So what exactly do the Kurds want that they aren't getting? Well, more than anything else, the Kurds want their own country. Kurdistan doesn't just look different from the rest of Iraq: The Kurds are a distinct ethnic group with their own language, culture, dress, traditions. And though the majority of Kurds are Muslim, they are significantly more secular than Muslim Arab Iraqis. (Of course generalizations always invite exception: I knew plenty of secular Muslims in Baghdad, and the Kurdish terrorist group Ansar al-Islam holds radically Islamic views.) In the post-WWII redistribution of the Ottoman Empire, the Kurds found themselves cut and pasted into a number of contiguous countries including Iraq, Iran, Syria and, mostly, Turkey. An estimated 20 million out of the 35 million Kurds worldwide live in Turkey, causing the Turkish government deep and ongoing anxiety. In the past, the Turkish government has done just about whatever it could to keep its Kurdish population from allying itself with Kurds in other countries or even, for that matter, affirming their own Kurdishness. Until 1991 it was illegal for Turkish Kurds to speak Kurdish.

For now, the Iraqi Kurds know they cannot push for independence. Turkey, fearing a destabilization of its own Kurdish population, would do whatever it takes to prevent such a move. The United States would probably have to back Turkey, an important ally in the Middle East. In the long run, pleasing the Turks is a much greater geopolitical asset that dissing the Kurds is a liability. Any move by the Kurds to break away would also, of course, threaten to incite a civil war within Iraq.

For now, the Kurds will settle for maintaining autonomy within Iraq and hope that a federalist Iraqi government would provide the in-country independence they're looking for. The problem is, the shape of the Iraqi government is still a big question mark. The Kurds are angry at the United States for not insisting on guarantees that the new Iraq would give them the same independence they had (courtesy of the U.S.) under the old Iraq.

Then, too, the Kurds feel as though they haven't been given their share of the reconstruction pie. Despite the safe conditions of the region, there is not a whole lot of rebuilding going on. And despite the lush-looking countryside, Kurdistan is desperately poor.

At the Suleymania press conference, I met Maj. John Hubert, a civil affairs officer in charge of overseeing projects for the region. I spent an afternoon with him and a few of the men he works with visiting a school that the military had built in a meager village about a half-hour outside the city. We drove to the village in two white armored SUVs, turning off the main road and onto a dirt track for the last half mile. We pulled up in front of the new school and got out of the air-conditioned vehicle into the smack-down heat of the long Iraqi summer. I was reminded, as I often am in Iraq, how much it must suck to be a soldier and wear all that body armor.

In mud dwellings opposite the school, women in long nightgown-type dresses (purple and magenta and turquoise) edged out to see what was going on and quick kids edged right past them. As one of the soldiers began walking down beyond the school to check out the area, a flock of domesticated geese claimed him as their leader. If you've never seen a flock of geese follow a heavily armed and armored soldier, you're missing out.

The school was not quite complete. Workers were finishing up with doors, windows, bathrooms. But Hubert gave us an intensely and justifiably proud tour. The one-story school had been constructed of cement and plaster into a wicket shape that wrapped around a courtyard. The old school, still standing, though barely, next door, showed just what an improvement the new one would be. It was a crumbling mess with one pit-toilet outhouse for the whole school. The village kids, kept outside the gates by the workers, shouted their approval along with the occasional "I love you" in English. (The "I love yous" were probably inspired by American TV and movies. In even the most desperately poor villages and neighborhoods of Kurdistan, TV satellite dishes rise like moons over mud and straw roofs.)

Hubert is one of those soldiers who make me feel that the military might, in fact, have more than a few good men. He is smart, thoughtful, driven and, above all, interested. But, though he clearly wants to help the Kurds, he doesn't have a whole lot to work with. Apart from the school I saw that day, he and his men were working on about 28 other projects, the small school being one of the largest. At the press conference, Hubert announced that the United States will spend $435 million in Kurdistan. It's only a fraction of the tens of billions that will be spent throughout Iraq, and it's hard to see a lot of tangible results. Nailing down the exact amount that will be spent on Kurdistan, and whether in fact the Kurds are getting the short end of American reconstruction dollars, is virtually impossible. But I got the feeling that for the Kurds, the perception of neglect trumps any statistics. In reference to proposed spending in Iraq, a Kurdish employee at the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs said, "George Bush claims 18 billion, 18 billion, 18 billion -- where is billions? Billions of illusions exist.")

Erbil, Kurdistan's largest city and my destination after Suleymania, is one of the poorest cities I have ever seen. All over the city open sewage runs parallel to sidewalks, and makeshift shanty towns hold what seems an impossible number of people. Given the fact that Erbil has almost as good a safety record as Suleymania (there have a handful of incidents targeting Kurdish politicians), it seems like a no-brainer that now would be the time to implement a lot of projects, while work in the rest of the country remains nearly untenable. The lack of aid is part of the reason the Kurds feel so frustrated with the United States. I get the impression that, as far as U.S. attention goes, the Kurds are suffering from the good-child syndrome. While the troublemaking violent kid (that is, the rest of Iraq) gets all the attention, the good child, the one we never worry about, gets passed over. (This is not to say that I feel in any way that the United States should pay less attention to the rest of the country or provide less support. I think we're doing a shitty job across the board.)

Erbil was home to a larger CPA contingency than Suleymania, but of course that, too, is now gone. The new U.S. Embassy, which will have thousands of employees in Baghdad, won't have a single representative in Iraqi Kurdistan. The only thing close will be the three U.S. Embassy representatives based in Kirkuk, a city now hotly contested by Kurds and Arabs. Kirkuk, with its surreal suburb of high-yield oil fields, has developed into a major flashpoint for Kurdish-Arab relations.

For generations, Kurds and Arabs have been wrestling for control of Kirkuk, which lies on the edge of the Kurdish region. Under Saddam's regime, the Kurds were forcefully ousted from Kirkuk (and other Kurdish-dominated territory Saddam coveted) in what is referred to as the Arabization program. Kurdish families were taken from their homes by Saddam's secret police and forced to leave the city, often without any of their belongings. Their homes were given to what Kurds still refer to as "10,000 dinar" Arabs who moved into the city. Ten thousand dinars represents the amount of money Saddam paid Arab families to relocate to Kirkuk and other Kurdish towns. In today's Iraq, 10,000 dinars is worth about seven bucks. But during the height of Saddam's Arabization program -- until the sanctions drove inflation through the roof -- 10,000 dinars equaled around $30,000.

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