Kurdistan: The Other Iraq

Bob Simon On How The Kurds Are Reshaping Northeastern Iraq

(CBS)  This segment was originally broadcast on Feb. 18, 2007. It was updated on Aug. 3, 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?

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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 prices.

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 Sulemaniya 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.

[jimmykatter]

Oprah Winfrey, Lesley stahl, Mary Hart, etc. ,etc. all fell into the very smart racist, segregationist newspaper people's trap. Do I think they're intelligent now ?

[jimmykatter]

Do research on Michael H Hart, and his plans for the purefied segregation of the United States. Then look at purefied, segregated Kurdistan, and see the smilarity.

[jimmykatter]

Jimmy Pattisson, and his thug leader, President Bush, had no trouble adding Oprah Winfrey's black face, along with Condoleezza Rice, as a front for the American Fourth Reich. It was nice of him to use his yacht to show her Canada's segregated, purefied aboriginals. Their nations remind me of Kurdistan.

[jimmykatter]

Remember, George Bernard Shaw was a eugenecist, and I have already proven that the cable companies monitor our TV watching for the government. When I was young, I noticed some students weren't allowed to watch TV at all; perhaps, for this reason.

[cocotteblue]

Representing Kurdistan as a peaceful region with a peaceful population does not take into account their decades long of fighting with Turkey. Kurd extremists have committed acts of terrorism in Turkey and their attempts to obtain their independance from that country are far from "peaceful". However, it is true that the Kurdish population is non agressive in general, but a documentary such as the one broadcasted last Sunday should present both aspect of the Kurdish society. They fight for oil just like anyone else.

[jimmykatter]

Afghanistan has produced another record opium crop with President Bush in charge.It certainly looks like Bush, the Prescotts, the Howells, and the Mathesons have duped everyone into believing they're against opium ( after their roles in the opium wars ). During the Vietnam war, the military drug smugglers used to smuggle the opium back to the U.S. in the caskets ( or bodies ) of the dead American soldiers.

[saiyanthan]

Your comment that Kurds, 30 million people, are the largest nation without a state is factually incorrect. Tamils are a 70 million strong nation without a state(50 million in India alone). The 3.5 million strong Tamils in Sri Lanka are fighting for their independent state.

[juwboy]

jimmykatter:

Thank you for defeating your own argument and strengthening mine.

[jimmykatter]

Patriotic Union of Kurdistan President of Iraq is an oxymoron.

[jimmykatter]

The American Nazis proved to the German Nazis that they were the superior Nazis in both WW1 and WW2.

[jimmykatter]

I'm very afraid an American Nazi is monitoring what I'm saying on here.

[prinzowhales]

The great difference between Kurdistan and the rest of Iraq is that there are no occupying troops in the region. If you want the Sunnis to appreciate the opportunities of post Saddam Iraq, then get the devil out of the country and let them be! The Sunnis and Shia will reach an accommodation.

[srowitt]

I was pleasantly surprised to see the Prime Minister of Kurdistan correcting Bob Simon's characterization of the American 'invasion' of Iraq as the American 'liberation' of Iraq.

It is ironic that someone who actually understands the truth about our presence in Iraq correcting a supposedly unbiased media insider like Simon. The mainstream media has been lying to the American people for years and painting the United States in the worst way possible.

As far as I can tell, the murder of hundreds of thousands Iraqis means very little to a majority of liberals today. Where is their compassion for their fellow man? The cut and runners thought nothing of the mass murder that followed our defeat in Viet Nam. No wonder they are so apt to leave the Iraqis to the barbaric Isalmo fascists. I don't really believe they truly care.

The real heroes of this conflict will be those who brave coalition troops who have been risking their lives for the freedom of the Iraqi people. Anyone who has politicized this war for political gain should be ashamed of themselves. Who in the right mind would have stood against FDR during WWII? That generation understood the need for unity against a common enemy. Half of our country today has been duped into believing that our duly elected President is the enemy while the democratic presidential wannabees are pandering to those very same anti-American bloggers at the Daily KOS.

[jimmykatter]

The German eugenecists, who learned all they knew from the Americans, actually began with sterilizations, rather than killing, like the Americans. Nine categories of defectives were identified for sterilization; at the top of the list; the feebleminded, followed by schizophrenia, manic depression, Huntington's chorea, epilepsy, hereditary body deformities, deafness, hereditary blindness, and alcoholism.
The outright killing began after the forced sterilizations.
Hitler's insanity was financed by American jewish eugenecist banker james loeb.

[jimmykatter]

Actually, truthfully, Hitler eliminated his pacifist generals first, and replaced them with hawk generals.
Anyone who labels people, like Hitler did, must be a sympathizer.

[juwboy]

jimmykatter:

When Hitler came to power, the first groups he eliminated were his political opponents: socialists, communists, Marxists, labor leaders and other left-wingers.

Next, he turned his attention to the category he considered the greatest threat to the purity of his glorious German master race.

It wasn't the Jews.

Or homosexuals.

Or gypsies.

No, the groups that Hitler wanted exterminated with the greatest urgency were the mentally-retarded and feeble-minded:

Inbreeds, idiots, imbeciles, half-wits, simpletons, morons and cretins.

People just like you, jimmykatter!

[colonieny]

Jimmy : You are an idiot.

[jimmykatter]

It should also be remembered that the German jews sided with Adolf Hitler,the Austrians, the Ottoman Turks, and the Kurds to slaughter the Assyrian Christians in northern Iraq.

[jimmykatter]

The kurds aren't perennial underdogs. They helped the Ottoman Turks to slaughter the Assyrian christians around mosul in iraq.
The reason kurdistan is secure is because it's a purefied kurd country; any country can be secure if it's purefied; ask adolf hitler.
The Austrians sided with the Ottoman Turks, and Kurds during WW1; it's not surprizing they're the first airline to show up there.
The kurds are backing Al Qaeda, no wonder there's no terrorists there.

[karatirpan]

TRY TO MAKE KURDISTAN AND SEE...THIS IS RIDICILOUS HE IS MAKING UP A NEWS LIKE THAT...WE WILL INVADE IT NEXT MINUTE...MANY KURDS ARE PKK TERRORISTS. KERKUK AND MUSUL BELONGS TO TURKEY. TURKEY WILL INVADE NEXT MINUTE IF THEY TRY TO MAKE INDEPENDECE OF A TERRORIST COUNTRY. TURKS WILL DO ANYTHING TO STOP IT. SHAME ON CBS NEWS, SHAME ON THE REPORTER. THEY DONT SHOW THE OTHER SIDE OF IT KILLING BABIES AND WOMAN AND ELDER IN TURKEY THOS TERRORISTS IN THE MOUNTAINS. WE WILL NOT ALLOW ANY INDEPENDENT KURDISH *** PLACE.