Sadr City Officials See Bright Future.

The New York Times on March 8 quoted Raheem al-Darraji, one of two elected mayors of Sadr City, where the paper noted that scores of bodies had been dumped since last year, as saying: "We should have an amusement park" in that sprawling Shi'ite slum where US and Iraqi troops have been peacefully clearing homes since March 4. He said: "We want to rehabilitate the area so that families can have fun". He said the amusement park was one of several projects which community leaders were pushing US officials to fund in negotiations about how to handle Jaysh al-Mahdi which has Sadr City for years.

A concentrated makeover of Sadr City, he said, would support the plan's goals in two important ways: by giving young Jaysh al-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. The New York Times added: "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 bombs and killings in Sadr City continued, PM Maliki has already labelled his plan a success. His government has allotted $10 bn this year for reconstruction throughout Iraq; and with billions more expected from the US, 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 US 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 a recent meeting in the Green Zone, envoys from 15 areas in eastern Baghdad stood one after another to explain why they should be chosen to lead.

The New York Times said: "For US officials, Sadr City's calls for an amusement park and other projects raise a particularly thorny question of trust", noting that in 2004, US troops battled Jaysh al-Mahdi militants in Sadr City for days. More recently, US military officials have accused the militia of using deadlier roadside bombs, possibly linked to Iran, which have killed at least 170 US soldiers.

At the same time, the negotiations over Jaysh al-Mahdi along with the arrest or flight of several militia commanders appear to have led to a temporary truce. US soldiers have been welcomed into people's homes on streets where they had once been shot at. Gen. Petraeus on March 8 acknowledged that Jaysh al-Mahdi 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 Jaysh al-Mahdi fighters had laid down their weapons to give the government a chance and that the opportunity should not be missed. He emphasised that PM Maliki's office was already seizing the moment with an expanded job recruitment drive for local residents.

The New York Times said that, 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 which he said were job applications for every part of the government from the Oil Ministry to the police. He said: "We've collected more than 2,000 applications. We're classifying them according whether people have college degrees, whether they are men or women".

The New York Times added that Darraji and other Baghdad government leaders said the US military would be smart to add hundreds of additional jobs in the area because it held at least 1.5m people, about a third of Baghdad, and had just begun to revive after decades of neglect. They said Sadr City deserved to become a model of what might be possible elsewhere. Baghdad Deputy Mayor Na'eem al-Ka'bi, in charge of municipal services, said: "The plan is not only about security. It's about security, services and reconstruction".

Darraji said he specifically pressed US officials for money to build playgrounds with tennis courts which would appear in every few blocks. He said he pressed the Americans for money to rehabilitate a handful of lakes on the slum's western edge and for more control over the contracts so they could be assigned more quickly, adding: "We need to engage people as soon as possible, get them working, make them busy. These are quick projects. After these we will move on to medium and larger plans. The security process accelerates the economic possibilities".