secretary General of the Ministry of Peshmerga in the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), said the toppling of Saddam’s regime was a key factor for stabilising the Kurdistan region.

He explained that the regime  had posed a threat to Iraqi Kurds since the regime’s army was expelled in a popular uprising in 1991.  

“Kurdish peshmerga forces as well as armed civilians in Kirkuk, Mosul, and Diyala all effectively cooperated with the US forces in liberating the northern areas and eastern areas of Iraq, because the main military operations by the US-led coalition forces against the Iraqi army were from the southern and western fronts,” Yawar told The New Arab. 

He also noted that after the US-led ‘Operation Iraqi Freedom’, Iraq wrote its first permanent constitution in 2005 which adopted federalism for Iraq, and the rights of all Iraqis, including the Kurds, were guaranteed. 

“The Iraqi constitution recognised Kurdistan as a federal region within the country, the de facto political status and institutions of the region including all laws passed by the Kurdistan parliament prior to 2003. Consequently, the international community also recognised Kurdistan as a constitutional region within Iraq,” Yawar said.

“Since 2003, the Kurds have effectively participated in the power-sharing scheme in the country, assuming senior positions including the Iraqi presidency, as well as senior positions in the parliament and the cabinet,” he added.

He indicated that the Kurds also played a crucial role in joining forces with the Iraqi security forces and the US-led international coalition in defeating the Islamic State (IS).

IS in 2014 launched their self-proclaimed "caliphate" across swathes of both Syria and Iraq in a campaign marked by its brutality including mass killings, torture, rape and slavery.

US-backed counter-offensives ended IS’s territorial hold in Iraq in 2017 and in Syria in 2019, but IS cells continue to target security forces and civilians in both countries.

'We did not want this freedom'

But not all Kurds share this positive view of the invasion of Iraq that is most prominent among ruling elites. Many Iraqi Kurds from lower and the middle socioeconomic classes who The New Arab spoke to said they wished the situation remained as it was, before the 1991 Kurdish uprising. 

“Invading Iraq was pre-planned by the US, they were long planning to enter the Middle East, but how? The US has accumulated all crimes on the Iraqi former regime, eventually made Saddam occupy Kuwait, then the Americans invaded Iraq,” Chalak Sofi, a Kurdish writer and poet told The New Arab.

“The invasion of Iraq empowered the Kurds in the 1991 uprising and Kurds found their position in the country, but unfortunately I wish the situation did not deteriorate, we did not want this freedom, if only the lives of people were better,” he added. 

He was upset about the current deteriorating economic situation in Iraq in general and the Kurdistan region in particular. He said the living conditions of most people in the Kurdistan region are difficult, as they suffer from unemployment and the lack of basic public services like electricity, water, and fuel.

Iraq is OPEC’s second largest oil exporter and relies on these oil revenues for 95 percent of its public budget, which is used for feeding its people and keeping the country running. But rampant corruption by the ruling parties combined with a lack of accountability and transparency has pushed ordinary people to the brink.

“Oil has been a curse for the Iraqis. The neighbouring countries - the US, Europe, Russia and all the world - have ambitions in Iraqi oil. Countries that have oil will never rest. Look at Iran, its currency suffers from record lows, Syria is the same. The world’s superpowers will not let oil exporting countries rest and want to make them kneel and live under their mandates,” Sofi explained.

Many Kurds share the vision that after the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Kurds had a unique chance to declare their own independence.

Sofi believes that if Iraqi Kurds had declared their own state in 2003, their independence could survive. However the Kurdish leaders decided to re-joined Iraq, “For the sake of money and their own interests. In brief the Iraq invasion was a chance but we [the Kurds] could not grasp it.” 

'Iraq's mock-democracy' 

Other Iraqi Kurds that The New Arab spoke to said their government made many fatal mistakes after 2003, especially in the oil-rich city of Kirkuk as well as other areas considered as disputed between Baghdad and Erbil. 

“Kurds failed to present a good example of governance, coexistence and tolerance in Kirkuk and the other disputed areas to lure Turkmen and other minorities to ask their areas to be linked to the Kurdistan region. Kurds also administered the oil sector very badly,” said Nahro Raza, an employee in the KRG.

“Twenty years after the invasion, I think Iraq still is not a sovereign country. Rather it is under the influence of the US, Iran, Turkey and some Arab countries, even those countries impose the president and the prime minister on the Iraqis,” Raza added.

“Although Iraq’s invasion and ousting Saddam’s dictatorship initially were in the interests of the Kurds, they ultimately - either by ignorance or Western temptations - became a key factor for building what is now called the new Iraqi state, because after the invasion Iraq lost all columns of being a modern state,” Dler Mohammed, a Kurdish writer, told The New Arab.

“The new Iraqi state gradually or currently is challenging the Kurds as the chauvinism mentality of Iraq’s rulers did not change.”

He believes that the Western powers that claimed to want to liberate Iraq never want the country to be a true democracy.

“The West, mainly the US occupation, wants their own proxies to rule Iraq and the Kurdistan region under a mock-democracy scheme in order to preserve their own interests in stealing Iraq’s oil and gas,” he said. 

This echoes the sentiment of many Iraqi Kurds that the US invasion failed to secure true independence for their community or stability for their country.

Dana Taib Menmy is The New Arab's Iraq Correspondent, writing on issues of politics, society, human rights, security, and minorities.

Follow him on Twitter: @danataibmenmy