VZCZCXRO0627
PP RUEHBC RUEHDE RUEHIHL
DE RUEHKUK #0138/01 2271117
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
P R 151117Z AUG 06
FM REO KIRKUK
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 0708
RUEHGB/AMEMBASSY BAGHDAD PRIORITY 0670
INFO RUCNRAQ/IRAQ COLLECTIVE
RUEHKUK/REO KIRKUK 0736

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 KIRKUK 000138 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
BAGHDAD FOR POL, POLMIL, NCT, IRMO 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL:  8/15/2016 
TAGS: PGOV PHUM PINR PINS PNAT PREF ECON EIND ELTN
KDEM, IZ 
SUBJECT: (C) KIRKUK ROAD CONSTRUCTION HEADING NORTH 
 
KIRKUK 00000138  001.2 OF 002 
 
 
CLASSIFIED BY: Jim Bigus, PRT Leader, POL, Department of State. 
REASON: 1.4 (b), (d) 
 
 
 
¶1.      (C) INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY:  Kirkuk Provincial Council 
(KPC) member and Director of Roads and Bridges, Qasim Hamza, 
said on August 1 that poor security in southern Kirkuk was 
diverting road reconstruction projects to safer areas north of 
the city.  He said that badly needed road and bridge 
construction in Hewija and its sub-districts had been halted due 
to security concerns.  Hamza said his department was not 
responsible for internal roadwork in Kirkuk city and that this 
fell under municipal authority.  His office was responsible for 
highways and bridges passing through Kirkuk Province and 
currently focused its efforts on linking Kirkuk with Chamchamal, 
Sulaymaniyah, and Erbil.  Hamza claimed the Kurdistan Regional 
Government did not fund road construction in Kirkuk Province, 
and that private Iraqi contractors accomplished all road 
construction in the area.  END INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY. 
 
(C) POOR SECURITY MAIN OBSTACLE TO PROGRESS 
------------------------------------------- 
 
¶2. (C) KPC member and Kirkuk Director of Roads and Bridges, 
Qasim Hamza, told IPAO on August 1, 2006, that deteriorating 
security in the southern areas of Kirkuk Province had pushed 
reconstruction activities north of the city.  He claimed poor 
security had halted construction on Hewija roads and that 9 
billion Iraqi Dinar (ID) were set aside for much needed road 
reconstruction in the Hewija sub-districts of Zab and the Daquq 
sub-district of Rashad, but engineers and companies refused to 
go there due to security concerns.  He added that smugglers and 
terrorists were using two kilometers of unpaved road between 
Kirkuk and Hewija because security vehicles had difficulty 
traversing these bad roads.  Hamza said a major bridge project 
in Hewija that would permit traffic flow to circumnavigate the 
Kirkuk city had to be put on hold indefinitely because the 
security situation made the project impossible. 
 
(C) NO MATERIALS, NO SEWAGE SYSTEM, NO SKILLED LABOR 
--------------------------------------------- ------- 
¶3.  (C) Hamza said looters stole all of the equipment from the 
Kirkuk Directorate of Roads and Bridges after Operation Iraqi 
Freedom (OIF).  He said as a result they had no bulldozers or 
other building equipment for projects and had to work through 
contractors.  Before OIF, Hamza said, Kirkuk had its own asphalt 
factory; now the city had to bring asphalt from the Baiji and 
Dora refineries that frequently suffered sabotage attacks, and 
that this in turn affected construction projects in Kirkuk.  He 
added that Kirkuk had no sewer and drainage system currently, 
and that this contributed significantly to surface degradation 
and to problems with paving and leveling roads.  Hamza said his 
office had to depend on outside contractors for skilled labor 
because it had no in-house engineers, designers, or surveyors to 
outline urgently needed projects.  He claimed current projects 
inside the city included reconstruction and paving of the 
northern Tabaqchi and Rahimawa bridges, and the Domiz bridge in 
southern Kirkuk city. 
 
(C) FUNDING AND PRIORITIES HEAD NORTH 
------------------------------------- 
 
¶4.  (C) Hamza said for 2006 the KPC had delegated one-fourth of 
the total provincial budget, 33 billion ID, to improve municipal 
services in the city of Kirkuk, while the local budget for Roads 
and Bridges was set at 9 billion ID, with an additional 60 
billion ID from the Project Contracting Office in Baghdad for 
highway construction.  There were several highway projects 
underway currently, Hamza said, to link Kirkuk cities to the 
Kurdish areas.  For instance, he cited work on the Erbil 
Roadway, stretching from Hamrin Mountain in southern Kirkuk 
Province to Alton Kopri, north of Kirkuk city.  He also cited 
work on the Sulaymaniyah Roadway, from Hamrin Mountain through 
Kirkuk to Chamchamal.  He said the Directorate of Roads and 
Bridges also was working on the road from Dahuk to Tuz Khurmatu. 
 Hamza said his office had a plan for construction work from 
Kirkuk to Baghdad, but that this was slated for next year. 
 
(C) BIOGRAPHIC NOTES 
-------------------- 
 
¶5.   (C) Qasim Hamza Ahmed al-Bayati:  Current Director of 
Kirkuk Roads and Bridges (appointed in March, 2006); born in the 
mostly Turkoman neighborhood of Tissin in Kirkuk, 1959; member 
of the Turkoman Loyal (Wafa) Movement (TLM) party, founded in 
exile in 1977; Qasim occupies the KPC seat the TLM won in the 
January, 2005, elections as part of the Iraqi Turkoman Front 
bloc ticket; received a degree in Heritage Reconstruction and is 
 
KIRKUK 00000138  002.2 OF 002 
 
 
a practicing civil engineer. 
 
(U) COMMENT 
----------- 
 
¶6.  (C) Post has noticed local leaders increasingly have cited 
poor security in southern Kirkuk as the primary reason these 
areas have not received adequate reconstruction to date. It is 
worth noting that Hamza, as a Turkoman and a member of the Iraqi 
Turkoman Front bloc, did not cite alleged Kurdish efforts to use 
road construction to strengthen Kirkuk's links to the KRG. 
Rather, Hamza appeared very supportive of any reconstruction 
projects in Kirkuk and sought to accomplish these wherever 
possible, in his case the safer northern areas.  This lends 
credibility to the notion that poor security is a genuine 
concern among all ethnic communities in Kirkuk, but is 
nevertheless working to the Kurds' advantage by permitting them 
to create political facts on the ground. 
JBIGUS