| By Army Sgt. Frank Pellegrini
 GM was one of more than 800 companies from 27 countries at “Rebuild Iraq 2006,” an international trade expo Sept. 14-17 in Irbil. The city is the capital of Iraq’s Kurdistan region, an area largely untroubled by the violence occurring elsewhere throughout the country. The Kurdistan Regional Government recently passed legislation encouraging foreign investment. Department of Defense photo. Except this trade show was in Iraq. The city of Irbil hosted “Rebuild Iraq 2006” Sept. 14-17. More than 800 companies from 27 countries were represented inside a makeshift convention center in the capital of the Kurdistan region. Raid Rahmani, an engineer and chairman of the Iraqi Economic Development Corporation, had just two months to put the event together, but said he had little trouble filling the hall. “People see that now is the time to come together and do business in Iraq,” he said. Visiting Irbil to kick off the expo, U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad hailed the show as an opportunity for Kurdistan to show off its successes.  Andew Wylegala, center, and John Lumborg, both of the U.S. Commercial Service, talk business with Kurdistan Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani at “Rebuild Iraq 2006.” The U.S.C.S., a division of the Commerce Department, helps U.S. and other foreign companies find suitable business partners in Iraq. Department of Defense photo. “Kurdistan is an area where there is security, where there is economic activity, where there is prosperity,” Khalilzad said. “To the businesspeople around the world, I say, come and satisfy the market in Kurdistan.” By the looks of the expo, they were already there. U.S. firms GM, Ford, Motorola, FedEx, air-conditioning giant Carrier, generator maker Cummins, and Secure Global Engineering all had booths. French firm Electrolux was there. Volkswagen sold cars inside; Daimler-Chrysler preferred the outdoor lot. Local companies hawked licensed services ranging from Western Union money transfers and Hitachi washing machines to Showtime television. The Trade Bank of Iraq was trumpeting a new deal with Visa that allowed Iraqis traveling abroad to have their statement recorded in Iraqi dinars when they returned home – a boost for the local currency and a convenience most of the developed world takes for granted. One row of booths was filled entirely with businesses from Iran and Syria. “We are all businessmen. We don’t interfere in politics,” Rahmani said. “If any company would like to add something to our country, they are most welcome.” A contingent of U.S. military was also there – but only to shop. “We’re looking for firms to work with us in Mosul,” said Navy Lt. Cmdr Larry Kelley, economic and agricultural section leader for the Ninewa Provincial Reconstruction Team, as he talked with representatives from KAR, a Kurdistan construction and oil services firm. “There’s a great business environment up here, and we want to help it spread,” Kelley said. In 1992, Rahmani was in Jordan when his businessman father was kidnapped and later killed because he refused to do business with Saddam. He returned to Baghdad after the U.S.-led Coalition toppled Hussein’s regime in 2003, and said he is trying to bring his international contacts to bear in Iraq. “We have rights now in this country, and we also now have duties to do for our country,” Rahmani said. “One of our duties is to work in this difficult situation…to rebuild the new Iraq.” Irbil, a city of about 600,000 nestled among fertile wheat fields and set off by rolling mountain ranges to the north and east, certainly appears to be the place to start. City streets are lined with the construction sites of commercial and residential complexes with names like “Dream City” and “Empire World.” Within view of the airport, a dozen brand new 11-story condominiums rise out of the flat, dusty ground. The units have all been pre-sold. The Kurdistan Regional Government, envisioning the city and region as “the gateway to the rest of Iraq” is bankrolling a $250 million expansion of Irbil International Airport, with a new international terminal, first-class lounges and enlarged runways capacious enough for Boeing and Airbus’ latest behemoths. A half-hour outside the city, on the banks of the Great Zab River, the KRG is working with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers at the Ifriz Water Treatment Plant to triple the plant’s capacity by the end of the year. There are also burgeoning plans within the government to address the intermittent power shortages in an area where a population boom is imminent. But the talk of “Rebuild Iraq 2006” was a new investment law, passed by the KRG two months ago, that businessmen say welcomes foreign companies to Kurdistan with open arms. “Most simply, it makes no distinction between Iraqi investors and foreign investors,” said Rahmani. “It is very helpful for encouraging foreign investors.” At the opening of the expo, Kurdistan Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani hailed the law as enabling “good ties between the employers, traders, local companies and their collaborators outside Kurdistan,” and said private-sector investment would be the region’s fastest path to prosperity while “our government’s power is limited by the federal government in Baghdad.” In short, Irbil is home to the sort of tranquil security environment, effective government and economic promise of which Baghdad, for now, can only dream of. What’s Kurdistan’s secret? The region has had some advantages compared to the rest of the country. For all the brutal treatment the Kurds received at the hands of Saddam Hussein, the U.N.-imposed “no-fly zone,” enforced by U.S. and British forces in the wake of the Gulf War, gave Kurdistan a head-start on development. “Kurdistan has had 13-14 years free of Saddam’s direct influence,” said Harry Schute, a former Army Reserve call-up to Iraq who later returned to head a consulting firm called ‘Point 62’ in Kurdistan. “They were able to do a lot on their own, chart a path, and in that sense they’ve had a head start,” Schute said. The region’s relative ethnic homogeneity and strong regional identity give it another advantage. But even the Kurds endured a fairly bloody internal conflict. From 1994-1996 the rival Kurdish Democratic Party and the Peoples Union of Kurdistan fought for supremacy. The government finally unified in late 1996, and though it has doubly suffered from both U.N. and Saddam-imposed sanctions, the U.S.-led operation in 2003 found the region poised to prosper. “This is a completely different part of Iraq compared to what you see on television. Folks who are interested in getting into a ground floor environment, this is the place to be,” Schute said. “And for all the media paints the Kurds as wanting to split off, my experience is that the government here really wants to be part of the solution for the whole country.” For now, though, to much of the outside world, Kurdistan is still ‘Iraq.’ Walled off from foreign investment for more than a decade and now stigmatized by persistent violence in Baghdad, many foreign investors still feel insecure about risking capital here. “Iraq and Iraqi companies have been cut off in many ways from American companies, from global commerce, for so long, there’s a trust barrier … an information gap,” said Andrew Wylegala of the U.S. Commercial Service, which had its own booth at the expo and worked with Rahmani to organize it. “But when you get here, you can’t help but be bullish about Kurdistan - as a market in itself, as a gateway for getting into the rest of Iraq, and as a motor that’s going to drive the rest of Iraq.” Most participants, including Rahmani, who has his sights on Basra for a similar expo in 2007, saw a north-south spread of commerce as simply “a matter of time.” “Kurdistan really is ‘the other Iraq’ at the moment,” said Mia Early of the London-based Kurdistan Development Corporation. “But we’re hoping that by building a sound base for investment in Kurdistan, it will really be the model for the rest of Iraq to follow when the smoke clears.” | 
