Kurds Arming
It appears that the Kurdish people of Northern Iraq are arming themselves in case of a new emergency. According to the Washington Post, the Kurdistan Regional Government is has accepted at least three planeloads of light weapons from Bulgaria, who also contributed troops to Iraq. The Kurdish military, the peshmerga, has been allied to the U.S. and has been effective in providing security in Iraq:
The pesh merga, which began as a militia controlled by powerful Kurdish families, fought Iraqi troops when Hussein was in power. Since the 2003 invasion, its primary role has been to patrol predominantly Kurdish areas in the north. However, pesh merga units were deployed to the northern city of Mosul in 2004 to help quell an insurgent uprising, and others were dispatched to Baghdad as part of the 2007 buildup of U.S. troops.
On the one hand, it is good to see that the Kurds are making sure that an event such as the Anfal Campaign cannot easily be replicated. Kurdistan is making sure that even in the case of an American withdrawal, they are armed to the teeth. However, the Arab parts of Iraq may see this as a move towards independence.
