So far, the war has been very unlike the triumph of the US-led forces in 1991, Kurdish leaders point out. Iraq has had a string of little successes such as the downing of a helicopter, the capture of US ground troops, and there has been no uprising of Kurds and Shia Muslims as there was after the Gulf War.
The latter has not happened because the US did not want it and Iraqi security has been much tighter than it was 12 years ago.
Disappointment with Allied performance so far is wide-spread among Kurds and not confined to their leaders. In Sifaya, a village of smugglers and farmers on the Zaab river, a mile from Iraqi government-controlled territory, people watch every step of the war on local television.
These days, they have suspended smuggling to Mosul because it is too dangerous and they have drawn up their boats on the bank of the Zaab. But they think President Saddam is a long way from falling. Khalil Ibrahim, a local leader, said: "The war is too cold. It is not warm enough yet."
Even in Kurdistan, where the US is popular and where President Saddam committed some of his worst atrocities, there are flickers of Iraqi patriotism. A Kurdish official, who has devoted years to opposing the government in Baghdad, admitted: "It would have been better if the invasion had been with the mandate of the UN and not just by the US and Britain.
"Iraqis won't like to see American soldiers ripping down posters of Saddam Hussein though they might like to do it themselves. They didn't enjoy watching the Stars and Stripes being raised near Umm Qasr."
So far, the northern front has been a fiasco. A month ago the US was expected to land 62,000 troops, their armour and transport and 310 aircraft and helicopters in Turkey.
This would be the northern pincer of a two-pronged attack on Baghdad with the other pincer advancing from Kuwait in the south.
But the refusal of the Turkish parliament to sanction US use of Turkish bases lopped off the northern pincer.
