The Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani, who will play a crucial role in the formation of the interim government in Iraq, said today that the United States risked squandering its victory over Saddam Hussein by allowing chaos and anarchy to run unchecked in the country. Mr. Barzani spoke in an interview on the day that a new civilian administrator, J. Paul Bremer III, arrived in the Iraqi capital to take over the task of rebuilding the country from Jay Garner. The sudden personnel overhaul has rattled Iraqi political leaders who have been working closely with General Garner, and none was more disappointed that Mr. Barzani, who worked with the general a decade ago when Iraq's Kurdish minority fled by the hundreds of thousands to the Turkish border region to escape the wrath of Mr. Hussein after an unsuccessful uprising. "His departure will have a very negative effect," Mr. Barzani said. "The rapid change of officials is not very helpful because we need focus."
| The Kurds had confidence in Garner because of the part he played in setting up their autonomous areas — and keeping them from each other's throats. I sure hope Bremer's bringing something... |
Elaborating, Mr. Barzani said that "major mistakes have been made" in the military and civilian management of postwar Iraq, "and if we continue in this confusion, this wonderful victory we have achieved will turn into a quagmire." Mr. Barzani said he believed that it was "urgent" that a strong governor or mayor be appointed to run Baghdad, the largest Iraqi city and the geographical linchpin that unites the Kurdish minority of the north with the Sunni and Shiite Muslim populations of central and southern Iraq. Mr. Barzani also endorsed an offer first made public by Jalal Talabani, the other major Kurdish chief, to send as many as 10,000 city police officers from northern cities to help police the streets of Baghdad while a new police force was being vetted, trained and deployed.
| I think that would be a damned good idea. And some administrators, too. Kurdistan's the logical place to pull non-lunatic and non-Baathist civil servants. An American-Kurdish "occupation" might be just as unpalatable to the Arabs as just an American occupation, but it's better than anarchy. |
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