That is when the Kurdistan Front, the coordinating body for the various Kurdish parties, took over the administration of northern Iraq, assuming responsibility for paying the salaries of essential workers, such as policemen and garbage men, and providing subsidized rations to the population. But those in what are considered to be less essential government jobs, among them schoolteachers, are paid only sporadically, and Kurdistan Front rations have to be supplemented in the market. Many people are living off their savings, and this winter there will be shortages of food and fuel. Truck traffic from Turkey illustrates the local ingenuity in handling otherwise daunting economic problems. Iraq offers gasoline for sale in Mosul at less than one cent a liter.
Turkish trucks come with huge containers strapped to their sides to pick up the gas.
They are, in turn, required to bring in food at subsidized prices. Without the essentially free oil, the flow of food into Iraq would be a trickle. Some food gets dropped off in the north, and the rest is carried into Iraq proper. That oil trade violates the UN embargo, but sensibly no one complains, because the population would otherwise starve. The Kurdistan Front generates income by taxing the trucks on their way to Mosul, although revenues fall far short of what is needed.