Congress cool on Kurdistan bailout
KRG leaders’ Capitol Hill trek yields lots of praise but no promises.
The Iraqi Kurds’ dire warnings of impending financial doom have failed to awaken Congress from its pre-election slumber.
Top officials from the besieged Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) made the rounds in Washington this week to warn that Erbil’s $100 million-a-month operating deficit was harming its ability to take on the Islamic State (IS). Declining oil prices and the burden of caring for perhaps as many as 1.8 million displaced Iraqis and Syrian refugees are taking their toll, they said, with peshmerga fighters going unpaid for the past three months and civil servants for the past four.
“The existential threat facing Kurdistan today is the state of our economy," Deputy Prime Minister Qubad Talabani said at an April 14 Wilson Center event. "It's important for our friends around the world to realize that this threat facing Kurdistan is great, this threat facing Kurdistan is real, and without immediate, direct support, the experiment of Kurdistan is in danger, but more troubling, the frontline against [IS] is in danger."
Despite forcefully pleading their case in meetings with the Obama administration, Congress and think tanks, they came away with little to show for it beyond inexpensive expressions of gratitude. A bailout, lawmakers said, is simply not in the cards.
