[wvns] THE 'KURDISTAN' LOBBY
ISRAELI OPERATIVES, MISSIONARIES LOBBY FOR IRAQI 'KURDISTAN'
Kurds Cultivating Their Own Bonds With U.S.
Rajiv Chandrasekaran
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/22/AR2007042201568.html
The 30-second television commercial features stirring scenes of a
young Iraqi boy high-fiving a U.S. soldier, a Westerner dining
alfresco, and men and women dancing together. "Have you seen the other
Iraq?" the narrator asks. "It's spectacular. It's joyful."
"Welcome to Iraqi Kurdistan!" the narrator continues. "It's not a
dream. It's the other Iraq."
Qubad Talabani represents the Kurdish Regional Government in
Washington. As the son of Iraq's president, he has enormous clout. (By
Lois Raimondo -- The Washington Post)
With Sunni and Shiite Arabs locked in a bloody sectarian war, Iraq's
Kurds are promoting their interests through an influence-buying
campaign in the United States that includes airing nationwide
television advertisements, hiring powerful Washington lobbyists and
playing parts of the U.S. government against each other. A former car
mechanic who happens to be the son of Iraq's president is at the
center of Kurdish efforts to cultivate support for their
semi-independent enclave, but the cast of Kurdish proponents also
includes evangelical Christians, Israeli operatives and Republican
political consultants.
In the past year, the Kurds have spent more than $3 million to retain
lobbyists and set up a diplomatic office in Washington. They are
cultivating grass-roots advocates among supporters of President Bush's
war policy and evangelicals who believe that many key figures in the
Bible lived in Kurdistan. And they are seeking to build an emotional
bond with ordinary Americans, like those forged by Israel and Taiwan,
by running commercials on national cable news channels to assert that
even as Iraq teeters toward a full-blown civil war, one corner of the
country, at least, has fulfilled the Bush administration's ambition of
a peaceful, democratic, pro-Western beachhead in the Middle East.
But elements of the Kurds' campaign run counter to the policy of a
unified Iraq espoused by the U.S. and Iraqi governments. Some senior
U.S. officials contend that yielding to Kurdish demands for increased
autonomy could break up Iraq and destabilize Turkey, a NATO ally that
is fighting a guerrilla war with Kurdish separatists -- some of whom
have taken sanctuary in Iraqi Kurdistan.
Kurdish leaders cast their self-promotion initiative as a bulwark
against attempts to restrict their federal rights. With only 40,000 or
so Kurds living in the United States, Kurdish officials insist they
have no choice but to pursue the dual strategy of wooing non-Kurdish
constituencies and lobbying in Washington.
"We have to use all the tools at our disposal to help ourselves," said
Qubad Talabani, the son of Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, sent here
as the Kurdistan Regional Government's representative in Washington.
Kurds want the sort of "strategic and institutional relationship" that
Israel and Taiwan have with the United States, Talabani, 29, said. "It
doesn't matter which party is in power in Washington -- the U.S.
government isn't going to abandon either of those countries," he
added. "We are seeking the same protection."
Talabani, a former Maserati repairman, was raised by his grandparents
in Britain and moved to Washington in 2000 knowing nothing about power
politics. He soon began dating -- and later married -- a State
Department staffer working on Iraq policy. He wears French-cuff shirts
and Windsor-knotted ties with pinstripe suits. He lunches at the
Bombay Club and works two blocks from the White House.
He has more clout than any other Iraqi in Washington because of his
ability to call his father directly and because he represents the
collective view of an influential minority -- one that holds enough
seats in Iraq's parliament to wield effective veto power over a
proposed law to distribute national oil revenue to Iraqis, as well as
other legislation sought by the United States. By contrast, Baghdad's
ambassador to Washington is a secular Sunni Arab who has limited sway
with his Shiite-dominated government.
Talabani is in regular contact with senior officials in the White
House. He drops in on members of Congress, and he has met with four of
the presidential candidates: Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.),
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) and Sen.
Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.).
"We've been on the fringes for too long," Talabani said.
Lobbying for Support
Making friends in the United States is crucial for Iraq's 5 million
ethnic Kurds, most of whom live in three mountainous northern
provinces that are administered by the Kurdistan Regional Government,
effectively a state within a state. The regional government has the
power to pass its own laws, maintain its own internal security force
and even bar the entry of the Iraqi army. Iraq's national flag is
nonexistent in Kurdistan -- every government building is adorned with
the red, white and green Kurdish flag -- and foreign visitors who fly
into Irbil, the regional capital, receive a visa to Kurdistan, not Iraq.
Although the regional government was enshrined by Iraq's constitution
in 2005, it remains a point of tension with Arab Iraqis, both Sunni
and Shiite, who live to the south. Sunni Arabs have argued that
national reconciliation is impossible without revoking many of the
concessions given to the Kurds, particularly a promise to hold a
referendum this year on whether the oil-rich city of Kirkuk -- home to
Arabs, Turkmen and Kurds -- will become part of Kurdistan.
The three nations that border Iraqi Kurdistan -- Turkey, Iran and
Syria, all of which have significant populations of ethnic Kurds --
also remain deeply vexed by Kurdish autonomy in Iraq.
Most worrisome to Kurdish leaders, however, is their relationship with
Washington. The Kurds believe they should be recognized as a
certifiable success story in a war that has lasted more than four
years: They're largely secular, no U.S. military personnel have been
killed in Kurdistan since the March 2003 invasion, and business is
booming in Irbil and other Kurdish cities because Kurdish militias,
known as peshmerga, have managed to keep out Sunni Arab insurgents.
But Kurdish officials contend that the U.S. government has done little
to reward these achievements. The State Department acknowledges
spending 3 percent of its reconstruction funds on the Kurds since
2003, even though they make up about 20 percent of Iraq's population.
Kurdish leaders also argue that U.S. diplomats have been pushing them
to make concessions that would weaken the regional government in an
attempt to placate Sunni Arabs.
"If they think that the Kurds are going to roll over like lame
puppies, and have the power that they have earned taken away from them
and given to those who have done nothing but kill Americans, then they
have a shocking surprise awaiting them," Talabani said over a gin and
tonic at the Hay-Adams Hotel bar. "We exist on the map, whether they
like it or not."
The Kurds' lobbying activities in the post-Saddam Hussein era began
with a quest for $4 billion.
Kurdish leaders believed they were owed at least that much from the
United Nations' corruption-tainted oil-for-food program, which
regulated the sale of Iraqi oil from 1995 to 2003. Because the money
was transferred to a trust fund controlled by the United States
shortly after the invasion, the Kurds set their sights on Washington.
Back then, the two principal Kurdish political organizations --
Massoud Barzani's Kurdistan Democratic Party and Jalal Talabani's
Patriotic Union of Kurdistan -- had separate representatives in
Washington. Talabani's man was Barham Salih, who now is Iraq's deputy
prime minister and who became Qubad Talabani's mentor.
The task of chasing down the money, however, fell to Barzani's
representative, Farhad Barzani.
Seeking help to navigate Washington, Farhad Barzani turned to Danny
Yatom, a former director of Israel's spy service, the Mossad,
according to senior Kurdish officials and former U.S. government
officials familiar with the Kurds' efforts. Yatom's business partner,
Shlomi Michaels, who was looking for investments in Kurdistan, agreed
to help the Kurds find a lobbyist, the officials said. The sources
spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Michaels initially sought out Jack Abramoff, then a powerful
Republican-connected lobbyist, the officials said. But Abramoff, who
was later convicted of bribery and is now in prison, asked for more
than the Kurds wanted to pay, the officials said. One American
lobbyist said Abramoff wanted the Kurds to pay him $65,000 a month.
Michaels did not respond to several phone messages.
Russell Wilson, a former Republican congressional staff member whom
Michaels asked for advice, eventually suggested that the Kurds contact
Ed Rogers, a GOP political operative and former White House official
who runs one of Washington's most influential lobbying firms. On June
3, 2004, Barbour Griffith & Rogers agreed to represent the Kurdistan
Democratic Party for $29,000 a month.
Qubad Talabani said the firm lobbied the White House for the $4 billion.
Twenty days later, on June 23, the U.S. occupation administration in
Iraq gave the Kurds $1.4 billion in cash. The U.S. military flew the
money -- brand-new $100 bills in shrink-wrapped bricks -- to Irbil on
three helicopters.
Although officials with the occupation authority maintained that the
payout was the Kurds' share of Iraq's 2004 capital budget and was
unconnected to lobbying, Kurdish leaders insist otherwise.
Barbour, Griffith & Rogers's business with the Kurds has since
steadily expanded. The Kurdistan Regional Government paid the firm
$869,333 for work performed in the first 11 months of last year,
according to lobbying disclosure forms filed with the Justice Department.
The firm's lobbying was "very helpful in getting us the oil-for-food
money," said Talabani, who now represents both Kurdish parties. "It
was a tangible victory for the Kurds."
A Friend in Commerce
Next up was an even bigger prize: the $18.4 billion in U.S.
reconstruction funds flowing into Iraq. As with the oil-for-food
money, Kurdish leaders believed they deserved at least 20 percent --
their perceived fair share based on Kurds' proportion of Iraq's
population.
The State Department had a different view. Kurdistan had been
protected from Hussein's army since 1991 by U.S. warplanes enforcing a
no-fly zone, and had enjoyed far greater development in the
intervening years than Arab-dominated parts of Iraq. Despite Kurdish
pleas and vigorous lobbying, the department decided that the vast
majority of the reconstruction funds would go elsewhere.
By 2005, Kurdish leaders decided to shift their strategy. Kurdistan
was becoming an increasingly popular destination for businessmen who
deemed Baghdad too dangerous for visiting or for investment. Rather
than argue about aid, the Kurds proposed that the U.S. government
encourage American investment in Kurdistan.
Talabani and Ayal Frank, a former congressional staffer and
legislative analyst for the Israeli Embassy who was hired as a
lobbyist by the Kurdistan Regional Government, sidestepped the State
Department in favor of the Commerce Department, which they considered
more receptive. "If a door shuts on you," Talabani said, "you go in
through the window." After several meetings with Commerce's Iraq task
force, Talabani added, "common sense prevailed."
"In some quarters at State, there's this zero-sum view: that helping
the Kurds means you're hurting the Arabs," he said. "People at
Commerce had a different view. They started to realize that developing
safer parts of the country is not detrimental to the rest of the country."
Multiple meetings, phone calls and e-mails paid off on Feb. 20 of this
year, when Franklin L. Lavin, the undersecretary of commerce for
international trade, traveled to Irbil to promote Kurdistan as a
"gateway" for U.S. business in Iraq. Lavin said his visit was designed
"to encourage companies that are looking at Iraq . . . to think about
particular locales that might be more fruitful environments for
starting a business."
Talabani said he considers Lavin's trip a "big success" because it
involved a Cabinet agency "reassessing the way it views doing business
in Iraq."
But for Talabani and other Kurdish officials, a major barrier to U.S.
investment remains: the State Department's travel warning for Iraq,
which cautions that the country is "very dangerous," without
distinguishing one region from another.
Talabani has urged the department to change the warning, which he said
"tells the potential businessman that all of Iraq is unsafe, and
that's not true." Although foreign investment is pouring into
Kurdistan, very little is from large U.S. corporations, he added.
Lavin declined to comment on the matter, but Kurdish officials said he
has also pressed the State Department to amend the warning.
In an April 3 letter to Talabani, Maura Harty, the assistant secretary
of state for consular affairs, said the warning "accurately reflects
the current situation" in Iraq.
Talabani said he plans to urge members of Congress and business
executives to petition the State Department.
"We're going to keep up the pressure," he said.
The Minister and the TV Crew
As the Washington campaign unfolded, the other component of the Kurds'
influence-building strategy was taking shape three blocks from the
beach in Santa Cruz, Calif.
Bill Garaway, an evangelical Christian minister, realized that the
Kurds had a public-relations problem when he told his neighbors in the
seaside town that he was performing missionary work in Kurdistan.
"They said, 'Who are the Kurds?' " recalled Garaway. "I said, 'There
is nobody like them in the Middle East. They're Muslim, but they hate
fundamentalist Islam. They love America.' "
On a trip to Iraq in late 2004, he pitched the idea of airing
commercials touting Kurdistan in the United States. The Kurds were
intrigued. They told Garaway to produce a few spots.
He began filming in early 2005, with a camera crew that captured
children waving flags, shoppers strolling through a new mall and
peshmerga soldiers saluting. By the end of the summer, he had created
three 30-second commercials.
The first, in which a succession of Kurds look into the camera and
thank the United States, aired last summer on cable news stations. It
generated immediate buzz.
"Seeing Iraqis say 'thank you' was very powerful," Garaway said. "It's
not something most Americans had heard before."
Garaway, a rangy 62-year-old with receding silver hair, became
enamored with the Kurds more than a decade ago, after concluding that
many key events described in the Bible occurred in Kurdistan,
including the stories of Noah's ark and Queen Esther. He believes not
only that the Kurds are descendants of the ancient Medes people, but
also that the three wise men who the Bible says visited baby Jesus in
Bethlehem came from Kurdistan.
For Garaway, championing the Kurdish cause has been the latest twist
in a life filled with unexpected turns. As he tells it, he protested
the Vietnam War as a college student, burning his draft card at a UCLA
rally in 1967. He subsequently lived in a commune with 140 others in
the hills above Palo Alto, Calif., where he ran a food cooperative,
taught yoga, befriended members of the Grateful Dead and hosted poet
Allen Ginsberg in his treehouse. One day, a group of friends who had
left the commune returned and invited Garaway to join their church. He
did, and soon after, he said, "God revealed himself to me."
He and his wife settled in Santa Cruz in the early 1970s, where they
opened a church, started to surf and began to raise a family. They had
six children, all of whom were home-schooled. Four have become
professional surfers.
Garaway, who has served as the president of a Christian aid
organization operating in northern Iraq, said the Kurds should have an
independent homeland -- a view that goes well beyond the stated
positions of Qubad Talabani and other Kurdish leaders.
"There's more of the best American values in Kurdistan than anywhere
else in the Islamic world," he said. "We should be encouraging them,
not standing in their way."
Garaway enlisted Russo Marsh & Rogers, a Republican-oriented political
consulting firm in Sacramento, to place the commercials. The firm is
closely affiliated with Move America Forward, a conservative advocacy
group that has organized rallies in support of continuing military
operations in Iraq. Last year, the group invited the director of the
Kurdistan Development Corporation, which coordinated payment for the
commercials, to speak at a luncheon in San Francisco featuring parents
of military personnel who had died in Iraq.
Move America Forward also organized a trip for the parents to visit
Kurdistan, where they met with Massoud Barzani and other prominent
Kurds. Garaway said he and Salvatore Russo, the chief strategist of
Russo Marsh & Rogers, arranged to be there at the same time.
The parents are now "some of the strongest supporters of the Kurds,"
Russo said. "For them, it's a validation that their child didn't die
in vain."
After the trip, Move America Forward and the parents issued a report
calling for "developing and maintaining a major U.S. military presence
in Iraqi Kurdistan" -- a key goal of Kurdish leaders.
Now Garaway hopes to take his national campaign on behalf of Kurdistan
to "the next level" with an influential Washington partner: the
mechanic-turned-lobbyist Qubad Talabani. Garaway has encouraged
Talabani and other Kurdish leaders to spend several million dollars
this year to run all three commercials on prime-time network
television. "If more of the American public sees these spots, we can
have a more rational approach to dealing with the war," he said.
Getting Americans "to understand our story," Talabani agreed, is
essential for the Kurds.
"We have a real story of the resilience of the underdog, that shares
the values of America, that is succeeding," he added. "It's not unlike
the American dream."
Staff researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.
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