Iraq's election wild card: Kirkuk

Throughout the Kurdish neighborhoods of Kirkuk, a picture hangs at checkpoints, in offices, and even illuminated on the sides of buildings: a portly politician waving a piece paper at a table full of other bureaucrats. It's "Uncle Jalal" - PUK head Jalal Talabani - waving an Ottoman-era map of Iraq at the Iraqi Governing Council and declaring that Kirkuk has always been part of Kurdistan.

"Kirkuk is a historic issue for Kurdish leaders," says Hiwa Osman, a Kurdish political analyst. "Throughout recent Kurdish history, Kurdish leaders have never been able to get Kirkuk. They had Sulaymaniyah, Arbil, Dohuk, since 1963, but the contentious issue has always been Kirkuk - all the wars, all the negotiations, the failures of the negotiations, have always been over Kirkuk. So it will be extremely difficult for them to turn around and say 'we couldn't get Kirkuk.' "

In the dusty, sprawling Barudkhana neighborhood of Kirkuk, everybody is building: gigantic trucks groaning with cement, bricks, and plaster lumber down narrow streets that are little more than channels of mud and stones. Giant, vulgar mansions, in the concrete Ottoman vernacular of Baghdad's nouveau riche, belong to wealthy Kurds who fared well in the capital after leaving Kirkuk. Those who didn't find fortunes are putting up smaller, humbler brick-and-clay bungalows; some, abandoned half-built when the owner's money ran out, announce "House for Sale" in carefully scrawled graffiti.

All these houses belong to Kurds. But life is hard for the few who actually live here. Behind a row of humble houses, Sazgar Mahmoud's children play in a steaming pond of sewage. Mrs. Mahmoud, a voluble matriarch, beams at her six sons and daughters with pride.

The Mahmouds are living as refugees in their own city. The neighborhood has no services yet, so they siphon water from a nearby hospital and wire to local electrical poles. "Even the house belongs to others, not us," says Mahmoud sadly. "They are letting us stay here as charity."

Outside town, about 7,000 Kurds live in tents, waiting to see if they will get houses and land as reparations for their expulsion. Mr. Rozbayani, an unrepentant advocate of removing almost all Arabs from Kirkuk, has been bringing them water and food from the budget of the governorate. But it is not enough; he wants money from Baghdad's central government.

"Kirkuk, underground, is full of oil," says Rozbayani. "But above ground, it is the poorest city in Iraq ... compared to the resources that we have."

Amin hopes to move back to Kirkuk someday, when the situation is better. For now, he drives to the city and back to get his monthly food rations. The little portions of food are worth about 10 dollars; his monthly taxi ride to Kirkuk and back, along a road littered with land mines, wrecked cars, and carcasses of wild dogs, costs about $7. It's barely worth it.

"When the city was freed, they promised us that we would get land and food in Kirkuk if we went back there," says Amin.

"The food agents told us that if we went back to Kirkuk, we would get a piece of land and some money. They said we could get about $3000, with a piece of land," he says.

His wealthier brother Dilshad, who makes more money clearing land mines from outside Kirkuk, snorts cynically. "We've heard many, many promises from these guys, so we don't believe them anymore," he says, puffing dismissively on his cigarette.

"I didn't believe that I would get these things," says Amin glumly, "but I was hoping. So I went."

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