Amid Euphoria, Kurds Vow to ‘Get Back What We Lost’

Past money-changers and through alleys of carpet dealers and barbers; past boys racing on bicycles with colored spokes and mothers carrying pictures of lost sons; past old warriors who never won freedom and young men waving banners in the dust; past balloons and horns and girls in sequined dresses, the murmur turned to a roar:

Baghdad has fallen.

They are three words most Kurds in northern Iraq thought they’d never hear. But as U.S. tanks rolled through the streets and bazaars of Baghdad on Wednesday, celebrations swept across the mountains and the plains of the north. Saddam Hussein was merciless here. His regime destroyed thousands of villages, his army killed 5,000 Kurds in a chemical attack on Halabja, and 180,000 more disappeared in the shadow of his security forces.

“I’m from Halabja,” said Kafya Aziz, watching as a crowd swelled in Governor’s Square. “I escaped the chemicals, but my son and husband did not. I’d like to cut Saddam to pieces for all he’s taken. I’m happy today. I’m too old, or I’d be dancing. I feel like a virgin girl of 14. We’ve been imprisoned until now.”

As towns and cities outside Iraqi government control partied through Wednesday night, Kurdish forces backed by U.S. warplanes advanced along the northern front, following retreating Iraqi army units near Mosul and Kirkuk. American bombing has weakened Iraqis at the front in recent days as planes delivered troops, tanks and artillery to northern airstrips.

Kurdish commanders said their fighters were moving to control villages and cities they lost to Hussein’s army after a thwarted uprising following the 1991 Persian Gulf War. The push for an offensive rather than waiting for an Iraqi surrender intensified Wednesday night with the news of Baghdad’s fate.

At the same time, Kurdish military commanders have been careful to heed U.S. demands for restraint to avoid angering Turkey, which is concerned that Kurds will declare independence.

Kurds hope that the fall of Baghdad will reverberate through the nation and that Kirkuk -- which Kurds view as their Jerusalem -- will topple soon. The Kurds have a sprawling underground network in the region, and they have waited for years to spark an insurrection and take control of the city and its 300 oil wells.

Celebrations in Sulaymaniyah grew throughout the day as people surrounded TV sets in shops broadcasting images from the pan-Arab Al Jazeera satellite channel.

Waiters danced on hotel rooftops. Pickup trucks loaded with boys waving Kurdish flags slid through crowds. Firecrackers popped. Women wearing bright dresses and new lipstick walked arm in arm on the sidewalks as children, some sitting in the laps of their cigar-smoking fathers, smiled amid a joy they were too young to comprehend.

Swallows flitted overhead. The cigarette factory let out early. The Muslim call to prayer was drowned out by car horns. And the pistachio boys giggled with dinars in their pockets as video cameras scanned the chaos and traffic cops smirked and shook their heads.

“I’m so glad for victory,” said Taha Hamma Mamrashid, peeking through the crowd in his wheelchair. “We’ve suffered much. As you see, I am not normal. I was in Saddam’s prison, and then they forced me to fight on the front lines of the Iran-Iraq war. I was shot in the spine and cannot walk. This is the first day of my happiness.”

Happiness in northern Iraq will be tempered for generations. Hussein’s legacy leaves a deep imprint. It exists in the bent bodies of children with congenital defects whose parents in 1988 breathed in the regime’s poison gas in Halabja.

It is in the men with limbs lost to civil war and uprising. It is on the bullet-pocked former security building, where Kurds were tortured, raped and left to die. It is on the faces of mothers whose sons were taken by soldiers in the night and never returned.

“My father was executed in Mosul,” said one man.

“We were exiled from Kirkuk,” said a woman.

“If God wills it, we will get back what we lost,” said Narmeen Muhammed, her hair covered in a scarf as she watched men hoist banners of victory.

“My hope is to never forget this day,” said Aram Maroof. “It will be a day in our history. We’ve been afraid for so long. Afraid he would attack us. But the fear is gone, and we won’t live that way anymore.”

When the Kurds weren’t thanking God, they were praising President Bush. The Kurds have long clamored for the destruction of the Iraqi regime. Over the weekend, one Kurdish TV station pirated live broadcasts of the Fox News Channel and, instead of anchor analysis, piped in American anthems as U.S. tanks entered Baghdad.

The Kurds have benefited from American military power since 1991. The 3.7 million Kurds living in the autonomous enclave of northern Iraq have been protected from Hussein’s forces by U.S. and British warplanes. On Wednesday, the American flag and pictures of the president were lifted through the streets.

“I love you, Mr. Bush,” read one sign. “Welcome U.S.A.”

By nightfall, the horns and drumbeats had grown louder. Houses were empty; streets were full. There would be little sleep.

Standing atop the eagle monument in Governor’s Square, a young man held up an F-16 fighter jet made of cardboard. Mazyar Muzufar, 19, made the plane one month ago.

“I’d like to make a real plane like this,” said Muzufar, who wants to be an engineer. “This is such a nice day. I am from Kirkuk. I am displaced. I fled the Iraqi regime. Saddam ruled us by killing us.”