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How The Kurds Are Reshaping
Kurdistan-Northern Iraq
19.2.2007
By Bob Simon - Kurdistan: The Other Iraq
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February 19, 2007
Try to imagine a peaceful and stable Iraq where
business is booming and Americans are beloved. Now
open your eyes because 60 Minutes is going to take
you to a part of Iraq which fits that description:
it's called Kurdistan.
Technically, it's inside Iraq but the Kurds who live
there behave as if they already live in a separate
state. As correspondent Bob Simon reports, they have
their own prime minister, their own army, their own
border patrol—even their own flag. And the
overwhelming majority of Kurds will tell you they
want nothing to do with Baghdad and the rest of
Iraq.
And why would they after the brutal way Iraqis under
Saddam treated them in the past? Why would they when
they’re doing just fine on their own?
When visiting Kurdistan, one can see nation-building
wherever one looks—Kurds are building their country
day by day. There are more cranes here than minarets
and there’s a run on cement. A new mall with 8,000
shops and stalls is going up. So is an apartment
complex known as "Dream City," in which some of the
units are selling for $1 million. A giant bowling
alley is almost finished, and an opera house is not
far behind. What’s behind the boom? Security.
Kurds are quick to remind you that they are not
Arabs and there is a de facto border between
Kurdistan, which is in the northeast corner of Iraq
and the rest of Iraq. Arab insurgents who want to
slip into Kurdistan must get past hundreds of
Kurdish checkpoints. And distinct from much of Iraq,
the security forces in Kurdistan are disciplined and
loyal. And they’re all Kurds—there are no ethnic
divisions here, so the violence stays on the other
side of the border.
Asked how many American soldiers have been killed in
the Kurdish-controlled area since the beginning of
the war, Nechervan Barzani, the 40-year-old prime
minister of what is officially called the Kurdistan
Regional Government, tells Simon, "No one."
Major General Benjamin Mixon is the commanding
officer for American forces in northern Iraq and
Kurdistan, 20,000 in all.
Mixon tells Simon there are only 60 to 70 U.S.
troops stationed in the Kurdish areas. "There’s no
need for American forces up there because of the
nature of the situation," he explains.
"I guess compared to being stationed in the rest of
Iraq, it’s pretty good duty," Simon remarks.
"It’s good duty. I’ve been up there. I enjoy going
up there," the major general tells Simon.
60 Minutes wanted to test the security situation, so
one Saturday morning Simon and the team dropped by
the main market in Erbil, the self-styled capital of
Kurdistan, just 40 miles from the rest of Iraq. The
only disagreements here were about price.
Just how safe is it? Simon, an American, strolled
through the market in his shirtsleeves, without
wearing the flack jackets reporters often have to
wear in other parts of Iraq.
In any other part of Iraq, walking down the street
like this would be patently suicidal. But the point
is as far as people here are concerned this is not
another part of Iraq—it’s not Iraq at all. You may
not be able to find it on a map but it is, Kurds
will tell you, another country.
Asked if they were in Iraq right now, a student told
Simon, "I think that I’m in Kurdistan, not in Iraq."
The feeling is widely shared. From students at
Sulaimaniyah University to Ahmed Gilani, a Kurdish
American Simon met in a café in Erbil. He came to
Kurdistan recently from Texas.
"When we see the fighting going on in Baghdad here,
it’s the same when I used to watch it on TV in, in
the States. It feels like a totally separate
country," Gilani says.
While Iraq is just 40 miles down the road, Simon
acknowledges he feels perfectly safe in Erbil.
"There you go. Go to Baghdad. I don’t think you’d
feel the same way," Gilani remarks.
The Kurds are acting as if the end of Iraq is near.
In many schools, English, not Arabic, is being
taught as the second language.
The Kurds are very big on the trappings of
statehood. It’s as if they’re eager to prove that
they exist. They have their own 175,000-man Army,
the pesh merga, which means "those who face death."
When you arrive in Erbil, immigration officers give
your passport a Kurdish stamp. And if you want to
see the Iraqi flag, don’t come to Kurdistan. It has
been banned.
"Under that flag they destroyed our country, our
people. So that’s why our approach is to change that
flag and have a new one," Prime Minister Barzani
explains.
The new Kurdish flag is literally everywhere; but
it’s a flag without a country.
Like most Kurds, Dr. Ali Saed Mohammed, the
president of Sulaimaniyah University, would like to
change that—and soon.
"What would happen if tomorrow the prime minister of
Kurdistan went before parliament and said I declare
a state, an independent Kurdistan," Simon asks.
"This decision will be welcomed by 99.9 percent of
the Kurds in Iraqi Kurdistan. We will say yes. We
will back it," Dr. Mohammed says.
Dr. Mohammed wants the prime minister to take the
step, preferably "tomorrow," he tells Simon.
But the Kurdish prime minister is not likely to push
for complete independence. Not tomorrow. Not next
year.
"Every Kurd we’ve spoken to since we’ve been here
says, 'We’re a separate country. We’re Kurds. We
don’t want to be with Iraq,'" Simon remarks. "You’re
prime minister of this country."
"I think it’s a right for every Kurd to say that.
Because, really, they are different. They are a
different nation, different people.
So, but we have to be realistic," Barzani tells
Simon.
"Being realistic means that the Iranians and the
Turks and the Syrians would not be happy if you were
to declare nationhood.
Is that what you are saying, Sir?" Simon asks.
"Yeah, exactly. Our neighbors, they will create more
problems for us," the prime minister explains.
The Kurds have a saying: no friends but the
mountains. There are 30 million Kurds in the world,
the largest nation without a state. But only five
million reside inside Iraq’s borders. The rest are
in Iran, Syria and primarily Turkey. There are so
many Kurds in Turkey that the Turks are afraid that
an independent Kurdish state would lead to unrest;
they are dead set against it.
So Kurdish leaders believe that, at least for the
time being, the answer is federalism, a soft
partition of Iraq into three parts.
Kurdistan in the north, a Sunni state in the middle
and a Shiite region to the south, with Baghdad as
only a nominal capital.
While Barzani and Kurdistan may be paving the way
for such a division, the American government doesn’t
want partition of any kind, no matter what it’s
called. The Bush administration and the U.S.
military see Kurdistan not as a shining new nation
but as a shining example to the rest of a united
Iraq.
"I think if the Iraqis will simply look north and
see what the possibilities are, and do not align
themselves with the extremists they can see the
great potential that this country has to be a
prosperous nation," Maj. Gen. Mixon explains.
"But from the Kurdish point of view, they’ve got a
going concern. Now they’re at peace. They’re making
money. They’re looking towards the future. They look
to the rest of Iraq and they see chaos. They see
bloodshed. They see civil war. Why shouldn’t they
try to remain separate?" Simon asks.
"I believe that to their long-term interest, it’s
better to stay linked with Iraq and all the
resources that are available throughout Iraq and it
makes them stronger," Mixon says.
Many Kurds believe the Americans are missing the
point. A separate Kurdistan, they say, would make
for something extremely unusual: an American ally in
the Middle East.
"The Kurds will be the best friends in the region,"
Dr. Mohammed says. "Even better than Israel, I am
sure of that. We will be the best friends for the
Americans in this region. We will be faithful."
Dr. Mohammed does not view the war as a U.S.
invasion. "It is liberation. Americans liberated
Iraqi people from dictatorship," he tells Simon.
It is a sentiment echoed in, of all places, a
mosque. Like Iraqi Arabs, Kurds are Muslims. But
this is surely the only Islamic part of the Middle
East where you’ll hear kind words about America
after Friday prayers.
"Can America think of Kurdistan as an ally, as a
friend?" Simon asked a man.
"We were always with Americans. We even love
America. But we are waiting for America to repay our
love," the man replied.
The Kurds may have to wait a long time because for
the U.S. military there is another overwhelming
reason to keep the Kurds inside Iraq: oil.
One of Iraq’s largest oil fields sits just across
Kurdistan’s de facto border in an ethnically mixed
city called Kirkuk. It is crucial to the future
economic health of Iraq. The trouble is the Kurds
say Kirkuk historically belongs to them. And this
year there will be a referendum asking Kirkuk’s
citizens if they want to join Kurdistan.
Asked why Kirkuk is so important, Prime Minister
Barzani says, "It’s Kurdistan. If you go back to
history, any fight between Kurds and Baghdad is over
Kirkuk."
If the Kurds win the referendum, and they are
favored to do so, many fear Iraqi Arabs could turn
Kirkuk into an inferno.
"They will not be happy of course. They will create
problems by bombing at cars. And, the usual things
which they do every day. They blow up mosques. Why
not ordinary people?" Dr. Mohammed remarks.
The Kurds are all too familiar with violence, Iraqi
style. They have a tradition of tragedy, none more
brutal than the blow that came down in a matter of
minutes one bloody Friday in 1988.
Some 5,000 Kurds were gassed by Saddam’s army at a
place called Halabja; those images are remembered
today on murals. Many Kurds say you’ll never
understand Kurdish yearnings for the future if you
haven’t seen the brutality of its past.
Ahmed Gilani, who returned to Kurdistan from Texas,
knows first-hand: his father was executed. "By
Saddam’s regime…till today they never told us what
the reason was. Thankfully unlike some of the
people, we got his body back," he tells Simon.
Gilani was six years old when his father was
murdered. Two months after the execution, his family
was told to come and pick up the body.
"Just like that. And they charge you for the
bullets," he remembers.
It is memories like that which provide the motor for
a giant security trench which the Kurds are building
along their border.
"We don’t trust the Arabs. The same tragedies might
happen again. And that’s why I say the Kurds should
have their free state," explains Dr. Mohammed.
Free state? Not yet. Free market? Right here. While
in the rest of Iraq they’re counting bodies, the
Kurds are counting their money. Gleaming shopping
centers are sprouting up from the sand. One sports
an escalator—the first in Kurdistan.
There are plans for an American University, not
surprising since there is a strong desire to have it
the American way.
Well, almost. During Simon's visit, what seemed
ordinary was hailed as a momentous event: an
Austrian Airlines flight arrived in Erbil, the first
landing by a Western carrier in any part of Iraq
since the start of the war.
"Can you imagine having an American airline flying
directly from New York to Erbil?" Simon asks
Barzani.
"Why not? Yeah, why not?" the prime minister
replies.
Asked if he thinks this could happen in the near
future, Barzani says, "I mean I don’t know near
future. But, I’m sure it will happen."
And Kurds are starting to believe the same could be
said for their hopes of an independent Kurdistan.
History’s perennial losers could turn out to be the
winners of this war.
"Do you ever feel like you’re dreaming?" Simon asks
Dr. Mohammed.
"Well, sometimes dreams come true," he replies. "I
hope my dream will come true. Will be a reality. Why
not?"
cbsnews com
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