Admiral Describes Way Forward for Baghdad Troop Surge
By Jim Garamone
American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, June 8, 2007 – The surge of U.S. troops into Iraq as part of the Baghdad Security Plan is already having an effect, and Americans need to be patient, a spokesman for Multinational Force Iraq said here during a June 6 interview.

The coalition in Iraq is not where it wants to be, "but we're a lot farther on than we were before," said Navy Rear Adm. Mark Fox.
Elements of the last of five U.S. "surge" brigades are arriving in Baghdad and, all told, more than 28,000 American troops will be part of the surge.
"We are conducting more operations where we haven't operated before," Fox said. "We are seeing an increase in contacts with insurgents and an increase in activity."
The increase in contacts has resulted in an increase in U.S. casualties, he said, but the number of sectarian killings has dropped since President Bush announced the plan in January. There was an increase in violence in May, but Fox attributed it to "greater activity -- engaging more than we have in the past."
The coalition and Iraqi forces are clearing neighborhoods and are holding them. "It will take some time ... to set the conditions now and increase the level of protection for the Iraqi people," he said.
The will of the Iraqi people is a center of gravity for the struggle against extremists.
"Protecting them is key to the way ahead," Fox said. "If you protect the Iraqi people, you have an enormous ally."
The Iraqi people are looking at the example set in Anbar province, Fox said. The sheikhs and tribal leaders are encouraging the people of the mostly Sunni province to cooperate with coalition forces and the Iraqi government, Fox said. The incidents in the country have dropped precipitously.
"The more contact we have with the Iraqi people, the more the people see the Iraqi security forces and the coalition forces are working to protect them, the more interaction with and cooperation from the Iraqi people we will get," the admiral said.
The strategy in Baghdad and other urban centers is focused on joint security stations. The stations allow Iraqi and coalition forces to maintain constant presence and protection in the neighborhoods.
There are currently plans to build 76 stations in greater Baghdad. In them, Iraqi and coalition forces live side by side, Fox said. The coalition forces continue to work with Iraqi soldiers and police officers in training. The two nationalities patrol the neighborhoods together. The Iraqi forces provide the cultural understanding of the neighborhoods.
The permanent presence is allowing the Iraqi and coalition forces to build the neighborhoods. Businesses are returning to the areas, and the building funded by the coalition and Iraqi government pays workers in the neighborhoods to make improvements.
"U.S. forces have won every battle, but military force cannot win the war," Fox said. "Economic, political, diplomatic efforts are needed, and those take time."
These are long-term efforts. "Baghdad is a city the size of Detroit," Fox said. "It will take time for the Iraqi government and coalition to turn these around."
The Iraqi government is holding political discussions with some insurgent groups to get them to buy in to the government, as the Anbar groups did, Fox said.
In other areas of Iraq, city councils are debating the way forward. "It's not Jefferson-and-Madison type democracy," Fox said. "It has a very Iraqi cast to it, but I found it very encouraging to see the people arguing over how to move forward."
Iraqi security forces are making progress, but there are problems with training and loyalty, the admiral acknowledged. The Iraqi Army has to be a national institution, he said, and Iraqi soldiers must put loyalty to the government above loyalty to sect or tribe or region. Again, this will take time, he said.
"There are some strong and good things going on, but there are obviously loyalty and training problems," Fox said. "But I like the trend. I'm seeing more and more indications that the Iraqi security forces are becoming more capable, more confident and more comfortable in operations."

Biographies:
Rear Adm. Mark Fox, USN

Related Sites:
Multinational Force Iraq

Wealth is created by the broadest specialization and division of labor.

The early Greeks taught the Romans that. The Greek City States could not survive fighting one another.

So the Romans created the biggest empire possible variegating it with a network of roads, safe seaways and trade laws.

What the Romans learned to their sadness was that big for trade purposes is way too big for internal management purposes.

It was the Americans who latched on to the fiction of nation and states.

For trade (and defense) we are one great nation via the interstate commerce preemption clause.

For internal management issues, we are states, counties, cities, special districts etc.

Done right it works well.

The tension is always between the Hamiltonians that want more power in the central government and the rest of us that figure they dont know how to run our personal lives and local communities better than we do.

Unfortunately, because of Hamilton and the outcome of the civil war, power consistently flows to the Federal government because they lie cheat and steal.

The social security system is a Ponzi scheme. Federal legislation is usually a bribe of some sort. And they borrow money, indebt the nation and then hand out money.

It should not matter to us what in the world George Bush feels each morning. That is too much power devolved to one man.

The trick is not to work for "good government." That is an oxymoron. No government should be entrusted with this much power because no man is a saint, even a government employee.

by Larry Stirling

http://www.michaelyon-online.com/wp/death-or-glory-part-ii-of-iv.htm
Into the Desert With the Queen’s Royal Lancers
Sunrise.

The intended target in an ambush never knows when it’s over. Yesterday’s ambush, which killed two soldiers and wounded three others, is a case in point. Once the Brits had dealt with the immediate aftermath of the ambush—setting up security, calling in air support, tending to the wounded and getting EOD in to deal with the remaining dozens of bombs—our convoy still had its mission objective. So we put the disabled vehicles in tow and continued our journey deeper into the desert.

This location was ideal for an area ambush, in which the enemy predicts or tries to shape your movements after the first attack, so that you move into other attacks. If the enemy does a good job, your force should be increasingly damaged and disorganized with each new ambush. If they do a very good job, they might wipe you out completely leaving nothing but burning vehicles, dead bodies, and maybe some prisoners.

We were naturally canalized, and could be attacked repeatedly on the way out. Knowing that another attack could be imminent, those of us positioned in front as a small recon element in unarmored Land Rovers also knew we were the trip wire. We’d probably get whatever was coming first and that would be the end of it even though we’d driven through the first ambush without a scratch.

I wondered how the soldiers back in the convoy were doing. After an attack that killed two of their friends, they spent hours in the hot sun cleaning up the wreckage and then hauling it into the night. They had to be exhausted; since we hadn’t had time to stop for a meal, they must have been hungry to boot. Their spirits showed no sign of wavering. The worse it got, the better they got.

Ash had been standing at that machine gun in the back of the Land Rover since 8:30 the morning before, and except for normal nature breaks, he’d been nearly continuously manning that weapon as we drove in the sun on dusty, bumpy roads, or he was standing in the sun (and later under starlight) for what must have been 16 or 18 hours straight. I’d gone mostly numb on my seating parts, but at least once an hour, like clockwork, Ash would manage to check in on me.

“How ya doin’ Michael?” he’d say. “Need any wata?” (Ash didn’t use the letter “r” much.) “Drink lots of wata Michael. We got plenty o’ wata and ya bein’ a civvy an all, I gotta look afta ya.”

I wasn’t always sure if he was still joking, but I liked him better by the hour. Along the way, he asked about American soldiers, those in Baghdad in particular.

“How ya mates doin’ in Baghdad?” he asked. “Heard they gotta rough time in Baghdad.”

“Our guys are doing great,” I would say.

“Yeah, but lots ’o ca bombs and that, yeah? And what do they think about spendin’ 15 months in Iraq?” (British tours of duty are six months in duration.)
“They ain’t gonna be happy,” I said, “But they can handle it.” (Big words from a writer unless he can handle it too.)
It must have been around midnight when road suddenly gave way, trapping a vehicle. Apparently, severe water erosion caused micro-canyons that were simple for man or camel to traverse, but impassable for large convoys. Driving heavy vehicles in this treacherous terrain without lights was begging for disaster, and now the road collapse had effectively split the convoy. But fatigue was becoming by far our biggest threat. So the Battle Group Commander, LTC Richard Nickersl-Eckersall made a wise call that we’d stop here and move out again before daybreak. Unit commanders put out security and set out to get their soldiers some rest in the form of a few hours of sleep.

There isn’t much room in a Land Rover for extra baggage, so my sleeping bag had been placed on another vehicle. No matter, I was going to just fall asleep on the ground like I normally do in such situations, but several British soldiers would have none of that. A medic named Kate, God bless her, went to find me a sleeping bag. Meanwhile, the officers and NCOs kept working, checking on their soldiers and gear. Several, including LTC Richard Nickersl-Eckersall actually apologized to me for being ambushed the day before, and for things not going so well on my first mission with the Queen’s Royal Lancers.

After Kate found a spare one, I was ready to slip into both the sleeping bag and some deep sleep, when another soldier said something like, “What ya doin’ mate? Our guests don’t sleep on tha flooa.” The soldiers had cots and I was going to sleep on the ground and I was not in the least disturbed at the notion. I have no idea who the soldier was, but he walked down the line and found me a place to sleep in the back of one of the Land Rovers. After telling me not to wander off into the desert, he disappeared into the darkness.

I took only one boot off to dry my feet at a time, in case of attack. Just before I fell asleep, two guards came up in the darkness (again I have no idea who they were) to check. “You the American writa?” one of them asked, “Just checkin’ that you all okay. You good mate?” the other one asked. Again, “Yes, thanks.” I’m not sure which one asked if I “needed a wata?” but I barely lifted my head to answer: “I’m good bro, just need some shut-eye and I’m good for another hundred miles.” They both chuckled and disappeared as I nodded off.

Sleep came quickly. Morning came even more quickly.

“Les’ go, mate!” said one of the soldiers, “Up an’ at ’em!”

And so we took off under the thin light of a desert dawn, the sunrise affording enough light to allow a few photos.

The convoy now was split because of the road cave-in, but the commander wanted to establish a proper base camp and security.

Parts of the desert were dusty-dry, while others were boggy.

Like quicksand.

Suddenly—and it seemed to happen all at once—we must have gotten half a dozen vehicles stuck. And I mean they were properly stuck up to the axles.

That’s Kate the medic in the back of the Land Rover.

It looked like we might be stuck for hours, but the soldiers knew this drill. Even the larger vehicles were extracted within minutes and we just kept rolling into the desert.

The soldiers were rolling by, smiling.

Despite the British press reports that make their own soldiers out to be cowering on bases in Basra, truck after truck of them here were in high spirits. News flash: Those reports are false. Derelict media coverage is another aspect of this war British and American soldiers share, and it rankles here in the southern part of Iraq as deeply as it does everywhere else. Practically no one writes about the Brits down here. Important pages in history remain unwritten, while policy decisions are based on the public perception that all is lost here. That this public perception is based on what I have called “The Green Gator Phenomenon” is an irony that is noted, but not appreciated.

When we halted, the soldiers quickly set up ambushes on our tracks in case someone was following.

That’s Kate again. As with our military, British women regularly roll into combat. Kate wasn’t seeing much combat, but there are some women in this war who have seen far more combat than most. A lot of our true combat veterans are young women, though most people would likely never guess by looking at them. Another story left untold.

Sometimes dusty, sometimes boggy and sometimes buoyantly sandy, the terrain was amazingly varied. Here, the desert floor had dried and its surface curled like potato chips. It actually made muffled crunching sounds underfoot.

Dust and dunes.

Going Bedouin.

Always maintaining professionalism.

Keeping the focus.

Constantly checking those weapons.

The potato chip ground.

Once at the destination, it’s time to make the destination.

When we rolled into a base camp, these soldiers didn’t need to be told what to do. First they dug holes in case we came under mortar or rocket attack, which can happen sometimes even out in the desert. The pit above would be used for the generator. Putting it in a hole not only protects the generator; it also muffles the sound.

Camouflage goes up within minutes.

A burst of work, where everyone clearly knows the drill.

Within minutes.

Hasty hole in case of rocket or mortar attack.

Where are they going?

After security was set, soldiers were given a short break and called to a meeting, which I thought was for the normal dissemination of information. So I grabbed my camera and headed off with them.

The dunes make for a natural amphitheater.

But I was mistaken. The soldiers were filing into the sand dunes amphitheater, and since I was sitting there with the camera, I made this photo before realizing that LTC Richard Nickersl-Eckersall and the priest had just begun a battlefield memorial for the two soldiers lost the day before. Suddenly, the camera weighed a hundred pounds and I saw that soldiers who had smiled at me before would glance at the camera and glance away, but it was far too late for me to leave or bury the camera in the sand. Although a few soldiers took note of it, nobody said a word. But no one had to; this was not my first memorial by far and it was like bringing a camera to someone’s funeral. I had been to many memorials and now mostly stopped taking photographs unless someone requested it, such as when CSM James Pippin and LTC Eric Welsh had requested it in Mosul earlier this year.
The Queen’s Royal Lancers is the third unit that I have embedded with to lose soldiers on my very first mission with them. The American 1-24 Infantry Regiment (“Deuce Four”) lost 3 on April 2005 to a suicide car-bomb in Mosul. One of the rescuers that day, Victor Quinonez, got shot in Baghdad about 10 days ago in May 2007.

[An aside: I just talked with “Q” on the phone last night and he is fine. He said Vice President Cheney had just stopped by to say hello and give him a Purple Heart, but what really made “Q” happiest was when his old commander, who also got shot three times in front me, heard that Q had been shot and called him up in the hospital, and then tried to recruit Q for Rangers!]

In that same city this past January, I embedded with the 2/7 CAV and on our first mission, they lost 5 to a massive IED. Both these experiences taught me that when a writer is new to a unit which suffers KIA the first day, some soldiers can have a tendency to turn against the writer. It is bad timing that can easily be amplified by bad manners, so I strive to be sensitive.

During one mission, when we hit an ambush, I was making video. Soldiers burned to death during that attack, and although I did not realize it at the time, their screams can be heard on the video. I never released the video, but still it left a hard impression on my own soul. The presence of the video camera understandably caused some soldiers to become very angry with me but the dispatch about the attack resolved most of that. Like a good soldier who doesn’t need to be told what to do, this writer knows when to turn off the recorders, internal and external, and when that turns out to be impossible, what to keep off the record, though I have little doubt that I will be shooting photos or videos again, and it could be as early as days from now, and soldiers will die. Or maybe I will die and my video will be running as I lay there burned or shot or missing my arms or legs, blinded and bleeding to death and saying things I don’t want the world to hear. And I hope that the soldiers or Marines who find my camera are as sensitive to my family as I am with theirs.

With the Queen’s Royal Lancers, although most noticed my faux pas, all continued to treat me very well and I was not made to feel unwelcome at the memorial. Every combat soldier has a bond with his fellow soldiers that is deep and abiding. Shakespeare first coined the phrase “band of brothers” to describe it. And that day, heads bowed in reverence, the soldiers seated in a canyon that seemed carved for such a solemn purpose, they remembered with honor the service and sacrifice of their fallen brothers. There were some tears for the lost men, and even more for the families now left behind.

During the ceremony, a Bedouin riding a camel popped up—just his head and the camel’s head—like dual periscopes from behind a sand dune. The Bedouin dropped back down like a submarine, disappearing into the desert sea.

Later that day, soldiers maintained their preparations for combat, doing exercises, cleaning gear and weapons, reviewing plans and so forth.

A young officer called home on the Iridium satellite phone. British soldiers can buy minutes on these phones.

The excellent American organization Soldiers’ Angels helps British and American soldiers. Those bags of mail “to any soldier” get posted around British Army walls same as they do on American walls. Soldiers tack up cards all over the place from kindergarten classes, and I love reading those things.

Kids ask funny questions. Sometimes I wonder how many get censored by teachers and never make the mailing. I’ve seen cards asking things like, “How many times have you been shot?” More often, there are questions like, “Do you get to eat sometimes? How do you go to the bathroom?” Not surprisingly, soldiers love those unfiltered cards. Usually, about the time I’m feeling down because soldiers just got killed or wounded or I’m at a hospital where they are being treating, I’ll see those cards up on a wall and start reading, my spirits lifting with each one, until it’s time to go.

Out here in the desert, there’s no place for cards on the tent walls, but they have Iridium satellite phones, and can send text emails, and messages from home are hugely welcomed by the troops.

Otherwise, life is simple. Sand. Wind. Sand. More wind.

The shower. Soldiers who actually bathe out here can use a couple bottles of water every few days.

Resupply.

That night’s resupply was a scheduled air drop. On uncommon occasions, a parachute might fail, sending a package that weighs a ton or more rocketing down to earth. But even if the parachutes all open, if one of those crates lands on someone, it’s goodbye. This stuff happens, especially in wars. People get crushed to death.

As the C-130 approached overhead in the darkness, I held a PVS-14 night-vision monocular (an expensive gadget bought by reader support) up to the video camera (also by readers), and watched as maybe 18 parachutes popped out. As the video captured the luminous green sky and the puffs of deploying white parachutes, the rumble of the blacked-out airplane blocked out the sounds of soldiers around me yelling, “Where’s- Michael-Where’s-Michael-Where’s-Michael-Where’s-Michael!”

One of the parachutes had not opened. Like normal—e.g. the times when I’ve gotten into firefights—somehow I managed to turn off the video camera! The initial jolt seems to make my thumb jump. So now this package is rumbling through the sky and part of it can now be heard loudly as it barrels toward us. Something was about to be crushed and I was in a Land Rover gun turret trying to video the stupid thing, but was startled by all frantic shouting: “Where’s-Michael-Where’s-Michael-Where’s-Michael!”

The soldiers were scrambling to save me, as if they were all going to get fired if I got crushed. In the confusion, I cracked my head on the Land Cruiser (that’s right . . . I had taken off my helmet to film the impending crash). And then— phuuuupp!!! The pallet splatted onto the earth hundreds of yards away and nobody got killed. The others floated down and landed safely. I thought it best not to gripe about the bump on my head. I told the soldiers I had not been afraid and they clearly knew I was lying.

Gas Fire Candle from over the border.

The gas fires along the horizon were creating amazing light effects and while I should have helped the soldiers unload the pallets I started taking photos instead. Normally I would help, but there seemed limited time and the photos might be spectacular. Knowing the decision not to help was probably a bad one—a writer needs to show he is pulling his weight—the payoff was that readers would get the photos. Now it can be revealed that even the soldiers got some payoff, because when I lay down to get the best angle for a still picture, there I smelled . . . camels. Nasty, smelly creatures one and all. But off in the distance was the orange of Iran. Good grief.
The pale blue light they gathered around is a chemlight that marks the pallets.

The gas fire in Iran that looked like a giant candle. There was zero moonlight, yet the giant candle burning off the gas from the wells, apparently, glistened off the sand dunes. The soldiers quickly unloaded the food and water and packed it onto trucks.

They piled up the trash from the packing.

And it gets burned just as the sun begins to rise.

British soldiers often make fun of each other’s accents, saying people from such-and-such area are inbred, or that others are wimps or dolts. These observations, offered as scientific fact, are then followed up with strings of jokes that leave everyone rolling. But the jokes are often just foreplay for the hardcore wrestling matches, which invariably end up with one guy taking on two or more and getting pummeled. And then, they brush each other off and go back to work as if nothing untoward happened.

Young American soldiers wrestle like this, too. But not nearly as often, and never with quite the same ferocity. American soldiers don’t usually beat each other as hard during the wrestling matches. The Brits actually punch each other in the body, while American soldiers sometimes choke each other into unconsciousness. It’s the young soldiers’ way of saying they love each other.
Later that morning, the explosives experts blew up the wrecked armored vehicle wherein the two soldiers had been lost.

I had been with the Queen’s Royal Lancers for about 36 hours. In a few hours, we would head out on a mission to the Iranian border, and barely miss running over a land mine. And that would be only the start of a long strange day, the subject of Death or Glory Part 3.

Read Death or Glory Part 1 now.
Michael Yon does not receive funding or financial support from Fox News, movie, book or television deals at this time. He is entirely reader supported. He relies on his readers to help him replace his equipment and cover his expenses so that he may remain in Iraq and bring you the stories of our soldiers. If you value his work, please consider supporting his mission.

Tuesday, June 5, 2007

Middle East: Egyptian Democrat Optimistic About Region's Democratic Prospects

June 5, 2007 (RFE/RL) -- Saad Eddin Ibrahim is one of the Arab world's most prominent voices on behalf of democracy and human rights. An Egyptian, he was arrested in 2000 and sentenced to seven years but freed again in 2003 when Egypt's highest appeals court declared his trials improper and cleared him of all charges.

Ibrahim is founder and chairman of the Ibn Khaldun Center for Development Studies and a professor of political sociology at the American University in Cairo. RFE/RL Radio Free Afghanistan correspondent Sultan Sarwar spoke with Ibrahim at the Democracy and Security conference in Prague.

RFE/RL: You are optimistic about the long-term prospects for democracy in the Middle East. But how do you reconcile that with the current crisis in Iraq, which some critics say points to the failure of U.S.-led efforts to promote democracy?

Saad Eddin Ibrahim: In the short run, the region seems to be in turmoil and this turmoil is bound to increase in the short run. But in the medium and long run, the region is discovering very slowly that democracy is a solution. The war in Iraq seems to have had mixed results. On the one hand, it gave dictatorships an excuse to say, "Look, pushing too quickly for democracy or foreign powers coming into the region to impose democracy has created havoc, has created confusion, and has led to war." But at the same time, the very fact that a dictatorship in Iraq had fallen seemed to have put all other dictators on notice, and all of them are now talking about reform. Whether they mean it or not, at least the language of reform has become a prevalent language. So whether sincere or not, everybody is talking about reform, and everybody is talking about democracy.

RFE/RL: How do you evaluate developments in Afghanistan, where democratic forces confront fundamentalists?

Ibrahim: I think that the situation in Afghanistan will continue to be contested by these two camps, but I am taking comfort from the fact that the extremists, the terrorists, the violent ones are retreating; they are not making gains. They always come back, but they do not make net gains, so far. I hope that this will continue and that with the country's social and economic development, people will become immune to the message of the Taliban and their likes.

RFE/RL: You are in Prague attending a meeting of democracy activists from many countries who are discussing ways to strengthen their efforts. Do you think this conference, where the keynote speaker is U.S. President George W. Bush, will have much impact on political decision makers in the Middle East?

Ibrahim: Well, everybody is taking note of it. My wife just talked to me on the phone. She told me that there is a lot of coverage in the Egyptian media on this conference and also a lot of criticism of me attending the conference, of why I'm invited to the conference and what I'm going to do or say to President Bush. They seem to be nervous, the government. The opposition, on the other hand, seems to be taking some comfort in the fact that at least a representative from civil society in Egypt is taking a prominent part in this conference.

RFE/RL: Let's talk a moment about the situation in Egypt. There the only strong opposition is the Muslim Brotherhood. Why are there not also liberal opposition parties or, when they exist, why are they so often weak?

Ibrahim: Well, the Muslim Brotherhood has an advantage and that is that they have the mosques. One hundred thousand mosques in Egypt, whereas the [Hosni] Mubarak regime has screwed down tightly on civil society, on the secular opposition, and therefore we could not operate. We could not do anything in the public square or in the street.

We could not organize rallies, we could not organize marches or demonstrations because of emergency laws. Emergency laws have been in effect since 1981, since the assassination of President [Anwar] Sadat. So for the last 26 years, these emergency laws have prevented secularists from going out and organizing and mobilizing.

On the other hand, the Muslim Brothers have the mosques, and that is an advantage that is without design probably by the regime, but it has played in their favor. Meanwhile, I do not like to exaggerate their constituency because despite the fact that they have freer space to move in, still their share in the last Egyptian parliamentary election was 20 percent out of the 20 percent [of registered voters who actually voted]. So, 77 percent of the registered voters did not like to vote for them, nor to vote for the regime. And that is a 77 percent that I consider to be the silent majority, the potential constituency for liberal-democratic parties whenever liberal-democratic parties are allowed full freedom to operate.

RFE/RL: Do you think that there is a future for liberal parties in Egypt?

Ibrahim: Absolutely. Kefaya -- and there is a new party, a very exciting party called the Democratic Front Party that just obtained a license last week, and it is led by Dr. Osama Ghazali Harb and Dr. Yahia al-Gamal, two prominent public figures in Egypt, and young people have turned out in big numbers to join it. In a sense, it is like Al-Ghad Party, which was led by Mr. Ayman Nur, but since Ayman Nur is in prison, [the Democratic Front Party] is probably going to fill the vacuum that Ayman could have been able to fill had he been allowed some freedom.

Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty © 2007 RFE/RL, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Iraq: Analyst Examines Possible Turkish Cross-Border Attack

June 5, 2007 (RFE/RL) -- Turkey is deploying tanks and other armor on its southeastern border amid speculation that Ankara may be about to launch a cross-border attack on PKK bases in northern Iraq. Turkey blames rebels of the PKK group for a recent suicide bombing in Ankara and guerilla attacks on Turkish troops in southeastern Turkey. RFE/RL correspondent Valentinas Mite asked Michael Rubin, a resident scholar from the American Enterprise Institute and a former political adviser to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, about the situation.

RFE/RL: There is much debate in Turkey about whether to launch an incursion into Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region. Is Ankara really on the verge of invading Iraq?

Michael Rubin: I think they may be. There's a lot of frustration in Turkey. The Turks have been asking the Americans for more than four years now to take care of the PKK since 2003 and at the NATO summit in Istanbul in June of 2004 [U.S.] President [George W.] Bush had promised [Turkish] Prime Minister [Recep Tayyip] Erdogan that the United States would take action against the PKK. Now the PKK presence in northern Iraq is limited and its localized and so the Turks say, 'You can do something; it's not impossible.' I think the Iraqi Kurds may be a little bit too overconfident. After all, you have increasing violence in Turkey, an increasing PKK terrorism in Turkey. You have two elections coming up. You have the election for the Turkish parliament on July 22 and soon thereafter the parliament will select the president. And in an election campaign, you also have a situation where any episode gets amplified into the political debate. And therefore patience is really running out.

RFE/RL: Does Turkey have some proof that the Kurdish regional government is supporting the PKK?

Rubin: There are two problems here. There is one issue whether PKK fighters are crossing the border and staging attacks in Turkey and returning. That probably isn't so much the problem. The second issue is whether there are explosive and other supplies being trans-shipped from Iraq into Turkey to support the operations. The bombs that are going off in Turkey aren't homemade bombs, made with fertilizer and so forth. Some of the weapons which the Turks have discovered are weapons which were given to the Kurdish regional government. Somehow they got out of the hands of the peshmerga [the Iraqi Kurdish security force] and into the hands of the PKK.

RFE/RL: What you are saying is that Iraqi Kurds are supporting the PKK. Am I right?

Rubin: Passively, certainly. There is a dispute whether they are doing so actively. But there is no doubt anymore that they have supplied medical supplies to the PKK; they also sold foodstuffs and other material to the PKK. Whether they doing more is something that's debated. But there's very little argument that they have been supplying the PKK.

And recently for example, they provided medical treatment for senior PKK officials in the hospital in Irbil. And the Turks have also photographed senior PKK officials in the restaurants in Irbil and so forth, and that's escalated the crisis as well.

RFE/RL: Can this situation lead to the clash of the two NATO allies -- the United States and Turkey?

Rubin: Here, I think the Kurds are misjudging their position a little bit. The [Iraqi] Kurds would make an argument [to the United States] that 'we were your best friends and you should abandon the Turks.' What they don't understand is that if forced to make a decision, the United States is going to side with the Turks. The Turks have been a NATO ally and, despite the problems in our relationships since 2003, there's a longer history there. At the same when many Kurds a pro-American, the Iraqi Kurds have an unfortunate habit of playing both sides.

RFE/RL: Do you see a real possibility of solving the Kurdish question in Iraq?

Rubin: For the Iraqi Kurds, yes. If the issue of Iraqi Kurdistan is just the issue of Iraqi federalism, it's much more easily solved and, at the minimum, the Iraqi Kurds will have some degree, a major degree of, a major degree of federalism. They not going backward to where they were before 1991.