The Vacation Paradise Known as Iraq

Iraq Report: 3-14 November 2007

I went to northern Iraq to help out at a mental health clinic in Duhok. I was specifically brought along to do lectures on post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) for the counselors in the clinic and possibly to see some patients. If I had only been able to accomplish these two things during my 10 days in the country, I would have been happy, but it ended up being much, much more. The following is a report on some of the highlights of the trip and an attempt to get out on “paper” what I learned.

Preceding the Turkish Invasion?
There had been some serious escalation to the conflict between Turkey and the PKK on the Iraqi border in the weeks leading up to my trip. The PKK is a Kurdish group hiding out in the mountain caves of Iraq along the border and occasionally attacking Turkish military sites. The PKK wants to establish a greater Kurdish state, which would include a significant chunk of what is now Turkey, so obviously the Turks aren’t too keen on the idea. There is lots of information to be had on the conflicts, so I won’t go into it, but suffice it to say that the two groups have been fighting on and off for the last 30 years, and during that time, Turkey has done 24 military operations into Iraq in an unsuccessful attempt to snuff them out. The PKK ambushed Turkish troops in late October, killing 12 and taking eight hostage, which caused Turkey to assemble an extra 100,000 troops on the border. So with Turkey threatening invasion, six other Americans and I came rolling through eastern Turkey. Honestly, I’m not sure why the group leader decided we should go through Turkey instead of flying directly into Iraq, but I was all for it, since it added to the adventure (and was a lot cheaper).

For a hundred miles or so, our taxi drove us east along the Syrian border, with watch towers and barbed wired suggesting we shouldn’t take bathroom breaks in the bushes on that side of the road. We reached the Iraqi border without incident and started the process of explaining what the heck we were doing there trying to cross the border. The process only took about two hours, probably because we had the secretary general of the Department of Health (DOH) on the other side of the border vouching for us. At one point, an Iraqi intelligence officer was trying to poke holes in our story until our group leader’s cell phone rang, and it was the secretary general himself. At that point, our story sounded pretty solid. So there we were in the vacation paradise known as the Republic of Iraq.

Also of interest throughout the trip was how differently Kurds were reacting to the Turkish threat. It was split exactly along gender lines. The women told me that they were all concerned, and that they were all stocking up on provisions and praying that it wouldn’t really happen. All the men that I talked to about it said they were completely unafraid, because the Turks knew better than to risk coming up against the Peshmerga (the 400,000-strong Kurdish military). Obviously, there was a bit of posturing going on.

Mental Health Clinic (Iraqi style)
I was pretty impressed by the mental health clinic as I was given the initial tour. The sad thing, though, is that according to the psychologist in charge, it is the only out-patient clinic in the entire country! In other words, the only psychological treatment available in Iraq outside of this clinic is in-patient psych wards, where people are admitted for showing dangerous psychopathic behavior and the like. So for those people seeking counseling for things like trauma and addictions, it’s this clinic or nothing.

My job was to give lectures to the mental health workers about Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and how to deal specifically with ex-soldiers, whose trauma was related to combat experiences. The complicating factor with PTSD in a war zone, and specifically among the Kurdish population that was constantly under attack by Saddam Hussein, is that everyone over the age of six probably experienced serious trauma throughout their lives. It’s not so much a matter of if they have symptoms of PTSD, but to what extent. Plus PTSD was only recently recognized officially in the US (mid-80s), and most other nations, even in Western Europe, are just starting to take notice of the problem. Suffice it to say that Iraq is not one of the countries where much is known about PTSD. So, there is a lot of work to do, and I was glad to have an opportunity to contribute.

Mountain

Duhok From Above
This is the city of Duhok in the province of Duhok from a nearby mountain top.

Checkpoint Fashion Shoot
Obviously checkpoints are common all over Iraq, but with the driver assigned to us by the Department of Health, we didn’t usually have any problems. One of the craziest things that I experienced during my time in Iraq, though, happened at one of these checkpoints in the middle of nowhere up on a mountain between Duhok and Mosul. Our van pulled to a stop, and after the PDK soldiers looked in, they asked us all to get out. I was not real keen on this, considering there was absolutely no one within shouting distance, and they probably could have done absolutely anything they wanted to us without anyone finding out about it. Rather than look through all of our stuff, though, they got out their camera phones and asked if we could take some pictures together. I was seriously confused. The soldiers went from high-intensity, Kalashnikov-toting hard-asses to fun-loving photographers in about five seconds. They wanted to take pictures with us holding their weapons, then with us in their jail, and I simply couldn’t get over the fact that this was really happening. Am I really in Iraq taking pictures with an Iraqi militia? I wouldn’t believe it if I didn’t have all the pictures to prove it. Total craziness.

VIPs - Who, me?
I must admit to being very surprised at how much honor was bestowed on our group. We were put up in a very nice hotel, taken to nice restaurants, and introduced to people I never expected to have contact with. I had the opportunity to discuss development of the mental health clinic with the head of the Department of Health for Duhok Province, eat supper at the governor’s mansion with the governor of Duhok, discuss combat PTSD with a general of the Peshmerga and the Kurdish secretary of defense, and then to round it all out, I ate baklava with the vice-president of Kurdistan. I’m not 100 percent sure why all these doors were opened up for us, but I definitely had to go out and find myself a suit jacket and tie.

For the love of George W. Bush
At certain points during my time in Kurdistan, I had the strong suspicion that I had less love for my president than every single other person drawing breath in the Kurdish region. They simply love the US of A and whatever Bush happens to be in charge. A Lt. Colonel of the Peshmerga told me that as long as there was blood coursing through the veins of a single Peshmerga soldier, they would fight for George Bush (Sr. or Jr.). I even have it on video. I was thinking to myself, “Are you serious? I wouldn’t fight for either one of them.” Of course, then again, I’m a pacifist and don’t so much get into the whole killing thing.

Kurdistan: The Other Iraq
The tourism ministry in the semi-autonomous Kurdish region of Iraq is trying really hard to distance itself from the part of Iraq that is currently engaged in an awfully-bloody conflict. Their slogan really is “The Other Iraq.” Check out their website if you don’t believe me: http://www.theotheriraq.com. And while I don’t really think anyone is going to buy into it, things really are very different here. Some of their public services are much better than what we get in the US. Granted, they make so much money from oil that the citizens don’t even have to pay any taxes, but some of this stuff is still amazing.

We visited the men’s jail, the women’s jail, and the adolescents’ jail in Duhok, for example, and they could seriously pass for high-end youth hostels. In the men’s prison, they move freely between the carpeted bedroom upstairs, the kitchen/lounge downstairs, and the exercise area outside. There are TVs in both inside rooms, which we watched while drinking tea and eating chocolates with one pod of inmates. There are also rooms where they can learn new skills for once they make it to the outside. They can learn woodworking, haircutting, and pottery. There’s also a room with computers and instruments for use during leisure time. When I was there, there were only at about 10 percent capacity, because Prime Minister Barzani had just come through and pardoned most of them. One of the guys in our group has worked as a prison chaplain in the US and visited jails all over the world, but he’s never seen anything like this. Obviously I can’t say what the other prisons in Kurdish Iraq look like. For all I know, this was just a show prison for the foreign delegations that come through, but if that was the case, it was a pretty sweet show prison. If the many refugees from the rest of Iraq knew what prison was like, they’d be leaving their tent villages in droves just to commit crimes and get thrown in jail.

“I am PKK”
One of the things I was trying to get a feel for was what mainstream Iraqi Kurds thought about the PKK, hiding out in the mountains and using violence against Turkey in an attempt to achieve independence. One of the Kurds that we met was very clear that it was important for all people in the Kurdish government to keep their distance from the PKK at the moment. They needed to take a hard stand in order to stay in favor with the EU, the US, etc., who have dubbed the PKK a terrorist organization. “We have to pretend we don’t like them, and we have to pretend that we don’t know where they are,” I was told. A government official, who will remain unnamed, asked us what we imagined a PKK soldier to look like. Someone in our group said he thought the PKK was made up mostly of average Kurds, who believed very strongly that they deserved a larger autonomous region. Apparently pleased with our answer, he later whispered directly to us instead of through a translator: “I am PKK.” So, while my discussions can’t be taken as a scientific survey, I think it’s safe to say that there is at least a significant percent of the Kurdish population that identifies with (or directly supports) the PKK.

There may very well be more to come as I continue to process this and find out what all I'm allowed to talk about from the trip. So, stay tuned ...

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