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azinorum -> RE: Wife swapping Mehdi Army (3/10/2007 5:14:25 AM)
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Just to show I'm not anti everyone in Al Thawra (only those supporting the Jihoosh Al Mehdi). The below article deals with a positive development in this part of Baghdad. Anyone who has ever been to Al Thawra will know how bad these people had it under Saddam. They had no focus, zero support and their public service facilities were a disgrace. This type of treatment by Saddam lead to empty minds who will follow any strong personality offering them hope and protection (enter Muqtada HABBIBI Sadr). By offering them facilities and improving their standard of living perhaps we can engage their minds with something other than their Jihoosh Militia. As the Mayor says and I quote "We need to engage people as soon as possible, get them working, make them busy,"
Sadr City officials see a bright future ahead
By Damien Cave Published: March 9, 2007
BAGHDAD: When Raheem al-Darraji looks at the dusty lots just east of Sadr City where scores of bodies have been dumped since last year, he visualizes a Ferris wheel, a roller coaster and perhaps a merry-go-round.
"We should have an amusement park," said Darraji, one of two elected mayors in Sadr City, the sprawling Shiite neighborhood where U.S. and Iraqi troops have been peacefully clearing homes since March 4. "We want to rehabilitate the area so that families can have fun."
In an interview at his office, Darraji said that the amusement park was one of several projects that community leaders are pushing U.S. officials to fund in negotiations about how to handle the Mahdi Army, the Shiite militia that has controlled the neighborhood for years.
A concentrated makeover of Sadr City, he said, would support the plan's goals in two important ways: by giving young Mahdi militants an alternative to a life of violence and by providing residents with proof of the government's ability to improve their daily lives, diluting support for the militia.
Darraji's requests, however, also reflect a broader effort by Iraqi leaders to dart past "clear and hold" to the more lucrative phase of the new security plan known as "build."
Even as bombings and killings continue, Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al- Maliki has already labeled the plan a success. His Shiite-led government has allotted $10 billion this year for reconstruction throughout the country and with billions more expected from the Americans, Iraqi leaders at all levels are scrambling for control of how the windfall might be spent.
Ahmad Chalabi, who has re-emerged as an intermediary between Baghdad residents and the Iraqi and U.S. security forces, now regularly holds meetings with leaders from all over Baghdad as they compete for roles in managing the expected infusion of projects and jobs. At one recent gathering in the Green Zone, representatives from 15 neighborhoods in eastern Baghdad stood one after another to explain why they should be chosen to lead.
For U.S. officials, Sadr City's calls for an amusement park and other projects raise a particularly thorny question of trust. In 2004, American troops battled Mahdi militants here for days. More recently, U.S. military officials have accused the militia of using deadlier roadside bombs, possibly provided by Iran, that have killed at least 170 U.S. service members.
At the same time, the negotiations over the Mahdi militia, along with the arrest or flight of several commanders, appear to have led to a temporary truce. American soldiers were welcomed into people's homes this week on streets where they had once been shot at. General David Petraeus, at his first news conference as the top U.S. commander in Iraq, acknowledged Thursday that the Mahdi militia included a mix of both violent extremists and those with more benign motivations.
Darraji stressed that Sadr City as a whole "wants to open a new page in its story." He said Mahdi fighters had laid down their weapons to give the government a chance and that the opportunity should not be missed. He emphasized that the prime minister's office was already seizing the moment with an expanded job recruitment drive for neighborhood residents. As proof, Darraji — a chain-smoking tribal sheik partial to tailored suits — opened a door near his office and pointed to a pile of red, green and yellow folders that he said were job applications for every part of the government.
"We've collected more than 2,000 applications," he said.
He and other Baghdad government leaders said that the U.S. military would be smart to add hundreds of additional jobs in the neighborhood because it held at least 1.5 million people, or about a third of the city, and had just begun to revive after decades of neglect. They said the neighborhood deserved to become a model of what might be possible elsewhere.
"The plan is not only about security," said Naeem al-Kabbi, Baghdad's deputy mayor in charge of municipal services. "It's about security, services and reconstruction."
Darraji said that he specifically pressed U.S. officials for money to build playgrounds with tennis courts that would appear every few blocks. He said he pressed the Americans for money to rehabilitate a handful of lakes on the neighborhood's western edge and for more control over the contracts so they could be assigned more quickly.
"We need to engage people as soon as possible, get them working, make them busy," he said. "These are quick projects. After these we will move on to medium and larger plans."
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