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INTRODUCTION
In post-2003 Iraq, the Kurds have continuously appealed for territorial rights in the regions where they claim to be the majority and have demanded a quota in the Iraqi State apparatus.1 They have also passionately demanded a new census, which would include questions intended to assess inhabitants’ ethnicity and define their mother tongue and nationality. The Kurds believe that determining the exact size of the Kurdish population would have repercussions for issues such as defining the exact borders of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), ascertaining the proper portion to be allotted to them from the national budget, and maybe even establishing the proper quota of Kurds in a future Baghdad government, to ensure that they would not once again be underrepresented in a future Parliament.2
To substantiate their political claims, the Kurds have attempted to carry out a plebiscite and census, two of the three steps designated by the Transitional Administrative Law (TAL, Article 58, in March 2004) and the Iraqi Permanent Constitution (Article 140). Based on the results of the requested new plebiscite and census, the Kurds want to determine the final status of the disputed regions, including Khanikin, Sinjar, and Kirkuk, and annex them to the KRG. Although various organizations and neighborhood governments-and, especially, the Arabs and Turkomans living in these disputed territories—oppose the Kurdish call for a plebiscite and ethnic census, the Kurds still insist on one, causing this to become a casus belli in Iraq today.3
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