Sheriff Leon Lott, Richland County sheriff, was invited to Erbil, Iraq, to advise. When Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott was invited to visit Erbil, Iraq, this past July to work with its police officers and to help end violence against women in the region, he said he wasn’t sure what to expect when he got off the plane.

Because the news media typically depicts most of the nation as burned out shells of cities with streets filled with armed shooters, Lott said he and his fellow officer leading the delegation, Captain Roxana Meetze, were both pleasantly surprised as they disembarked in the Kurdistan region to find an atmosphere “not unlike the streets of Columbia.”

“The people were doing normal everyday things,” the sheriff said. “They were shopping, eating out, and just going about their business.”

Kurdistan is a region located in northern Iraq, and it’s known for its sovereign spirit that resulted in massive murders of its people during the reign of Saddam Hussein. After the Kurds supported Iran in the 1980–88 Iran–Iraq war, Hussein retaliated in a ferocious manner, razing villages and attacking peasants with his chemical weapons.

Thousands of Kurds died a horrible death at the dictator’s hands in 1988 when he released the poisonous gasses on them. The Kurds rebelled again after the Persian Gulf War only to be crushed again by Iraqi troops. About 2,000,000 fled to Iran, and 5,000,000 currently live in Iraq. The United States has tried to create a safe haven for the Kurds within Iraq by imposing a “no–fly” zone north of the 36th parallel.

Today, after Hussein’s capture and execution, the people are working to establish a modern regional government and to promote a more civilized way of life. And in so doing they are looking toward America and the American government and police forces.

Kurdish officials found out about Lott from a former Richland County sheriff’s deputy, who is currently working as a U.S. security contractor with the local Kurdish Police College. Once the Kurdish authorities learned that Lott’s police department employed 100 women, and he was active in the training of all of the officers, the invitation was sent.

“While in this part of Iraq women have more rights, it’s still a very new concept to have male and female police officers working together with equal responsibilities,” Lott said.

“I think seeing Captain Meetze working with me and the other men had a definite impact on the officials we met.”

The arrival of the American officers was a “big deal” Lott said.

“There were newspaper articles and ceremonies to welcome us,” he said. There was a lot of public fanfare around our presence there, but I think the best things happened when the cameras were turned off.”

Lott said that regular people would walk up to him in the streets and in restaurants and thank him as if he personally were responsible for their freedom.

“We were going into this one place, more or less like an American WalMart,” he said. “People wanted to take pictures with us and one man in particular asked me if I was an American. When I told him yes I was, he began to pump my hand and slap me on the back, and he kept saying ‘thank you, thank you for our freedom.’ That’s not the sort of thing the media reports a lot.”

Lott said he hopes to establish an exchange program to further work with the Iraqi police officers over here.

“It’s only a small part we’re playing,” the popular sheriff said. “But maybe by helping them to become more self sufficient, we can hopefully get our service men and women home a little sooner.”

Lott added that the learning experience went both ways.

“We taught them about our ways,” he said. “But their physical training methods are extremely impressive because sometimes that’s all they have. We can learn from them too.”