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A
wedding is being held at the newly built Sheraton
hotel in Irbil. The Kurdish bride and groom sit
blinking into a video camera, their family clustered
around. In the background, American contractors are
drinking Turkish beer.
This place of smiles and shining marble is the Iraq
that was meant to be after the fall of Saddam
Hussein.
It existed for a brief moment after the invasion
when American soldiers were at first greeted as
liberators. Now the only place still deeply grateful
for getting rid of the dictator is in the north of
the country, in Kurdistan, a sanctuary for
contractors, Baghdad officials and lost American
ideals.
Western businessmen move freely around the region's
capital, Irbil, and American soldiers eat in
restaurants without their body armour. In the
crowded foyer of the Sheraton, Kurdish businessmen
and politicians discuss reconstruction work.
After the 1991 Gulf war, the Kurdish areas - long
victim of Saddam's Arabisation policies - lived in
turbulent but slowly prospering autonomy, protected
by the no-fly zones enforced by Britain and America.
They are now booming.
Since the 2003 invasion the regional economy has had
more than £100 million in investment, channelled
mostly into building houses, roads, water-treatment
systems, and two new university campuses.
Most of the money has come from the regional
government, although western firms have also moved
north from Baghdad looking for reconstruction
contracts.
A British businessman, Richard Hadler, said: "I
recently told a business seminar in London: "You can
come to Kurdistan. There are dangers involved, but
on the whole it is stable. And there's a lot of work
to be done.' "
But the success of the Kurdish region comes at a
price. There was a three-year civil war between the
two main political groups, before a grudging peace
and a two-party electoral system.
Officials say the success of the 1998 elections for
a Kurdish regional assembly is another reason for
accepting the US occupation.
There has been only one serious bombing in the city,
in January, when 15 people died. The violence
further south in the country only exacerbates the
sense of separateness among a people with a distinct
language and customs.
The Kurdish flag now flies over police stations in
place of the Iraqi one. Iraqi government officials,
many of whom come north for a break from the
violence, are treated with disdain or confusion when
they try to implement edicts from Baghdad.
A recent petition of Kurds asking if they wanted
full independence was signed by 1.7 million people
in a region of five million.
"People look to the south and see people's heads
getting cut off, and think, 'Do I really want to be
associated with that?'," said Hiwa Othman, who runs
the Institute for War and Peace reporting, which
trains local journalists.
"The new generation that has grown up with 12 years
of freedom, are not prepared to rejoin Iraq on the
old terms of subservience to the central government.
Instead the new Iraq should join us."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk
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