Hardaker: As the United States makes its move on Saddam Hussein the Kurds of Northern Iraq await their day of destiny.
Salih: It is immensely important, we cannot afford
to miss the opportunity, we cannot afford to underestimate the importance of this moment.
Hardaker: Since the 1991 Gulf War, the Kurds have lived under the protection of a no fly zone, enforced by the United States. Now, from the Prime Minister down, they want the final action against Saddam Hussein to begin.Salih: This is the guy who in the space of six months rounded up 182,000 people, never to be heard from again. He is a tyrant, he is a dictator, he is an evil man.
Ahmed: If Saddam Hussein goes to court ,he will be hanged by my hand here because of what he has done.
Hardaker: In Sulamanya today theres reason to celebrate. Rahim Hassan and Bayan Khanaka are taking a lifelong vow. With war around the corner, that might seem like supreme optimism, but thats what the Kurds do best. The Kurds have no nation to call their own . The 25 million strong family is scattered around the Middle East and has few friends. For four million Kurds, Northern Iraq is the best it gets a semi-autonomous state within Iraqs borders but beyond the control of Saddam Hussein. Their political leaders count on a war to make the future even better.
Salih: Our time has come, 10 years of self government has given us the legitimacy, the credibility to argue for democracy in Iraq. We are to be contended with, we cannot be ignored, we cannot be marginalised.
Hardaker: Recent years have been kind to the Kurds. Theres been peace and relative prosperity but amidst the daily clamour theres a new sign of the times. The threat of chemical weapons is in the air and business is picking up in gas mask alley. (Question0 Is this a new gas mask?
Market vendor: Its old.
Hardaker: How old is it?
Market vendor: Its from the Iraqi Army from the 1991 Gulf War.
Hardaker: They might be old, even quaint, but for around $20 maybe theyre better than nothing. The Rashid family has taken matters into their own hands.
Roonak: We bought the mask already made -- but I made the bag which contains charcoal, sodium and salt.
Hardaker: And are you confident this is safe?
Roonak: Its the only thing we can get hold of.
Hardaker: Theyre not alone many of their friends, they say, have also prepared for the worst. And downstairs, in the cellar, wrapped in plastic - enough food to last a week
Roonak: Were prepared this room just in case of bombardment. This water is for washing ourselves during a chemical attack. The drinking water is in the other room.
Hardaker: A chemical weapon attack from the Iraqi regime isnt theoretical. Its happened here before and its etched on the mind of every Kurd. An hour and a half from Sulamanya, the town of Halabja. 15 years ago a combination of nerve and mustard gas killed five thousand people here.
Hameda: This is the cellar where we were sitting -- fifty of us.
Hardaker: Hameda Hassan Mohammed was 18 when Iraqi planes dropped the quiet bombs -- the gas slipping silently into their cellar.
Hameda: We were blind and vomiting -- and we felt like they were burning.
Hardaker: Half the people huddled together here died that day. These are pictures of the first of the chemical bombs to drop.
Hameda: In this area there were about 1,000 people lying on the ground. Some seemed to be asleep, snoring, and the others had blood coming out of their noses.
Dr Faoud: This is going to live with us, and to live with our people for generations to come, its never forgettable.
Hardaker: Every day Dr Faoud Baban sees a range of chemical illnesses -- from cancer to lung disease to psychiatric problems. And if Saddam Hussein uses chemical weapons against the Kurds again, this is where the dying and injured will come. Hospitals here are preparing for up to 200,000 casualties.
Dr Faoud : The worst would be although we hope it doesnt -- if Iraq was able to spray by air or helicopters or other aeroplanes try to attack the Kurdish towns, then this would be real catastrophe and repeat Halabja all over again.
Hardaker: Halabja taught the Kurds a bitter lesson about superpower politics. In those days 1988 - Saddam Hussein was the United States ally and Kurd pleas went unheeded in Washington. The fear is the United States is once again indifferent to their fate.
Salih: There is a serious chance that the Iraqi regime would use chemical weapons against a defenceless population in Kurdistan. This is a serious risk. We are talking to the Americans, Iranians, the UN about the means by which we can protect our people from this. But if you ask me I can tell you that the response not just from the United States but from others as a matter of fact, has been abysmal.
Hardaker: Its a curious position where the United States cites chemical weapons as a reason to attack Iraq, yet at the same time, it wont give Kurds living here the means to protect themselves?Salih: I would say that is a very good question and I hope you have the opportunity to pose it to government officials in the United States. With Iraqi artillery trained on them from barely a kilometre away the Kurds have few options. The Baghdad regime still persecutes the Kurds within its borders. Every day, Kurdish refugees arrive from Saddams Iraq expelled because they refuse to renounce their identity. Their journey ends at a refugee camp, still coping with new arrivals. This is home to 70 families nearly 500 men, women and children.
Hardaker: Omer Osman Fofik has lived here with his nine children since late last year.
Omer: We are jobless. We feel cold because were living in these tents. We have no house, and our children cant go to school -- especially the older ones have had to leave school.
Hardaker: And from inside Iraq, stories of indoctrination starting from the classroom. (Question) Tell me what the children have to say?
Omer: In the morning when the teacher comes into the class, what do you say?
Boy: Viva Saddam
Hardaker: You have to say Viva Saddam?
Omer: When you sit down?
Boy: Viva, glorious leader.
Omer: You are forced to?
Hardaker: Viva the leader of the party?
Omer: Yes.
Hardaker: All the time?
Omer: All the time.
Hardaker: To the youngest child, the Kurds know they wouldnt be subject to Saddams persecution if the United States had been true to its word after the 1991 Gulf War. Then President Bush encouraged the Kurds to rise up against Saddam Hussein they did, but the United States failed to back them. This video - smuggled out of Baghdad - shows the horrific consequences of that betrayal, throughout Iraq. Tens of thousands of Kurdish men were rounded up, tortured and executed.
Salih: Kurds are victims of history, we have been given a lousy hand by history, by politics and the politics of major powers including the United States.
Hardaker: Whats the effect here on people of the U.S. refusal to help?
Salih: There is this lingering doubt whether this time it will be for real or not, but I hope for the sake of all of us, the international community, we will not let the aspirations of people down again. This must not be repeated again.
Hardaker: But how much has changed? These are the Kurdish fighting forces the Peshmerga putting on a show for the worlds media. Theyre lightly armed, and used to mountain fighting. The plan is for the Peshmerga to support the United States on a sweep down through the north of the country. But it could all go terribly wrong. Powerful forces are gathering for the carve up of Iraqs oil wealth. The Americans want it, so do the Kurds, but so, too, do the Kurds neighbours to the north. They can hear the rumblings as Turkish troops mobilise, preparing to enter Kurdish land. The Kurdish party in control of the zone nearest the Turkish border suspects the worst.
Zebari: Specifically we are very, very concerned and deeply worried about Turkish military plans to send thousands of troops into another country to subjugate another people only because they are Kurds. And this is the price some Kurdish military leaders and political leaders want in exchange for their cooperation with the United States
Hardaker: The Turks have built camps inside Northern Iraq they say, to hold Kurds who might flee the war. But the Kurds dont believe it and took to the streets to say so. Turkey has suppressed the Kurds in its own country and does not want a strong Kurdish state on its borders.
Zebari : Clashes could be unavoidable, uncontrolled because people will not give up what they have achieved really so easily.
Hardaker: So there is the very real possibility of a U.S. war on Iraq sparking a separate Kurdish Turkish war?Zebari: I think this possibility is there. We should not discount it. We will do our best to address that issue in the next couple of weeks because this is the critical issue. For the United States it is very important to have a northern front to shorten the war, to limit the casualties to put more pressure on the regime and that front can only be conducted with our help and support. Dr Salih, America has already shown its hand to a degree hasnt it, by doing a deal with Turkey which would allow the Turks to come into your territory?
Salih: We have been absolutely clear with our American friends and our Turkish neighbours. If Turkey comes in it will probably lead to other neighbours getting involved. Iraq is a state created by the Brits in the 1920s. many of these neighbours of Iraq have claims, territorial claims, ethnic claims, religious claims, you name it. One neighbour getting in, the others getting in, will open up a Pandoras Box of historical sensitivities that will run counter to the stated mission of democracy and freedom for Iraqis.
Hardaker: The Kurds and a host of Iraqi exiles have been positioning themselves to govern a post Saddam Iraq. But the United States has told them to forget it - America will install its own general.
Salih: Well there are many concerns out there, but there is one reality that we have to admit in the Iraqi opposition, which is it is not the Iraqi opposition which is dislodging the dictatorship it is the U.S. led coalition, which is instrumental in getting rid of the dictatorship that is a fact of life that we need to understand and recognise.
Hardaker: But when it comes to an American government of occupation, others in the Iraqi opposition arent so agreeable. This is the Badr Brigade, a force of 10,000 Iraqis who live next door, in Iran, and are trained by Irans revolutionary guard. Theyve already made their move into northern Iraq and are ready for war. These fighters are loyal to an exiled Iraqi cleric, Ayatollah al-Hakim.
Al-Hakim : It is likely there will be conflicts between the Iraqis and the foreign forces whose aim it is to dominate and control Iraqi affairs and Iraqi land.
Hardaker: Ayatollah al Hakim is a leading figure in the Iraqi opposition, a spiritual leader to Iraqs Shiite Muslims, who make up 60% of the population. He fled Iraq after 18 members of his family were executed by the regime. For the last 20 years hes been living in exile in Iran planning for the day of Saddam Husseins demise.
Al-Hakim: I asked the Americans whether theyd be happy to have a country like Britain occupying their land? And even though they have the same language, the same religion, the same culture, the same race, etcetera, the Americans wouldnt be happy having the British govern them, even on a temporary basis!
Salih: There will be problems with transition, the stakes will be high, but we have nowhere to go, but to make sure that we succeed in building a federal democracy in Iraq. Otherwise this country, this miserable little state, will remain miserable and stuck in a quagmire and it will continue to be a source of instability, chaos, in the Middle East and the rest of the world.
Zebari: The worst outcome for us is that there is a sellout for us as a result of all this regional bargaining, that the Kurds could be dispensed of, that they are not significant.
Hardaker: The Kurds can only hope for the best. But their dream of a Kurdish state is a dream nobody else wants to realise. This land has already seen bloodshed and betrayal on a grand scale. In the next days and weeks - with four separate powers ready for battle its likely to see much more.
Salih: It is immensely important, we cannot afford
to miss the opportunity, we cannot afford to underestimate the importance of this moment.
Hardaker: Since the 1991 Gulf War, the Kurds have lived under the protection of a no fly zone, enforced by the United States. Now, from the Prime Minister down, they want the final action against Saddam Hussein to begin.Salih: This is the guy who in the space of six months rounded up 182,000 people, never to be heard from again. He is a tyrant, he is a dictator, he is an evil man.
Ahmed: If Saddam Hussein goes to court ,he will be hanged by my hand here because of what he has done.
Hardaker: In Sulamanya today theres reason to celebrate. Rahim Hassan and Bayan Khanaka are taking a lifelong vow. With war around the corner, that might seem like supreme optimism, but thats what the Kurds do best. The Kurds have no nation to call their own . The 25 million strong family is scattered around the Middle East and has few friends. For four million Kurds, Northern Iraq is the best it gets a semi-autonomous state within Iraqs borders but beyond the control of Saddam Hussein. Their political leaders count on a war to make the future even better.
Salih: Our time has come, 10 years of self government has given us the legitimacy, the credibility to argue for democracy in Iraq. We are to be contended with, we cannot be ignored, we cannot be marginalised.
Hardaker: Recent years have been kind to the Kurds. Theres been peace and relative prosperity but amidst the daily clamour theres a new sign of the times. The threat of chemical weapons is in the air and business is picking up in gas mask alley. (Question0 Is this a new gas mask?
Market vendor: Its old.
Hardaker: How old is it?
Market vendor: Its from the Iraqi Army from the 1991 Gulf War.
Hardaker: They might be old, even quaint, but for around $20 maybe theyre better than nothing. The Rashid family has taken matters into their own hands.
Roonak: We bought the mask already made -- but I made the bag which contains charcoal, sodium and salt.
Hardaker: And are you confident this is safe?
Roonak: Its the only thing we can get hold of.
Hardaker: Theyre not alone many of their friends, they say, have also prepared for the worst. And downstairs, in the cellar, wrapped in plastic - enough food to last a week
Roonak: Were prepared this room just in case of bombardment. This water is for washing ourselves during a chemical attack. The drinking water is in the other room.
Hardaker: A chemical weapon attack from the Iraqi regime isnt theoretical. Its happened here before and its etched on the mind of every Kurd. An hour and a half from Sulamanya, the town of Halabja. 15 years ago a combination of nerve and mustard gas killed five thousand people here.
Hameda: This is the cellar where we were sitting -- fifty of us.
Hardaker: Hameda Hassan Mohammed was 18 when Iraqi planes dropped the quiet bombs -- the gas slipping silently into their cellar.
Hameda: We were blind and vomiting -- and we felt like they were burning.
Hardaker: Half the people huddled together here died that day. These are pictures of the first of the chemical bombs to drop.
Hameda: In this area there were about 1,000 people lying on the ground. Some seemed to be asleep, snoring, and the others had blood coming out of their noses.
Dr Faoud: This is going to live with us, and to live with our people for generations to come, its never forgettable.
Hardaker: Every day Dr Faoud Baban sees a range of chemical illnesses -- from cancer to lung disease to psychiatric problems. And if Saddam Hussein uses chemical weapons against the Kurds again, this is where the dying and injured will come. Hospitals here are preparing for up to 200,000 casualties.
Dr Faoud : The worst would be although we hope it doesnt -- if Iraq was able to spray by air or helicopters or other aeroplanes try to attack the Kurdish towns, then this would be real catastrophe and repeat Halabja all over again.
Hardaker: Halabja taught the Kurds a bitter lesson about superpower politics. In those days 1988 - Saddam Hussein was the United States ally and Kurd pleas went unheeded in Washington. The fear is the United States is once again indifferent to their fate.
Salih: There is a serious chance that the Iraqi regime would use chemical weapons against a defenceless population in Kurdistan. This is a serious risk. We are talking to the Americans, Iranians, the UN about the means by which we can protect our people from this. But if you ask me I can tell you that the response not just from the United States but from others as a matter of fact, has been abysmal.
Hardaker: Its a curious position where the United States cites chemical weapons as a reason to attack Iraq, yet at the same time, it wont give Kurds living here the means to protect themselves?Salih: I would say that is a very good question and I hope you have the opportunity to pose it to government officials in the United States. With Iraqi artillery trained on them from barely a kilometre away the Kurds have few options. The Baghdad regime still persecutes the Kurds within its borders. Every day, Kurdish refugees arrive from Saddams Iraq expelled because they refuse to renounce their identity. Their journey ends at a refugee camp, still coping with new arrivals. This is home to 70 families nearly 500 men, women and children.
Hardaker: Omer Osman Fofik has lived here with his nine children since late last year.
Omer: We are jobless. We feel cold because were living in these tents. We have no house, and our children cant go to school -- especially the older ones have had to leave school.
Hardaker: And from inside Iraq, stories of indoctrination starting from the classroom. (Question) Tell me what the children have to say?
Omer: In the morning when the teacher comes into the class, what do you say?
Boy: Viva Saddam
Hardaker: You have to say Viva Saddam?
Omer: When you sit down?
Boy: Viva, glorious leader.
Omer: You are forced to?
Hardaker: Viva the leader of the party?
Omer: Yes.
Hardaker: All the time?
Omer: All the time.
Hardaker: To the youngest child, the Kurds know they wouldnt be subject to Saddams persecution if the United States had been true to its word after the 1991 Gulf War. Then President Bush encouraged the Kurds to rise up against Saddam Hussein they did, but the United States failed to back them. This video - smuggled out of Baghdad - shows the horrific consequences of that betrayal, throughout Iraq. Tens of thousands of Kurdish men were rounded up, tortured and executed.
Salih: Kurds are victims of history, we have been given a lousy hand by history, by politics and the politics of major powers including the United States.
Hardaker: Whats the effect here on people of the U.S. refusal to help?
Salih: There is this lingering doubt whether this time it will be for real or not, but I hope for the sake of all of us, the international community, we will not let the aspirations of people down again. This must not be repeated again.
Hardaker: But how much has changed? These are the Kurdish fighting forces the Peshmerga putting on a show for the worlds media. Theyre lightly armed, and used to mountain fighting. The plan is for the Peshmerga to support the United States on a sweep down through the north of the country. But it could all go terribly wrong. Powerful forces are gathering for the carve up of Iraqs oil wealth. The Americans want it, so do the Kurds, but so, too, do the Kurds neighbours to the north. They can hear the rumblings as Turkish troops mobilise, preparing to enter Kurdish land. The Kurdish party in control of the zone nearest the Turkish border suspects the worst.
Zebari: Specifically we are very, very concerned and deeply worried about Turkish military plans to send thousands of troops into another country to subjugate another people only because they are Kurds. And this is the price some Kurdish military leaders and political leaders want in exchange for their cooperation with the United States
Hardaker: The Turks have built camps inside Northern Iraq they say, to hold Kurds who might flee the war. But the Kurds dont believe it and took to the streets to say so. Turkey has suppressed the Kurds in its own country and does not want a strong Kurdish state on its borders.
Zebari : Clashes could be unavoidable, uncontrolled because people will not give up what they have achieved really so easily.
Hardaker: So there is the very real possibility of a U.S. war on Iraq sparking a separate Kurdish Turkish war?Zebari: I think this possibility is there. We should not discount it. We will do our best to address that issue in the next couple of weeks because this is the critical issue. For the United States it is very important to have a northern front to shorten the war, to limit the casualties to put more pressure on the regime and that front can only be conducted with our help and support. Dr Salih, America has already shown its hand to a degree hasnt it, by doing a deal with Turkey which would allow the Turks to come into your territory?
Salih: We have been absolutely clear with our American friends and our Turkish neighbours. If Turkey comes in it will probably lead to other neighbours getting involved. Iraq is a state created by the Brits in the 1920s. many of these neighbours of Iraq have claims, territorial claims, ethnic claims, religious claims, you name it. One neighbour getting in, the others getting in, will open up a Pandoras Box of historical sensitivities that will run counter to the stated mission of democracy and freedom for Iraqis.
Hardaker: The Kurds and a host of Iraqi exiles have been positioning themselves to govern a post Saddam Iraq. But the United States has told them to forget it - America will install its own general.
Salih: Well there are many concerns out there, but there is one reality that we have to admit in the Iraqi opposition, which is it is not the Iraqi opposition which is dislodging the dictatorship it is the U.S. led coalition, which is instrumental in getting rid of the dictatorship that is a fact of life that we need to understand and recognise.
Hardaker: But when it comes to an American government of occupation, others in the Iraqi opposition arent so agreeable. This is the Badr Brigade, a force of 10,000 Iraqis who live next door, in Iran, and are trained by Irans revolutionary guard. Theyve already made their move into northern Iraq and are ready for war. These fighters are loyal to an exiled Iraqi cleric, Ayatollah al-Hakim.
Al-Hakim : It is likely there will be conflicts between the Iraqis and the foreign forces whose aim it is to dominate and control Iraqi affairs and Iraqi land.
Hardaker: Ayatollah al Hakim is a leading figure in the Iraqi opposition, a spiritual leader to Iraqs Shiite Muslims, who make up 60% of the population. He fled Iraq after 18 members of his family were executed by the regime. For the last 20 years hes been living in exile in Iran planning for the day of Saddam Husseins demise.
Al-Hakim: I asked the Americans whether theyd be happy to have a country like Britain occupying their land? And even though they have the same language, the same religion, the same culture, the same race, etcetera, the Americans wouldnt be happy having the British govern them, even on a temporary basis!
Salih: There will be problems with transition, the stakes will be high, but we have nowhere to go, but to make sure that we succeed in building a federal democracy in Iraq. Otherwise this country, this miserable little state, will remain miserable and stuck in a quagmire and it will continue to be a source of instability, chaos, in the Middle East and the rest of the world.
Zebari: The worst outcome for us is that there is a sellout for us as a result of all this regional bargaining, that the Kurds could be dispensed of, that they are not significant.
Hardaker: The Kurds can only hope for the best. But their dream of a Kurdish state is a dream nobody else wants to realise. This land has already seen bloodshed and betrayal on a grand scale. In the next days and weeks - with four separate powers ready for battle its likely to see much more.