Lawmakers see no immediate fix to Kirkuk; Petraeus weighs in on Afghan airstrikes

Kirkuk complexities grow

Neither of the two constitutional provisions for dealing with the oil-rich city of Kirkuk is sufficient to solve the problem, a Turkomen lawmaker says.

Iraq held provincial elections in 14 of its 18 provinces in January with national elections scheduled for January 2010. The three Kurdish provinces -- Erbil, Dahuk and Sulaimaniya -- hold parliamentary elections in July with provincial elections coinciding with Iraqi national elections.

Elections in Kirkuk are delayed indefinitely while Iraqi and international officials hammer out power-sharing arrangements between the ethnic communities in the region -- Kurdish, Arab and Turkomen -- and administrative disputes between the Kurdish and central governments.

Two constitutional provisions deal with the issue. Article 140 of the Iraqi Constitution considers whether enough Kurds have returned to the area to consider it Kurdish, while Article 23 calls for a power-sharing arrangement between Kurds, Turkomen and Arabs at the local level.

Abbas al-Bayati, a Turkomen lawmaker with the United Iraqi Alliance, a predominately Shiite slate, ruled out either provision, the Voices of Iraq news agency reports.

"Solving the Kirkuk issue needs three basic elements; enough time, mutual confidence among the Kirkuk components and the agreement among the components on an administrative formula for Kirkuk," he said.

The Iraqi Parliament sent lawmakers to the region on a fact-finding mission in an attempt to resolve the issue, though the delegation returned in failure. Meanwhile, the U.N. Assistance Mission in Iraq is considering a variety of resolutions, including one modeled on the Northern Ireland peace process, though none have been made public.

Baghdad lacks will on Kurdish issues

The central government in Baghdad lacks the political will to move on resolving the outstanding issues with the Kurdish government, the Kurdish premier said.

The Kurdistan Regional Government in Iraq and the central government in Baghdad are at odds over issues stemming from a national hydrocarbon law to administration over the Kurdish territories.

Several constitutional provisions outline resolution for those disputes, but developments remain stalled following years of lingering acrimony.

In an interview with London's pan-Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat, Nechirvan Barzani, the prime minister of the KRG, said he doubts Baghdad has the will to make any significant progress.

"We are not convinced that the central government is serious about resolving the outstanding problems between Baghdad and the Kurdistan Regional government," he said.

The Kurdish provinces -- Erbil, Dahuk and Sulaimaniya -- are scheduled for parliamentary elections on July 25, where Barhim Salih, the deputy prime minister of Iraq and chair of the Iraqi oil and gas committee, is expected to mount a challenge to Barzani.

The Kurdish premier said that despite the outcome, he would continue in his role as a public servant.

"I will work in any position from which I can provide services to the people of Iraq, whether they are Kurds or Arabs," he said.

Syrian Kurds feeling trapped

Kurds from Syria are finding refuge from discriminatory practices by the Damascus government in northern Iraq, but the conditions there are not much better.

Damascus divided ethnic Kurds into three categories in the early 1960s -- Syrian, foreign and concealed -- granting only Syrian Kurds the benefits of Syrian nationality. Foreign and concealed Kurds are forced to live without the rights enjoyed with full citizenship.

Without passports or other documents, the foreign and concealed Kurds are forbidden from leaving the country, forcing them into destitute conditions.

The situation was complicated when skirmishes erupted between Kurds living in Qamishli, a northeast Syrian border town, and Syrian forces in 2004, killing scores of ethnic Kurds. That conflict forced an exodus of Kurds from Syria to northern Iraq, which was isolated from most of the regional ethnic and political violence.

More than 1,000 Kurds from Syria now live in squalid conditions in the northern Iraqi city of Dahuk in temporary tent camps funded by the U.N. Refugee Agency. Without official residency documents, most cannot return home to Syria, yet local officials are offering little help, the Iraqi analytical Web site Niqash reports.

Kurds from Syria complain the Kurdistan Regional Government is using their issue as a sign of its influential role when the reality is much different on the ground.

"They use that gesture as proof to the wider world that they're helping their Kurdish 'brothers from the West,'" complained one student in Dahuk. "They have promised houses for us several times but we all feel we've been left abandoned to our fate."

Afghanistan is "very, very difficult"

The debate over the use of airstrikes in Afghanistan is trumped by the complexity of securing the public in an insurgent environment, U.S. Gen. David Petraeus said.

U.S. military officials are on the defensive over growing accounts of civilian casualties in Afghanistan. A May 4 airstrike in the Afghan province of Farah allegedly killed more than 100 civilians, though Washington disputes that number.

Varying accounts of the Farah incident describe Taliban insurgents overwhelming Afghan troops and their U.S. military advisers. U.S. military officials say air support was called in on insurgent targets, though eyewitness accounts say Taliban fighters had already fled the scene.

The Pentagon says video from a B-1 bomber shows U.S. missile strikes hitting Taliban fighters, but acknowledged some collateral damage. But critics say this sort of tactic only encourages an already growing insurgency.

In an interview with National Public Radio, Petraeus, the top official at U.S. Central Command, acknowledged the complications of the mission in Afghanistan.

"It has certainly cost us," he said, adding assessing the outcome of U.S. military tactics in Afghanistan was "very, very difficult."

With skeptics predicting a massive surge in violence to correspond with the insertion of tens of thousands of U.S. and international forces, Petraeus said it was important to keep the overall objective in mind.

"Let's come back to what our first and foremost mission in Afghanistan is, and that is to make sure that the country does not once again become a sanctuary for transnational extremists," he said.

Afghan violence expected to rise

With military casualties mounting in Afghanistan, British generals warn the expected troop surge will result in some of the bloodiest conflicts in the eight-year battle.

Violence has plagued the southern provinces of Afghanistan for months, particularly in Helmand, where dozens of international forces were killed in recent weeks.

Two British servicemen died in conflicts in the southern provinces Thursday. Meanwhile, nearly twice as many international forces were killed in combat in the first three months of 2009 compared with 2008.

U.S. President Barack Obama announced his latest strategy for Afghanistan earlier this year, which includes non-military funding and the deployment of some 21,000 additional troops.

Lt. Gen. Jim Dutton, deputy commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, said that injection of additional troops will result in a violent backlash from insurgents.

He told the Times of London that U.S. military forces will be met with a drastic rise in conflict upon their arrival with the "worst case" coming in conjunction with the Aug. 20 presidential elections.

Intelligence-sharing vital to Afghan success

With more than 40 nations contributing to the Afghan war effort, coordinating intelligence matters while protecting state secrets is key to success, analysts say.

U.S. officials in Iraq adapted to the changing nature of insurgent warfare by making significant strides in how intelligence can win wars.

U.S. Army Col. Barry Harris writes for the Washington Institute for Near East Policy that these intelligence innovations accounted for security improvements in Iraq more than the counterinsurgency strategy dubbed the "surge."

These same strategies have been adopted in Afghanistan, as much of the revamped Washington strategy for that battle draws on lessons learned from the Iraq war.

On human intelligence, or HUMINT, U.S. military forces have made great improvements in terms of language abilities and cultural awareness. But more work is needed, Harris argues, to share that information with U.S. allies in the battlefield.

On signal intelligence, or SIGINT, improvements to the Afghan infrastructure allows U.S. and international forces to exploit modern technology more effectively. But again, Harris points out, integrating intelligence into the combined military objective is vital to avoid stove-piping.

Complicating intelligence-sharing, however, is the need to protect national resources on the ground. While Iraq and Afghanistan draw on many of the same tactics and strategies, sharing intelligence across the broad spectrum of international military forces adds an additional layer of complexity to the new theater of war.

"Sharing sensitive data in a multinational environment is challenging, but these issues must be resolved in order to win the counterinsurgency campaign and provide a peaceful and secure environment in Afghanistan," Harris concludes.

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(dgraeber@upi.com)