Kurds remain biggest winners from US-led invasion of Iraq

Complexes of McMansions, fast food restaurants, real estate offices and half-constructed high-rises line wide, U.S.-style highways in Irbil, the seat of the semi-autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq. Many members of the political and business elite live in a suburban gated community dubbed the American Village, where homes sell for as much as $5 million, their lush gardens consuming more than a million liters of water a day in the summer. The visible opulence is a far cry from 20 years ago. Back then, Irbil was a backwater provincial capital without even an airport. That rapidly changed after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.