the Internal problems of the Kurdish forces against IS

Notwithstanding the joy surrounding the most recent victory on IS in the Kurdish region, in which the city of Sinjar was recaptured, is the trust of the populace in competence of the peshmarga of an insufficient level to answer the expectations of the people. Because of the subsequent defeats in the past year, which had many conquered cities, murdered citizens and fleeing population as a consequence, even the most aggressive propaganda campaigns couldn’t raise the trust in the troops. The victory at Sinjar was only possible because of the combined assaults of allied air support, the guerrilla warriors of the PKK and YPG and the aid of Iraqi troops. But even this victory is overshadowed by the statements of ‘president’ Barzani, whose legal term of office ended months ago. His attempts to attribute the victory solely to his own actions angered everyone who participated in the attack.

This report is focused on the internal factors that led to the defeat of the forces of the Kurdistan Regional Government against IS and the ability of the latter to gain territories. The report looks retrospectively at the history of the political parties in Kurdistan region of Iraq and their structure and nature today. 

Introduction

An overview of the past of the current political parties in Kurdistan region

The political nature of today’s Kurdistan

- Family inherited system 

- The rights and freedom 

- The economic and living conditions of citizens

- The separation of powers

- Privileges legal and outlaw salary in exchange of loyalty

- Money laundering 

- Being a partner in the investment projects and offering public properties 

- Oil issue

The direct problems of the military forces

- The issues of the political party militias

- The quality and quantity of Peshmarga and their weapons

- The waste in the military forces and their budgets

- The Peshmarga forces and the central government

- Oil business with ISIS

Introduction;

There are many opinions about the causes of the sudden increase in the powers of the group that want to establish an Islamic caliphate. Many are resorting to the conspiracy theory. Those believe that the establishment of ISIS is the work of some of the gulf countries and Turkey to defeat Bashar Isaad’s Syria and the Shiite Iraqi government who are close to Iran. 

Those with military affiliation resort to military explanations for the successes of ISIS. They explain that by the military experience, the heavy weaponry they were able to cease from the Iraqi and Syrian army, their financial capabilities and their ability to engage in psychological warfare. 

The Islamic parties that are both against ISIS and America regard ISIS as the product of America and that ISIS is just a copy of Taliban in Afghanistan that are tools for America to come back to Iraq and the region in order to control the sources of energy and directly interfere in the businesses of those countries. 

What is missing here are the internal factors that are related to the central governments and regional ones in the area that are under attack by ISIS. These factors are continuously highlighted by local critiques. Those voices have popular support but they were not able to reach to international media outlets and centers of power. On the other hand the nature of the local and regional governments is as such that they do not want to listen to those voices. 

The direct and indirect factors behind the defeat of the military forces in Kurdistan region (Peshmarga) cannot be limited to military causes, but they are dynamically related to the prevalent system in the region that prepared the ground for such victories by ISIS. The defeats by the Peshmarga forces are the latest outcome of the miscalculations and false polices and bad governance of the authorities in Kurdistan region. 

In the beginning ISIS was able to occupy many towns and villages in the Kurdistan region without significant resistance or loss in lives and resources. The Peshmarga forces experienced a big embarrassment in these defeats. Because of their inability to resist, they put the lives of civilians at risk and as a result thousands were displaces, hundreds killed and hundreds of girls and women were kidnapped. This particularly was prominent in the town of Sinjar. The lack of trust in the Kurdish forces was to an extent that with the occupation of the town of Makhmoor that is about 60 km from Erbil (the capital of the Kurdistan region) many families started leaving the capital towards the east. The Peshmarga forces were so demoralized that ISIS was able to occupy in few days Gwer town that is only 30 Km far from Erbil. Thanks to the Kurdistan Workers Party, knows in short as PKK and the protection units of YPG in the Syrian side of Kurdistan, ISIS forces were stopped. (YPG is a military group from Syrian Kurdistan which is close to PKK fighting for the freedom and liberation of the Kurdish areas in Syria. This group was established by the United Democratic Party and the Kurdish National Council.). The help from PKK and YPG were key in stopping the advances of ISIS towards Erbil and which made people calm down and stay in the city of Erbil. Despite the fact that Masoud Barzani is an alley to Turkey and is an enemy with PKK and YPG, was forced to visit the latter’s forces and thanks them personally for their contributions. 

Those who are trying to make sense of the success of ISIS need to understand the nature of the political establishment in Kurdistan which was the cause of this demoralization. There is no space here to describe the history of the political parties in Kurdistan but rather we will shortly examine that. 

An overview of the past of the current political parties in Kurdistan region;

• Two main political and military groups were established and rose to dominance in the mountainous areas of Kurdistan region in different time under different names. Currently the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) under the leadership of Jalal Talabani and the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) under the leadership of Masoud Barzani share the authorities in Kurdistan region. 

• Those two parties, besides their struggle with the Saddam Husein regime were also busy fighting each other between the years 1966 and 1998. 

• Each of these two parties allied with either Saddam Hussein or the Mullahs in Iran against the other force. 

• Those two parties were so exhausted fighting each other that the Iraqi army was able at the end of the Iran-Iraq war to force them to the borders with Iran. 

• In 1991 the people of Kurdistan were able through a popular uprising to free their cities and towns from the control of the military forces of Saddam Hussein’s army. Few days after the uprising those two parties used the power vacuum and were able to control the cities and towns liberated by the people. Each one of those parties was able to control the areas that it was more dominant in. 

• After less than 3 years, i.e. in 1994, the two parties engaged in a civil war using the weapons that they ceased from the Saddam Hussein army. The civil war lasted until 1998 and resulted in the death of 35,000 people, disappearance of 11,000 more, displacement of thousands and the waste of countless resources. The civil war added to the difficulties already in place arising from the sanctions by the Saddam Hussein regime and the international community in Kurdistan. This led to the spread of hunger and disease in the region. Following pressure from America, the civil war stopped and they signed an agreement ending the war. 

The political nature of today’s Kurdistan;

Following the end of the civil war, Kurdistan was able to achieve certain degree of political, economic and security stability in comparison to the rest of Iraq. That happened despite the fact that there was extreme degrees of inequalities between the rich and poor and the regular people and the people in authority which fuelled anger and discontent. 

Those two parties that were fighting each other for years following the toppling of Saddam Huessin’s regime in 2003 signed an agreement under the name of the strategic agreement to basically share the powers and resources of the region between themselves. Since then those two parties became a front against the people of Kurdistan and their rights and freedoms. 

The main opposition party in Kurdistan was the Gorran Movement that was established in 2009 under the leadership of Nawsherwan Mustafa (who was the second person in PUK). The movement was a secular and reformist movement. The rest of the opposition were Islamic parties some of whom had a terrorist background. The Gorran movement had a positive impact initially and had a very wide popular base which was critical to the authorities. 

- Family inherited system; 

An undeclared family inherited system of rule is imposed on the people of Kurdistan by both the KDP and PUK. This is against the wills of the people and is contrary to the democratic goals of the hundred years of democratic movements in Kurdistan. 

- The rights and freedom; 

The rights and freedom on the ground are continuously restricted and the laws and regulations are elastically abused for the persecution of freedom fighters. Threats, insults, detention and assassination of journalists and activists is becoming a daily routine. In the past two years many journalists and activists came to Belgium and they carried with them evidence and documents that forced the Belgian authorities to offer them asylum. 

- The economic and living conditions of citizens;

The economic situation of the people is bad and the rates of unemployment are rising. The income of people is dwindling while the prices of basic necessities and housing are increasing. The poor are becoming even poorer and rich richer. By Jalal Talabani’s own confession this region consists of 3 governorates and 5 million people and currently has 30 billionaires and 10,800 millionaires.  In a statement by Muhamad Karim from the Kurdistan Economic Forum “all of those who are billionaires are either affiliated or supported by one of the political parties or powerful people inside those political parties”. He also elaborated that “following the selling of oil products, hundreds of people became millionaires and billionaires”. 

The authorities are trying to buy the opinions of people at the time that the public services are declining. Poverty is rampant among the people. There are no laws to regulate the minimum wages or the working hours for the workers. The monthly wages of the private sector workers is $400-$1000 at the time that rent of a two room apartment is $500. The pension for those who retire after 35 years of service is $400-$500. 

At the time that the local media is full of stories of neglect and decline in the services at the public sector including schools and hospitals, luxury and expensive hotels are opened the latest was a $260 million hotel called Jwan City in Slemany that can only be used by political and business elites. 

In comparison to this luxury the lives and livelihood of the regular people are declining and the quality of services in hospitals and schools is declining. This led to the rich and middle classes to send their kids to private schools or hire private teachers. On the other hand the sick are resorting to travel outside the country for treatment or seek medical attention in private hospitals which is expensive and creating many financial difficulties for them. 

- The separation of powers;

The separation of powers in Kurdistan region is nothing more than slogans that lack substance. This is proved by the fact that many criminals who killed journalists, women and other innocent people are released or their sentences are reduced. The political leaders are interfering in many political, administrative, military and security aspects and are influential in those aspects. The political parties in power interfere in the work of all of the government departments, civil society organizations and syndicates. No one can be appointed in any of the departments of the government both inside and outside Kurdistan without being first affiliated with one or another political party. Therefore the departments are not doing their jobs appropriately and there are no appropriate people in appropriate places. 

- Privileges legal and outlaw salary in exchange of loyalty;

Providing illegal wages and salaries to their supporters is the only mean through which both KDP and PUK can control those supporters. According to documents which leaked to the media both KDP and PUK provided illegal pensions to more than of 80 thousand people and those documents are continuously uncovered. Most of those who were receiving pensions are illegal and are receiving those supports through the ministry of peshmarga at the time that most of them never did that work. 

Beside this army of pensioners, there are thousands who are appointed as guards or any other job just to receive salaries without doing the job. A lot of those people are in fact in Belgium or other European country and they are receiving benefits in this country beside what they get in Kurdistan. 

The ministers and the parliamentarians, after the end of their first position receive pensions for life (which is at least $5000) without minimal regard to age or the salary they receive in their new job. 

- Money laundering;

Money laundering is a daily practice in Kurdistan through the banks inside and outside Kurdistan. According to Ahmed Jobory, the head of the integrity committee of the Parliament of Iraq, in a statement to the Monitor Website, he indicated that the amount of money laundering constitutes 20% of the total Iraqi budget. Kurdistan region have the lion share in that amount. According to KNN (the satellite TV of the Gorran Movement) more than 90% of the revenues of the customs at the borders disappear. 

- Being a partner in the investment projects and offering public properties; 

Being a partner in the investment projects and offering public properties are becoming a must-to-pay price for allowing any private project. The influential persons inside the government and parties are forcing those who are implementing private projects. It is clear that the political party leaders are not doing those things under their personal names. All of the investment, productive or tourist projects that are implemented in Kurdistan if are not personally owned by political party leaders the latter have some share in them. In return for this illegal partnership, the authorities are turning a blind eye toward the violations and illegal behavior of the projects and their qualities.  

All of those phenomena are making Kurdistan region the heaven of the businessmen particularly the foreign ones to implement their project in a bad and inferior quality. Kurdistan has become the bin for expired and low quality products from China, Asia, Turkey and Iran. This has also resulted in the failure of independent and risk taking business and capital from competing with the politically supported capital. One of the companies that was put under tremendous pressure is the Nalia Group which owns the Nalia Satellite TV channels. The owner of the company Shaswar Abdulwahid was shot and injured in 26/10/2013 by unknown persons. Shaswar indicated that the reason behind this incident was his refusal to allow any political party or government official to become his partner in his business. 

- Oil issue;

Oil is the only national product that is exported to outside of the country. Oil is exported since 2003 without and sometimes with the awareness and knowledge of the central Iraqi government. But the oil revenues were never publically announced. Under pressure from the public, media and opposition, the Ministry of Natural Resources published report detailing its revenues from 2007 to 2013. This report was not believed by anyone because the expenditures of the ministry were twice its revenues. As the report indicated the revenues of the ministry was $9,714,331,861 while its expenditure was $8,794,110,220.  Subtracting the funds that the ministry is receiving in terms of salaries and other expenditures then the amount that the ministry spent was twice of the revenues it got from oil. 

Kurdistan region under the rule of those two families is one of the most corrupt regions of Iraq. The corruption is so rampant that none of the high ranking persons in the government cannot deny it. Even the prime minister of the KRG described corruption as a culture in the region. However, none of the officials in the KRG worked seriously to decrease the spread of this phenomenon. 

The direct problems of the military forces;

- The issues of the Kurdish party-controlled militias;

The main issue of the military forces is that after 23 years of freeing Kurdistan most of them are still party militias and each unit or number of units is affiliated with one or two political parties (DKP en PUK). Despite the fact that there is a ministry called the ministry of peshmarga but those party militias have never operated under one chain of command and the units of one party are never ready to obey the commands of a minister from another political party. 

In the recent conflict, the defeats incurred were blamed by one party on the other while the small successes that were achieved as a result of the American air strikes were abused by one political party or another as their own success. The main problem between the two main parties is that the weapons that are received from outside are not equally distributed among them. Following the defeats to ISIS, Masoud Barzani (the commander general of the military forces) requested that all of the militias be unified in one national force. But in reality, both political parties continued the war against IS on their own, without any noteworthy collaboration.

Despite severe public pressure and decisions made by the Kurdish government (June 23 2014), which decreed that all militias were to be integrated into the peshmarga forces, those militias are so far still autonomous. Neither the KDP, nor the PUK are apparently prepared to hand over control of their troops to the ministry of peshmarga; it is suspected that they want to keep their forces as assets, should they lose the elections, so they can seize power by force of arms.

Even when gathering intelligence, the parties refused to cooperate. Lahur Talabani, responsible for the intelligence agency of the PUK, made this clear during his latest visit to the States, but blamed the DKP for this failure.

- The quality and quantity of Peshmarga and their weapons؛

The ministry of peshmarga indicated that they have a 150,000 strong army that is fighting against about 30,000 ISIS fighters. The ministry indicates that their weapons are light and outdated. However, if we make a comparison between the YPG fighters in Syria who struggle at one time with ISIS and the Syrian Government forces we see that YPG was able to defend their territories despite having less fighters and lighter weapons than peshmarga. 

The current pehsmarga commanders are the same who were not able to achieve any strategic achievement against Saddam Hussein’s forces. But they were able to protect their own territories in the past. Most of the commanders have no experience except for Guerrilla war that is useless now. They lack any programs or plan to train the Peshmarga through modern ways. It seems that they are not interested in inviting professionals to train the peshmarga forces. The new commanders similarly do not have any formal training and worse they are appointed based on family, tribal, political and other considerations and affiliations rather than merit. This is a major reason behind the inability to advance the powers and abilities of the peshmarga. Those forces that are receiving a lot of attention are those forces that are protecting the sensitive locations and prominent politicians. Those include the anti-terror forces in the PUK control areas and special forces in the KDP areas that are under the direct control of Masroor Barzani the son of Masoud Barzani. 

- The waste in the military forces and their budgets;

There is a large number of well trained and well equipped forces that are used for the personal protection of high ranking military and political persons. According to the research that was provided by the Economic Investigation Room of Gorran Movement, there are two brigades that are dedicated for the personal protection of Masoud Barzani which constitute 5000 fighters. The annual expenditure of this force is about $80 million. Masoud Barzani’s deputy, Kosrat Rasoul from the PUK is having a 2400 force that is spending $36 million annually. The Prime Minister of the KRG have a similar number of forces that are protecting him personally and is spending $40 million annually. All of the leaders of the political parties including the smallest head of branches have personal protection units that are funded by public resources. Most of the political leaders are engaging in a race towards who is having the most personal protection in terms of the military vehicles and cars accompanying his convoy. According to the investigations by the same research, about 40% of the employees of Kurdistan are military and security personnel. 

- The Peshmarga forces and the central government;

It could be said that the form of governance in Kurdistan region is a unique type. It is regarded as a part of Iraq and as a federal region, but is very different from a federal form of governance. Kurdistan have its own military force, ministry of peshmarga, its own political decision making and a shadow ministry for external affairs. The KRG have representations in about 20 countries in the region and the world which have no connections with the diplomatic institutions in the central government. One of those countries that the KRG have representation is Belgium.

Iraq and Kurdistan region cannot be regarded as a Confederation because it is not the union of two sovereign countries.  This led to the fact that the militia forces of KDP and PUK has nothing to do with the central Iraqi government. It is undeniable that most of the people of Kurdistan do not want the Peshmarga forces to be put under the control of the central Iraqi government. And this arising from the bitter experience of the people of Kurdistan with the central Iraqi government. But the two governments were not able so far to reach a mutual agreement to solve this issue. This is important in a situation like today’s. the central Iraqi government did not give the peshmarga forces any of the weapons that it inherited from the Saddam Hussein regime or it bought from western powers. The wages of the peshmarga forces were not given for years now under the excuse that they are not under the control of the central Iraqi government at the time that we are talking about 300,000 men in the peshmarga forces. This created big burdens on the budget of Kurdistan and the livelihood of the peshmarga and their families. 

These corruptions, waste and inability to organize the relationships with the central Iraqi government led to the fact that the lion share of the budget that is supposed to be dedicated to the peshmarge are not used for their service. We hear daily news about the fact that Peshmarga need to work after hours to feed their families. Now because of the ISIS offensive they cannot do other jobs and therefore many had to borrow money and they are suffering under huge debts. Some had to borrow money to visit their families or go back to the front lines. This is having a devastating impact on the moral of the peshmarga and their readiness to fight for a corrupt and unjust authority.

- Oil business with ISIS;

The people of Kurdistan are in general skeptical about the majority of the political and military leadership of the two ruling political parties. This skepticism was further deepened as a result of the disclosure by Ali Hama Salih one of the Gorran Movement Members of Parliament of a business and trade relationship between some political and military leaders and ISIS. (Gorran Movement is having 24 seats in a total of 111 seats of the Kurdistan Parliament). The Interior Minister announced on November 13th, 2014, that they arrested 11 persons who are allegedly involved in trade with ISIS, but Sinjari (the Minister of Interior) did not disclose any information about the identity and level of responsibility of those in question. 

The websites and newspapers in Kurdistan heavily covered this story. An independent website called “People’s Eyes” disclosed on November 7th, the names of 13 persons who engaged in business relationships with ISIS. Those included a brother of Masoud Barzani called Nihad Barzani and a nephew of Jalal Talabani called Aras Sheikh Jangi. All the rest are person who are close to the families of Jalal Talabani and Masoud Barzani. Kurdisan Post website which is known for its bravery and directness announced on November 13th that Hero Ibrahim, the wife of Jalal Talabni, is also involved through her party’s officials in trade with ISIS.

Muhamad Haji Mahmoud the commander of the Kirkuk front of the peshmarga forces indicated that “we have been working for the last 22 years on establishing a formal peshmarga force, but it could not resist for 22 hours”. 

Its undeniable that Kurdistan region is in need for military assistance, professional advice, medical equipment, air cover, intelligence support…etc. but the reasons for the recent defeats are inside the region and the countries which are willing to help Kurdistan should pay attention to that factor. Outside powers should put pressure on the two parties to adhere to the rule of law and commit to good governance. 

It is not for the countries in the democracy front to use their taxpayer money to defend and support corrupt and non-democratic governments when they are at risk. Rather it is their responsibility to put pressure on those governments and provide conditional assistance to allow them to continue their growth and development towards democracy rather than making them free-riders. The corrupt, unequal and unjust societies are the incubators for Islamic terrorism, radicalism and the migration of youths to the western world. If those corrupt governments are protected today from radical Islam, they will face another surge of similar radicalism tomorrow unless issues of corruption, injustice and inequality are solved. 

Kurdistan Forum- Belgium