WASHINGTON DC – The United States maintains that Kurdistan’s Peshmerga forces are “well supplied” and ”there has been absolutely no delay” in weapons delivered through Baghdad. But Erbil retorts: “we are not getting the weapons and ammunitions we need” for the war with Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL).
Qubad Talabani, the Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) deputy prime minister vented some of Erbil’s frustration over weapons deliveries on CNN on Tuesday.
“This is still a point of frustration for us in Kurdistan: we are fighting this fight, we are leading this fight against ISIL, we have been the most effective force in this fight against ISIL. But we are not getting the weapons and ammunitions we need to continue this fight for a sustained period of time,” he said.
“I get a feeling that we are being drip-fed weapons to be able to fight battle per battle.”
The United States refuses direct weapons deliveries to the KRG, insisting it is legally bound to go through the central government in Baghdad. Some US lawmakers have been lobbying for direct supplies to the Peshmerga, the troops that have been the most effective bulwark against ISIS in Iraq.
Talabani complained that every delivery “still has to go through some process of clearance from Baghdad. There is still a level of complication. Honestly, we have gotten accustomed to this. But we are talking of a long-term war against a very violent group. This is going to require more sustained support,” said. “We continue to defeat ISIS, but the situation is not to our liking. We do need more weapons.”
But Brett McGurk, US envoy to the anti-ISIS coalition and Deputy Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs, told Rudaw last week that there were no problems in arms deliveries via Baghdad. He said the White House had not changed its policy on the issue.
“So we are making sure that Peshmerga is very well supplied and so far with this new (Iraqi) government there has been absolutely no delay, no obstruction to anything that we have tried to send to Peshmerga,” McGurk claimed. “That’s something we are going to continue,” he vowed.
The irony in this tale is that the pro-Iranian Shiite militias propping up the hobbling Iraqi Army in the fight with ISIS have easier access to weapons, which they get from the central government. Among them are groups like the Iraqi Hezbollah and League of Righteous, which have fought deadly wars against US forces in Iraq and remain vehemently opposed to US interests.
Consider this irony: in a picture that appeared on social media, Iran’s legendary Quds force commander Qasem Soleimani is seen surrounded and protected by US M1 Abrams tanks.
Kurds understand the legality issue with the US making direct arms deliveries to the Peshmerga. But Washington has a history of directly supplying arms to groups that served US national interests, without going through any governments.
The issue with the Kurds, Erbil feels, is about lack of political will by the Obama administration making this exception for the Kurdish forces, even though the Peshmerga have so far paid with well over 1,000 lives as they stand as a bulwark against a malevolent and capable force that has vowed to take its war to the world.
For the second time, there is a bipartisan bill in the US Congress that would authorize direct defense supplies to the KRG for three years. The bill has 41 cosponsors, including 29 Republicans and 12 Democrats. But it must go through several more steps before reaching the Congress floor.
On CNN, Talabani also blasted Baghdad for withholding the Kurdish government’s budget, which has caused a huge financial crisis: on the one hand Erbil is fighting for survival and for the world against ISIS, and on the other it is struggling with a very serious financial crunch. This has placed a huge financial strain on Kurdish civil servants who have been suffering with little or no pay for more than a year. Baghdad has refused to stand by an agreement that was supposed to have resolved the dispute.
“We are in the midst of a financial crisis,” Talabani warned, reminding the world that Kurdistan has taken in 1.4 million refugees and internally displaced people (IDPs) from Syria and other parts of war-torn Iraq.
“This is taxing our own government resources,” he said. “We are providing healthcare, education and all other kind of services to these IDPs. Baghdad is still not providing us our full entitlement of the federal budget.
“Our brave soldiers that are currently on the frontline fighting against ISIS have not been paid two months of their salaries, because of the situation we are in now, because Baghdad has not paid us.”
