Turkey has demonstrated hypersensitivity about the Kurdish issue, expressing discomfort with the US alliance with Iraqi Kurds, who Turkey expected to react to more cautiously given Kurdish separatists past willingness to employ terrorist tactics. However, Turkey?s problems with its indigenous Kurdish population are a product of what happens inside Turkey, the outcome of historic Turkish efforts to undermine the Kurdish ethnic identity, and the Kurds? violent reactions to that history. It is an in-house problem, and Turkish attempts to portray the conflict between Turkish Kurds and the Turkish government as a struggle that has anything to do with Iraqi Kurds ring hollow.

Iraqi Kurds suffered years of genocidal tactics employed against them. The Anfal campaign, from February 23 until September 6, 1988, saw the use of mustard and nerve gas to kill thousands of people, 75 percent of whom were women and children. A number of mass graves are easily identified as Kurdish by the colorful traditional Kurdish clothing uncovered within. Further, Kurds have largely been important Coalition allies, their peshmerga forces have been fighting partners, and they have demonstrated more patience with Coalition reconstruction efforts than Iraqi Arabs.