A second witness, Peter Galbraith, a former US diplomat and adviser to the KRG, said recent events meant that Iraq had effectively ceased to exist as a single unified state. “If the state cannot defend itself, Kurdistan must defend itself,” he said. He predicted that 95-98 percent of Kurds would vote for independence in a referendum and that Kurdistan “will declare itself independent sometime in the next year.” http://rudaw.net/english/kurdistan/160720141