ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The Iraqi government categorized Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi not mentioning Peshmerga in his victory speech over ISIS earlier this week as a "printing error." “What happened was definitely not on purpose but a printing error,” Saad Hadithi, the spokesperson of the Iraqi government said of Abadi omitting the name of Peshmerga when haling Iraqi forces in their role in defeating ISIS. To prove it, Hadithi said they “edited the speech and it was later published in Arabic, English and Kurdish languages.” On Saturday, Abadi made a televised speech and congratulated all units of the Iraqi Security Forces, including the mainly-Shiite Hashd al-Shaabi on the occasion of the "end of ISIS" in Iraq. On Sunday, Abadi added the Peshmerga to the list of units he congratulated for the victory over ISIS following backlash. "I am hailing all the victorious. The brave forces such as the army, police, security forces, Hashd al-Shaabi, counter-terrorism forces, air force, pilots, and the Peshmerga forces and all the divisions of the armed forces who supported us, including engineer and medical teams and our supporters from the tribal forces and people in the liberated areas, those who supported their army,” read the edited post on Sunday. Following the victory speech, Hadithi said, Abadi gave some other speeches where he mentioned the role of Peshmerga as a force against ISIS within the Iraqi defense system. Abadi’s omission of the Kurdish Peshmerga in his initial version of victory speech sparked immediate outrage across the Kurdistan Region after Peshmerga Ministry issued a statement. Hundreds of university students on Monday took to the streets of Erbil, protesting Abadi’s initial omission. More than 1,846 Peshmerga gave their lives in the ISIS fight and another 10,000 were wounded. Iraqi forces have not released their casualty figures, but the US-led Global Coalition stated earlier this year that Iraqi security forces lost about 10,000 fighters.
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