Congressional outreach of KRG Representation in Washington

WASHINGTON DC (Kurdistan 24) – The Representation of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in Washington has wrapped up a summer’s work of engagement with Congress, advocating for the Kurdish cause; ensuring that America’s representatives are well-informed about Kurdish achievements, including those of the Peshmerga; and developing a common understanding of the shared interests between the Kurdistan Region and the US.

America’s legislature is now in summer recess, and Congressmen have left Washington to return home to their constituencies. After Labor Day (September 6), they will return, and the intense work of the KRG Representation on Capitol Hill will resume.

There is a tendency for people who have long enjoyed good times to take those good things for granted—like, for example, the cordial relationship that exists now between Erbil and Washington.

But that didn’t just happen. It is due, in significant part, to the efforts of Kurdish officials in the US capitol. Among many things, and of immediate relevance, their work over many years has helped, and will help, ensure that the US does not leave Kurdistan in the fashion, for the reasons, and amid the chaos, with which it is departing Afghanistan.

“Our outreach to the US Congress is a critical part of the Representation’s work,” the KRG Representative in Washington, Bayan Abdul Rahman, told Kurdistan 24.

“We work on this on a daily basis and only publicize a fraction of our outreach,” she continued. “It’s important that US Senators and Representatives are kept abreast of developments in the Kurdistan Region, Iraq, and our neighborhood and crucial that they continue to support the partnership between America and Kurdistan.”

“We are fortunate that there is bipartisan support for Kurdistan in Congress generally and a Kurdish American Congressional Caucus that has been active since 2008,” she added, as she commended the work of Karwan Zebari, Director of Policy and Advocacy at the Representation, who is in daily contact with congressional offices and the staff of the relevant committees.

Besides briefing and updating members of Congress on developments in Kurdistan and Iraq, the Representation follows key pieces of legislation and resolutions, as they make their way through the congressional process.

One important example of that is the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA.) It regularly includes assistance to enable the fight of US partners against ISIS, including support for the Peshmerga.

While there are regularly political divisions in Congress on certain aspects of the NDAA, Kurdistan is fortunate in that support to the Peshmerga has near unanimous support, thanks to the bravery of the Kurdish fighters and thanks to the KRG’s advocacy efforts.

Engagement with US Senators

Abdul Rahman held a series of virtual meetings with key senators some two weeks ago, just before the Senate went into recess.

Democrats hold a slim majority in both houses of Congress. That gives them a bit of extra clout, as it means they chair the committees. But congressional support for the KRG is bipartisan—somewhat unusual in these times, when America is politically divided over so much.

Thus, Abdul Rahman regularly engages with Congressmen on both sides of the aisle. Her meetings before the recess, which were mostly virtual, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, included Sen. Angus King, an Independent who represents the state of Maine. King is a member of both the Senate Armed Services Committee and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

The KRG envoy updated King “on regional security developments and US support to the Peshmerga and Iraqi forces” in the counter-ISIS fight, according to a press release from the KRG Representation’s Washington office.

King, in turn, “praised the Peshmerga for their critical role and partnership with US forces,” according to the press release.

The KRG envoy also had a “warm and wide-ranging discussion” with Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pennsylvania), who, like King, is a member of the Intelligence Committee. Casey “expressed his support to Kurdistan and praised the Peshmerga’s valor in the fight against ISIS,” the KRG office said.

Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) served in the US military for 23 years, including in Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF.) In 2014, she was elected to the US Senate, becoming the first woman to serve in federal elected office from Iowa, as well as the first female combat veteran to be elected as a US Senator (others would soon follow her path-breaking experience.)

The following year, Ernst joined a Congressional delegation that toured the Middle East, including a stop in Erbil, where she met the KRG leadership, and she has remained closely engaged in Kurdish issues since then.

Ernst serves on the Senate Armed Services Committee and received Abdul Rahman in an in-person session in which they discussed “security developments in the region and US support for the Peshmerga,” the KRG reported.

That series of meetings also included Sen. Mike Rounds (R-South Dakota), who sits on the Senate Foreign Relations and Intelligence Committees; Sen. John Hickenlooper (D-Colorado), a member of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee; as well as Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Illinois), who is a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Duckworth is an Army veteran, and she served in OIF, flying Blackhawk helicopters in combat. In 2004, an RPG downed her helicopter, and she lost both legs and partial use of her right hand—but that did not stop her.

In 2009, President Barack Obama appointed Duckworth to be Assistant Secretary of Veterans Affairs, as following her recovery, she had assumed a similar position in her home state of Illinois.

In 2016, Duckworth ran for—and won—her seat in the US Senate, and in April 2019, she led a delegation, which included Sen. King, on a fact-finding mission to Iraq, visiting Erbil as well.

It was Duckworth’s first trip back to Iraq, since suffering her grievous injuries. Speaking a month later in Washington, she described her wonder at how Erbil had been transformed, since she last saw it as a Blackhawk pilot.

“When I used to go up to the Kurdish Region, there was one fancy hotel on top of a hill and that was it,” Duckworth said, recalling the early days of OIF. “We landed on a hillside and parked our helicopters and walked up to the one hotel.”

Now there are “high-rises, it’s gleaming, it’s modern”—in sum, “an international cosmopolitan city,” she added. By contrast, while Baghdad had improved somewhat, it had not really changed in the intervening 15 years.

Read More: Sen. Duckworth: Kurdistan is model for Iraq; ISIS not defeated

Those meetings were merely the conclusion of a season of intense, focused activity.

In June, Abdul Rahman saw Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Oklahoma), the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee. A powerful figure in Congress, Inhofe has served as Oklahoma’s senator for the past 27 years.

Inhofe has long been supportive of the Kurdish cause. In early 2020, he led a Congressional delegation to Erbil. And when Iraq’s former prime minister, Haider al Abadi, in a military operation engineered by Qasim Soleimani, head of the Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), attacked the Peshmerga in the disputed territories three years before that, Inhofe strongly protested the lack of any meaningful US response.

“Iraqi Kurdistan has proven itself a loyal, dependable US ally, and a beacon for democracy and tolerance throughout the Middle East,” Inhofe wrote in a letter to President Donald Trump, co-signed by two other Republican senators, Mike Rounds and John Cornyn (Texas.)

The KRG mission described Abdul Rahman’s engagement with Inhofe as a “productive in-person meeting.” She “thanked Senator Inhofe for his steadfast support of Kurdistan, especially to the Peshmerga forces,” the KRG statement explained.

“The two discussed assisting the Peshmerga, including financial, training, and equipping, and the various security challenges facing Kurdistan,” the statement continued, affirming that “both sides appreciated the US-Kurdistan partnership in the fight against ISIS.”

Last month, Abdul Rahman briefed Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Maryland), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, on the US-Iraq Strategic Dialogue; Baghdad-Erbil relations; and security developments in Kurdistan and the wider region,” the KRG office said.

Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisconsin) is a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, and in October 2019, she visited Erbil, where she met with KRG Prime Minister Masrour Barzani and President Nechirvan Barzani.

Read More: US delegation meets leaders of Kurdistan Region

The KRG envoy spoke with Sen. Baldwin and expressed her appreciation for Baldwin’s “steadfast support of Kurdistan.”

Abdul Rahman also met with Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Georgia), who became a US senator in January. Previously he was an investigative journalist and documentary film producer.

Ossoff is the youngest person elected to the US senate in over 40 years and the first Jewish senator from Georgia.

The KRG Representative briefed him “on the security and economic situation in Kurdistan and the status of internally displaced communities and refugees,” a KRG press statement explained.

They also discussed “regional issues impacting the Kurdistan Region, including the status of the al-Hol camp in Syria and the security risk posed by ISIS supporters within al-Hol to the broader region.”

Engagement with Members of the House of Representatives

Those representatives with whom Abdul Rahman met over the summer include Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colorado.) Crow is a former Army Ranger, who served three tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. As a member of the 82nd Airborne Division, he fought as a platoon leader in the Battle of Samawah in OIF’s first weeks and was awarded the Bronze Star.

Crow is a member of the House Armed Services and Intelligence Committees and Co-Chair of the Kurdish American Congressional Caucus.

Abdul Rahman briefed him “on the security and humanitarian situation in Kurdistan and Iraq; the US-Iraq Strategic Dialogue; and the continued threat from ISIS terrorists,” according to a statement from the KRG mission.

“The Congressman expressed his support for the people of Kurdistan and wish to visit Kurdistan in the near future,” it added.

Abdul Rahman briefed Rep. Jim Langevin (D-Rhode Island) on the same issues. Langevin is a member of the House Armed Services and Homeland Security Committees and will soon join the Kurdish American Congressional Caucus.

Rep. Reuben Gallego (D-Arizona) is a member of the House Armed Services Committee, as well as the Kurdish American Congressional Caucus. He is the son of Hispanic immigrants and was the first in his family to earn a college degree—from Harvard University, no less.

Gallego is a military veteran. Like Crow, he served in Iraq, deploying there in 2005 as an infantryman, serving with Lima Company, 3rd Battalion, 25th Marines. Lima Company was charged with stability and security operations in Al-Anbar Province and “saw some of the worst fighting of the Iraq War, losing 22 Marines and a Navy Corpsman to enemy action in eight months,” Gallego’s Congressional website explains.

In their virtual meeting, Abdul Rahman thanked Gallego “for his staunch support” for the Kurdish people and “invited him to visit Kurdistan,” the KRG mission said.

Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wisconsin) is, like Gallego, a Marine Corps veteran of OIF and the campaign against the Sunni Arab insurgency in Al-Anbar Province.

Gallagher “served for seven years on active duty as a Counterintelligence/Human Intelligence Officer and Regional Affairs Officer for the Middle East/North Africa,” his website explained. He “deployed twice to Al Anbar Province, Iraq as a commander of intelligence teams” and “served on General Petraeus’s Central Command Assessment Team in the Middle East.”

Gallagher is a member of the House Armed Services Committee. In “a friendly and productive exchange in a virtual meeting,” they “discussed a range of issues,” including “Erbil-Baghdad relations, the economic situation, and security challenges facing Kurdistan and Iraq,” a KRG press release stated.

“They also focused on US support to the Peshmerga and Iraqi Security Forces, as outlined in the National Defense Authorization Act,” while Abdul Rahman thanked Gallagher “for his continued support to the Kurdistan Region and the Peshmerga and his interest in Iraq as a whole.”

Other important engagements included a meeting with Rep. Ted Deutch (D-Florida), Chairman of the Subcommittee of the House Foreign Affairs Committee on the Middle East, North Africa and Global Counterterrorism.

“They discussed the security and political issues impacting Kurdistan, Iraq, and the region,” a press statement from the KRG mission said. The KRG envoy “also briefed the Congressman on the humanitarian situation” and Iraq’s parliamentary elections, scheduled for October.

Abdul Rahman also briefed Rep. Brian Babin (R-Texas), a member of the House Armed Services Committee and the Kurdish-American Congressional Caucus.

They “had an interesting exchange on the situation in Kurdistan and Iraq,” the KRG mission said. “The Congressman expressed his support” for the people of Kurdistan, whom he described “as resilient and resourceful.”

Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-New York), whose district includes cities in upstate New York, Binghamton and Utica, with significant Kurdish populations, is a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and will soon join the Kurdish American Congressional Caucus.

Abdul Rahman met Tenney, updating her “on the security and economic situation in Kurdistan,” while the Congresswoman “expressed her support to the people of Kurdistan and her wish to visit Kurdistan in the near future,” a KRG press release said.

Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Arizona) is a member of the House Committee on Natural Resources. Elected in 2010, Gosar had been a dentist—just one indication of the wide variety of people who serve as representatives of the American people.

Abdul Rahman briefed Gosar “on the recent security and political developments in the region” and “the economic and humanitarian situation in Kurdistan, including the agriculture and energy sectors,” while “she thanked him for his support of Kurdistan.”