MG Piatt meets Chancellor Barzani, as US pushes for Erbil-Baghdad security cooperation

WASHINGTON DC (Kurdistan24) – Maj. Gen. Walter Piatt met on Tuesday with Masrour Barzani, Chancellor of the Kurdistan Region Security Council.

Piatt is Deputy Commanding General for Transition in the US-led coalition against the anti-Islamic State (IS), formally known as Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTF-OIR.)

This was the fourth time since late March that the two officials have met.

Barzani explained in a tweet that they “discussed the renewed” talks between Peshmerga and Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) “on potential joint operations in disputed territories in coordination with US-led Global Coalition.”

Piatt and Barzani last met on June 4, and Col. Thomas Veale, CJTF-OIR’s Director of Public Affairs, told Kurdistan 24 via e-mail that their discussion had included “potential future joint operations between the ISF and Peshmerga.”

Since then, senior US military officers have increasingly—and publicly—stressed the necessity for cooperation between the Peshmerga and ISF.

Notably, and most authoritatively, CENTCOM Commander Gen. Joseph Votel spoke to Kurdistan 24 on Sunday, when he visited Erbil.

Votel hailed the Peshmerga as “key partners” in the fight against IS, while he stressed the need for CJTF-OIR, the Peshmerga, and the ISF to “work together” to “keep the pressure on [IS]” and “prevent them from coming back.”

Piatt, who accompanied Votel, also spoke with Kurdistan 24, explaining that IS is “exploiting seams” between the Peshmerga and ISF. “So it’s very important now,” he said, “that we have great security cooperation” between them.

During the last years of Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF), Gen. Ray Odierno, Commander of the US-led coalition in Iraq, established a joint security mechanism to coordinate security efforts in the disputed territories among the Peshmerga, ISF, and coalition.

Even after the 2011 US pullout from Iraq, security coordination between the Peshmerga and ISF endured—until 2014, when IS suddenly appeared, the ISF collapsed, and Baghdad asked the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) to send Peshmerga into Kirkuk and other disputed areas to block IS from seizing that territory.

During the anti-IS campaign, CJTF-OIR helped coordinate between the Peshmerga and ISF to defeat the terrorist organization. That coordination, however, collapsed last October, when Iraqi forces, in an operation engineered by Qassim Soleimani, head of the Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, seized Kirkuk.

It is difficult to understand US calculations then. US officials failed to recognize Iran’s role, while they seem to have thought that letting Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi proceed with the assault would help him win a second term in Iraq’s May 2018 elections (Abadi finished third!)

Perhaps, also, US officials failed to understand the consequences for the fight against IS. Security in Kirkuk and the disputed territories has deteriorated, and IS is returning.

As the outgoing German commander of CJTF-OIR’s Kurdistan Training Coordination Center, based in Erbil, told Kurdistan 24 in mid-June, IS “is still active, especially in the disputed areas.”

KRG officials, who have repeatedly complained of the deterioration of security in the disputed areas since October, have long been willing to resume security cooperation with the ISF.

However, Baghdad has, so far, baulked at the notion, although it might be worth noting that Kurdistan 24’s interviews with Votel and Piatt on Sunday featured prominently the following day in a talk show on al-Sharqiya, a popular Iraqi television channel

It is difficult to imagine that senior US officers would so clearly affirm the need for security coordination between the Peshmerga and ISF, if there were not some indications that Baghdad is open to the idea.

After all, if you repeatedly call for something, and it doesn’t happen, you look weak.

Entifadh Qanbar, an Iraqi-American and head of the Future Foundation in Washington DC, suggested to Kurdistan 24 that Abadi, himself, was likely a significant part of the problem.

“There was a time,” Qanbar said, “when it was popular among Iraqis to be against the Kurds, particularly among young Shiites.”

“But that time has long passed,” Qanbar continued. “People can see that Kirkuk is not secure, as it was before,” and they are “overwhelmed” by other problems, particular economic problems, while there is a “widespread perception,” and associated anger, that the election results were rigged.

In Qanbar’s view, Abadi is “not a sensitive, smart politician,” so “he doesn’t know when to stop” and drop his anti-Kurdish stance.

Most likely, there will be a caretaker government in Baghdad for months to come—perhaps, until the end of 2018, as the manual recount of last month’s voting, ordered by Iraq’s Supreme Court, proceeds, and a new governing coalition is formed. Possibly, in that protracted political vacuum, the US might be able to promote the security cooperation between Erbil and Baghdad that it now recognizes to be so necessary.