A 'good friend': Remembering Colin Powell in Kurdistan

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - It was nearing the end of March 2003 when a letter from the late Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani arrived at headquarters of the Kurdistan Islamic Group (Komal) in the Khurmal area of the Kurdistan Region’s mountainous frontier with Iran. The letter was a warning that United States strikes against the militant group Ansar al-Islam would start that night. Faruq Ali, who was then a 35-year-old commander of Komal fighters, was there when missiles hit three different Komal bases, killing over 40 fighters.

The US attack on the Hawraman and Khurmal areas of Halabja province came nearly two months after then-Secretary of State Colin Powell gave a 76-minute-long presentation to the United Nations Security Council, making a case for war against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq by claiming the dictator was developing weapons of mass destruction. Sites he named included Khurmal and Sargat.

“The Zarqawi network helped establish another poison and explosive training center camp and this camp is located in northeastern Iraq,” Powell said, referring to the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. He pointed to a satellite image of what looked like a small camp, labeled Khurmal.

Komal was formed by a splinter group from the Kurdistan Islamic Movement, then an armed Islamic movement. This year, the party rebranded itself as the Kurdistan Justice Group. Komal and Ansar al-Islam are believed by many to have close relations as they came from the same parent party.

Powell’s speech was a first warning for Komal. 

“We were a little afraid at the time, because our bases were close to that of Ansar al-Islam,” Ali told Rudaw English on Wednesday, recalling the events of 18 years ago. “At the time we thought the only way to stop any attacks on us was to invite foreign journalists to see the places Powell had shown in his presentation and prove to them there were no weapon-making facilities there.”

A group of journalists visited Komal, were given a tour and met with party leader Ali Bapir. 



The missive from Talabani, founder of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), was the second warning. 

“The night the attacks happened, Jalal Talabani had sent a letter to Sheikh Mohammed al-Barzanji [founding member of Kurdistan Islamic Movement] and Ali Bapir telling them that US attacks will start,” Ali said. “We did not have much time, so all we could do was make sure our forces were not all gathered in a single spot.”

To Komal’s surprise, when the US missiles came, their targets were exactly the places they had taken the journalists. “We believe that some of the journalists had GPS machines, which at the time we did not know of, and provided exact locations to the Americans,” Ali said.

The US fired about 70 missiles. The first three hit Komal bases between Khurmal and Ahmed Awa, killing 43 and injuring 56, including commanders and high ranking members.

Powell died last week due to coronavirus complications 18 years after his speech at the United Nations that led to war in Iraq that killed tens of thousands and sent the country into “never-ending wars” as some remembered him. Kurds, however, considered Powell a great ally.

“The US and the PUK had common interests. The US wanted to take revenge for September 11 on anyone who was linked to al-Qaeda, in this case Ansar, and to also finish the job Bush senior couldn’t, by putting an end to Saddam,” Ali said, referring to the first Gulf War led by former US president George HW Bush in 1991. 

“The PUK also wanted to stop Ansar and they knew they could not stop them alone. So Talabani was a great link between them,” he added.

Talabani, who became Iraq’s first president after 2003, enjoyed strong relations with the US. He was among the main lobbyists in 1991, directly contacting UN members to implement a no-fly-zone over Kurdish areas of northern Iraq. 

Ansar al-Islam and the PUK intermittently clashed after the Islamist group was formed in 2001. 

Powell’s address to the Security Council was a major factor in the US invasion of Iraq and the instability that followed. No weapons of mass destruction were ever found. Years later, Powell apologized to the world and Iraqis, saying that his testimony to the UN was based on intelligence that he later found out was not true.

But his statement put him on good ground with Kurds. “Saddam Hussein's use of mustard and nerve gas against the Kurds in 1988 was one of the 20th century's most horrible atrocities,” Powell told the Security Council. 

“Colin Powell visited the governing council twice, and at the time his statements and the way he set out his points were a clear portrayal of Bush’s administration,” Mahmood Othman told Rudaw English last Tuesday. Following the fall of the Baath regime, Othman was part of Iraq’s transitional governing body that was directly supervised by the US. 

“His views were different from the commanders who were already in Iraq. He was a diplomatic man and spoke politics rather than military,” Othman recalled. 

In September 2003, Powell visited Halabja, the city where Saddam Hussein committed genocide against the Kurds, killing 5,000 civilians with chemical weapons. The visit brought Powell closer to the Kurds.

The US has been a close friend to Kurds at pivotal moments. In 1991, the US was part of the UN Security Council's Resolution 688 that condemned Iraq’s repression of Kurds and demanded Baghdad grant access to humanitarian organizations. The UK, US, and France then imposed a no-fly zone over Kurdish areas and began Operation Provide Comfort. The resolution and no-fly zone served as a starting point toward establishing an autonomous Kurdish region in the north of Iraq. After the 2003 invasion, Kurds were able to cement their autonomy in the Iraqi constitution. 

“Colin Powell was portraying America, and not only him, the Americans have generally been good friends of the Kurds,” Othman said. “They took down Saddam’s regime and helped the Kurds, which is why Kurds share a strong relationship with them.”

After Powell’s death, the only messages of condolence out of Iraq came from Kurds. 

“I’m saddened by the passing of former Secretary of State Colin Powell, a lifelong friend of the Kurdistan Region and Iraq,” Kurdistan Region’s Prime Minister Masrour Barzani said in a tweet. “We worked closely together to rid the country of dictatorship. I know he sought lasting peace for the region.”

Former Iraqi minister of finance and senior member of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) Hoshyar Zebari also tweeted, saying he was “deeply saddened by the passing of a great American friend, patriot and warrior.”  

Sunnis and Shiite politicians, however, were largely silent. Rudaw English reached out to two members of the transitional governing council, but both refused to comment on Powell’s death.

“Many Sunnis do not hate him, but they are too afraid to speak up. But Shiites, they abide by the policies of Iran, and that is to stand against anything American, even if they saved them from Saddam,” Othman said.

One Iraqi who did comment was journalist and outgoing parliamentarian Muntadher al-Zaidi, known for throwing his shoes at the former president George Bush during a press conference in Baghdad in 2008. In a tweet he said he was “saddened by the death of Colin Powell without being tried for his crimes in Iraq.”

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