In February 2024, Iraqi Kurdish Prime Minister Masrour Barzani visited Washington, DC. While he was there, his press team tweeted photos and statements about meetings with senior Biden administration officials to imply endorsement. For the Barzanis, image is everything. This is why when the White House or State Department do not provide a convoy, they rent them instead for the videos they transmit home.
Behind-the-scenes, the Barzanis are desperate, and their cachet in Washington low. President Joe Biden’s national security team knows them well from previous tenure under Obama. At the time, patriarch Masoud Barzani’s temper and prickliness frustrated officials. Son and heir-apparent Masrour Barzani’s haughtiness toward National Security Council point man Brett McGurk against the backdrop of the 2017 independence referendum antagonized the White House further.
Masrour’s trip came against the backdrop of desperation about both a 25 percent cut in U.S. subsidies for Peshmerga salaries. The White House and State Department reduced funding as both the Barzanis and Talabanis continue to treat the Peshmerga as personal militias rather than a regional army.
From the Barzani perspective, the trip was a bust. Secretary of State Antony Blinken did not affirm the military subsidies. While National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan paid lip service to sacrifices of the Peshmerga in the fight against the Islamic State, he also was publicly silent on Barzani’s call for greater partnership. At the Pentagon, Barzani met with the acting number three, Sasha Baker. She framed the U.S. relationship with Iraqi Kurdistan through the lens of the broader U.S.-Iraq ties and insinuated concerns about the slow pace of Peshmerga reform and unification.
Barzani found traction among friends in Congress for his desire for continued Peshmerga subsidies and investment. Several senators and representatives signed onto a letter by Sen. Tom Cotton criticizing the White House for its reception of Iraqi Prime Minister Muhammad Shia al-Sudani, whom they depict as an apologist for if not proxy of Iran. “While you invite the Iraqi Prime Minister to visit Washington, you have refused to meet with Kurdistan Prime Minister Masrour Barzani, a critical partner and the host of the most U.S. forces in the region,” they wrote.
While Cotton’s concerns about Iranian influence in Baghdad are valid, his endorsement of Barzani is bizarre for two reasons.
First, the Barzanis are both tight with Iran and promote Israel rejectionism when it suits their political purposes. When firebrand Muqtada al-Sadr introduced a bill to the Iraqi parliament making relations with Israel a capital offense, he counted on the Barzanis’ parliamentary seats to push the bill through. Prior to Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi’s “hard landing,” the Barzanis agreed to host him in Erbil. Following Raisi’s death, the Barzanis sent a large delegation to his funeral.
Second, little of the money or military aid that the United States provides to Iraqi Kurdistan actually goes to security. At the height of the campaign against the Islamic State, for example, the Barzanis paraded military equipment donated by the West through the heart of Erbil. Rather than send it to the front, Masoud and Masrour Barzani horded it to bolster their own power vis-à-vis rivals.
While rumors of corruption have long surrounded the Barzanis, Masoud and Masrour have always deflected these by saying they were slander and their critics lacked proof. Those days are over. When Masrour decided to ignore the Kurdistan Victims Fund lawsuit, he did not realize his own moneyman Sarwar Pedawi, currently facing his own mortality due to a cancer diagnosis, or those close to him had provided the plaintiffs with a truckload of Barzani family financial documents.
The “Pedawi Papers,” now in a guarded vault, expose more than 50 previously unknown shell corporations the Barzanis have established in the British Virgin Islands and other tax havens. It reports, for example, how “Defendant Muksi Barzani [Masrour’s brother] owns a British Virgin Islands holding company which owns Sylvania Fair Lakes, LLC, with a Washington, D.C. address. It in turn owns Sylvania NC, LLC, which in turn owns real property in Mebane, North Carolina.” The Pedawi papers expose Masrour as the director of Teague Holding Limited, incorporated in the British Virgin Islands. Younger brother Waysi Barzani channels his money through Barbossa Holdings Limited, also incorporated in the British Virgin Islands. Pedawi himself holds interests in several other offshore holding companies. The Pedawi Papers show the Barzanis involved Americans, including a former undersecretary of the Army, in corruption.
With overwhelming evidence that the Barzanis siphoned off hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars in aid and assistance to offshore accounts and shell corporations, the question then becomes why any member of Congress would urge greater investment in the Kurdistan Regional Government. There are three interrelated possibilities: Either certain senators and representatives are asleep at the switch; they listen uncritically to former U.S. government officials who lobby for Kurdish oil interests and whitewash the Barzanis; or they believe falsely that funding Iraqi Kurds bolsters U.S. interests against Iran. In reality, the ruling Kurdish families steal that money, making dynamics worse and indirectly empowering Iranian interests.
In U.S. government meetings, Masrour repeatedly asked American officials to intervene to dismiss the case, not understanding that officials had no power to do so due to judicial independence. As the Pedawi Papers continue to shed light on the inner workings of the Barzani’s financial networks, it is essential that not only Congress begin to audit funds provided to Iraqi Kurdistan. Pedawi’s papers depict a theft and embezzlement scheme that appears to involve billions of dollars, and not only dozens of Kurdish officials but a handful of Americans as well.
In a difficult region where Iranian and Turkish forces converge, Iraqi Kurdistan is hugely important. U.S. military investment can be wise, but only when the investment reaches its intended destination. Throwing good money after bad is not only an abuse of American taxpayers, but hemorrhages American strategic interests as well.
