Since the British and Americans set up the no-fly zones that allowed the Kurds to establish their mini-state in northern Iraq, the Iraqis have stayed behind a row of fortifications on the high ground along the ceasefire line. From within Kurdistan, you can see a series of squat, square bunkers, on the hills three miles to the south, among the scruffy pines and burnt patches of grass. The Iraqi Army, I was told, occasionally take potshots at shepherds who venture into no man's land in search of pasture. Except it isn't really a no man's land, because the Kurds, well aware that resisting Saddam's tanks and helicopters would be impossible, haven't bothered to fortify their frontline. In fact, the Kurds who live closest to the Iraqis are a group of senior citizens resettled by a Western aid organisation in some new breeze-block, three-room houses in the southern suburbs of the town of Chamchamal. They wouldn't be much of a match for the Republican Guard.

LRB 19 September 2002 | PDF Download