YOU COULD HAVE A BIG ANNUAL EVENT AND CALL IT MAHDI GRAS:

Sadr City officials see bright future ahead (Damien Cave, March 8, 2007, NY Times)

A concentrated makeover of Sadr City, [Raheem al-Darraji, one of two elected mayors in Sadr City] said, would support 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 bombs and killings here 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, U.S. troops battled Mahdi militants here for days. More recently, U.S. military officials have accused the militia of using deadlier roadside bombs, possibly linked to 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. U.S. soldiers were welcomed into people's homes this week on streets where they had once been shot at.