"A breath of fresh air. A smile on people's faces. The absence of fear in their eyes."

"It felt great to be out of Baghdad," writes Michael Soussan, the whistle-blower in the UN's corrupted Oil for Food program, as the UN convoy of ten white SUVs drove north to visit the Kurds. "Away from all the oppresive pictures and statues of Saddam Hussein. Freedom may be a political concept, but it is first and foremost a feeling. A breath of fresh air. A smile on people's faces. The absence of fear in their eyes."

Saddam, of course, massacred as estimated 180,000 Kurds in 1986-1988. Kurds want independence, but the international community seems to regard that as taboo, "because it would upset Turkey, a major NATO ally," writes Soussan.