I flew in and out of Iraq until recently and I have to say that the North can be more civilised than neighbouring Turkey at times. Erbil and Sulamaniya are both very good airports. New and efficient, you could be anywhere in Europe in my view. Went out in Erbil and it seemed fine. There are a lot of new housing developments which are pretty decent. Different developments have different names...names of countries if I remember in relation to the style of the villa/house. A good bunch to try and talk to are SKA Skylink Arabia. They have been there for a while now and provide refueling/aviation services. My advice is to try and be based out of Erbil. If you're able to do this, I think you'll find life is not too bad.