SULAIMANIYAH, Iraq – American soldiers based here don’t spend their day calling in air strikes against foreign fighters or exchanging gunfire with Baathist loyalists. Nor do they live in mortal fear of deadly improvised explosive devices along the roadsides.

Instead, as one soldier said, “I always see the thumbs up, and little kids offer us candies.”

Maj. John T. Hubert, one of about 100 U.S. forces stationed in the province of Sulaimaniyah in northeastern Iraq, said, “I tell people I have the best job in Iraq. People love us here.”

He and his fellow soldiers in the 451 Civil Affairs Battalion are assigned to monitor up to 28 Coalition Provisional Authority projects initiated by the local Kurdish government.

The Kurds have been running their own governments in parts of northern Iraq since the end of the 1991 Gulf War.

With a budget of $1.6 million, the civil affairs soldiers have overseen school renovations, bridge and sewage reconstruction and the building of a $195,000 dialysis center. They have also equipped student activities centers and other smaller projects.

Based in an old Iraqi military facility on the outskirts of Sulaimaniyah, the U.S. troops spend their spare time playing cards and chatting online with their families and friends back home. They also venture out to explore nearby mountains or stay in the luxurious hotel at Dukan Lake, 45 minutes from Sulaimaniyah. When they travel outside their base camp, they’re even guarded by Kurdish pesh merga fighters. “We look at them like guests who will not stay here forever,” said police officer Abdulla Kamal.

The Kurdish press never refers to American forces as “occupiers,” “invaders” or “the enemy,” as do news outlets in other parts of Iraq. Here, they are called coalition forces, U.S. soldiers or liberators.

And in other parts of Iraq, where Shia and Sunni religious leaders form a nucleus of opposition to the coalition forces, Kurdish clerics espouse a more tolerant view.

“We are happy the American forces are here,” said Sheikh Majed Hafid. “We don’t care if they stay here for another 100 years,” he said.

Kareem Omer is a journalist based in Sulaimaniyah and is the Institute for War & Peace Reporting’s Kurdistan coordinator.

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