The Kurds: Noah's Ark to Post-Saddam Iraq

2009 Vol. 4: July/Aug

Most of the world “discovered” the Kurds in the winter of 1991 when they watched multitudes of strangely dressed people climbing snow-covered mountains to escape the wrath of Saddam Hussein. For most, this was their first glimpse of something that had happened many times; in fact, as recently as three years before. During Saddam’s plundering Anfal Operation of 1988, 180,000 Kurds were killed, 4,000 villages were destroyed, and millions were driven to refugee camps in Turkey and Iran. Needless to say,