Camille Pissarro paintings

Camille Pissarro paintings
Carl Fredrik Aagard paintings
them as liberators. Top Kurdish officials have practically begged the U.S. military to make itself at home in their land. "I do not ask that Americans build bases in Kurdistan—I demand it," says Abdel Beg Perwani, a Kurdish member of Iraq's Parliament and deputy head of the defense committee.It gets better: Kurdistan is the one area of Iraq that's stable and prosperous. "People feel good," says Stafford Clarry, an adviser to the regional government who previously worked for the United Nations. "It's just money, money, money." With the approach of a referendum on Iraq's national constitution on Oct. 15, bombs were going off to the south in Baghdad, Taji and Al Hillah, killing scores of people and wounding hundreds. But the Kurds were in a festive mood. "It's going to be embarrassing," says Clarry of the referendum. In Kurdistan, "there's probably going to be a 97 percent turnout."