Will the Parties to submit the documents?

By Asos Hardi

Awene

I read on the Kurdistan regional government's website that the committee set up to investigate alleged Kurdish collaborators with Saddam Hussein’s regime has asked the United States military and all the Iraqi political parties to hand over Baathist intelligence documents. It is unclear whether this was an official request or just a press statement, but the documents held by US forces and the political parties are central to resolving the issue.

The Kurdish committee cannot impose demands on the US military, but we would like to know whether the committee is at least going to insist that the Kurdish parties submit what documents they have? Kurdistan regional president Massoud Barzani has told the media that the committee has full powers to act, and its head is an independent judge. That raises the question of whether the parties really will open their files, or just hand over some worthless documents. Who is going to make them them? In a country where the security and intelligence agencies are controlled by political parties, what can an independent committee do? It is like a game of snakes and ladders: in theory, we are making progress, but we are always afraid that the dice might land us on a snake and take us back to the beginning of the game.

(Awene is a Sulaimaniyah-based independent newspaper issued weekly by the Awene)

IWPR