The governor's office in this tense city had rarely been so crowded. Friends, colleagues and officials were queuing to congratulate Abdul Rahman Mustafa on surviving the second assassination attempt on him within a fortnight.
A suicide bomber blew himself up last Tuesday when the governor's motorcade slowed for roadworks. The armor-plated car was badly damaged, but the only fatality besides the bomber was an Iraqi civilian. Still shaken two hours later, Mr Mustafa told me he was undeterred and would carry on.
Like every other Iraqi city, Kirkuk has seen a rising tide of violence. Two years ago you could drive there from Baghdad. This time I reached it by coming south from the relative safety of Kurdistan in an armored pick-up with five Kurdish peshmerga soldiers in the back.
The main hazard is the roadside bomb -- 663 have gone off already this year, with another 334 detected before they did any harm. They are almost always targeted at officials, police or US and Iraqi army convoys. Kirkuk has so far been spared the carnage of Baghdad and Basra, where car bombs and mortars are launched at crowds of civilians.
Indeed Kirkuk is the story of a war that hasn't happened.
With a mixed population of Arabs, Kurds and Turkomans vying to control a province rich in oil, it was the place which most analysts focused on in the first weeks after the US toppled Saddam Hussein. It seems long ago now, but the argument then was that if violence were to break out in the "new Iraq", it would pit Arabs against Kurds, not Sunni against Shiite, and the cockpit would be Kirkuk.
Whether Iraq is in the midst of a civil war or an insurgency has become a crucial question in the US, with obvious policy implications. For Iraqis it is academic. They see both wars happening together, with the chaos further compounded by criminal gangs who kidnap and murder for cash.
In Kirkuk, by contrast, there is only an insurgency. Ethnic war has not broken out. The picture is not so good in the other Iraqi territories with large Kurdish populations, many of which the Kurds call historically theirs. Tens of thousands of Kurds are being intimidated to leave Mosul in slow-motion ethnic cleansing. In Khanaqin, in eastern Iraq, thousands of Arab settlers who had been brought in by Saddam Hussein were summarily evicted in 2003.
Fair play
But by and large the Kurds are playing fair. In Kurdistan they have enjoyed autonomy since 1991, and they pride themselves on building the kind of democracy the US hoped to install throughout Iraq after 2003. The rolling hills of their fertile region are as different from the flat lands and date-palm groves of Mesopotamia as is the political and security climate.
Foreigners and locals can walk the streets and sit in cafes with no fear of being kidnapped or sudden death.
The Kurds are better off than if they had full independence. This would provoke regional tension, particularly from Turkey. It would also end their current position of having considerable influence in Baghdad's government, with the hope that the "disputed territories" may become theirs by non-violent means.
The bad side, as many Kurds see it, is that they are still tied economically to Iraq. Their electricity comes from the national grid, which means rations of only two hours a day, as bad as Baghdad.
They have no refinery for the oil they produce. They live off revenue from the central budget, with their rightful share always cut or delayed unfairly, officials complain.
But Kurds are waiting for the referendums, promised for next year under Article 140 of the new Iraqi Constitution. They would allow people to vote to join Kurdistan. Not just in Kirkuk, but in all other disputed territories there is supposed to be a census in July and a referendum next November. The first stage, due by March, is "normalization," which means the return of tens of thousands of displaced people and the restoration of their homes or compensation.
Kurdish politicians claim to be confident that they have the votes to win. Only violence can prevent it, they say, which is why Kirkuk is suffering from an insurgency.
"Implementing Article 140 is not in the Baathists' interest," Rizgar Ali Hamajan, the provincial council's chairman, told me. "It will wipe out their Arabization policy. So they create security problems. They want to make it hard for contractors to work, tell people the provincial council is doing nothing and pave the way for ethnic conflict."
But there are more important reasons why the process is behind schedule. Western officials describe next year's deadlines as "risible."
Article 140 is "hopelessly vague," making no attempt to explain who will delineate the disputed territories' borders, how a census will be conducted, and what the eligibility criteria will be for voting.
Arab and Turkoman politicians want to delay it.
Compromise
"The best thing for Kirkuk would be to create a special kind of independent entity where all nationalities and minorities can take part. We need dialogue, negotiation and compromise," says Tahseen Saray Khaya, a member of the Turkoman Front. He accuses the Kurds of packing the voter rolls by bringing in people from the north who were never displaced.
The International Crisis Group, an independent think tank, proposes a similar plan for special status, though only for 10 years. Western officials call it a non-starter, since it would require amending the Constitution. They expect the referendum issue will ultimately be decided by a political bargain in Baghdad, rather than Kirkuk. Iraq's majority Shiite government will do a deal with the Kurds.
How that will be sold to the increasingly impatient Kurds is crucial. Without clear milestones towards an eventual vote or major concessions on other issues dear to the Kurds, there could be a political and social explosion in Kirkuk.
On the other hand, holding an unprepared vote and letting Kirkuk join Kurdistan against Arab and Turkoman wishes could add ethnic conflict to the city's current insurgency.
In that case Kirkuk would no longer be the story of a war deferred. The ethnic cleansing already under way in Mosul could accelerate and spread to Baghdad, where some 100,000 Kurds still live. Iraq is already suffering from a war between insurgents and the US, and between Sunni and Shiite. Can it survive the horrors of another conflict?
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