US drains Iraqi swamp - of sewage

Nearby, a small team of Iraqis are running a pump to drain some of the sewage from the roadside, and Distefano is checking on the progress.

But when he approaches the foreman, who's employed as part of a crash program by the 1st Cavalry Division to spend about $500 million on Baghdad's infrastructure and basic sanitation between now and October, the man doesn't seem happy to see him. His forearms coated with muck and grease, the man says he wants the soldiers out. "The Mahdi Army is paying for this, this is our city,'' he says. "We should be left to take care of our own problems."

Distefano ignores the claim that Sadr's Mahdi Army, not the US, is paying for the work, and asks a few questions. But the foreman isn't very cooperative, and Distefano's men begin to grow nervous as a crowd gathers.

"Captain, this guy here is staring me down,'' says one, almost toe to toe with a hostile young man. "I know, just ignore him,'' Distefano replies, who looks around and adds, "we're going to get mobbed by kids,'' before ordering everyone to mount up and move on.

Doing the right thing in Iraq these days isn't easy, and it seems unlikely to win the US military much credit from alienated populations like the people in Sadr City. A Shiite district, it was systematically deprived of basic services under Hussein's Sunni regime, breeding a surly attitude toward outsiders.

"If you were to overlay a map of where we've had the most enemy contact on one where the services are the worst, they'd match,'' says Lt. Col. Barrett Holmes, the 20th's commander. "There are many people who are frustrated that more progress hasn't been made, but a lot's starting to happen now."

Indeed, the engineers in concert with USAID and other US funding sources now have about 10,000 people working on sewage and water projects inside Sadr City. The work isn't going as quickly as it might, since the 1st Cavalry has made job creation one of its goals. Colonel Holmes spends much of his time ensuring that local contractors employ digging crews, rather than machines, for portions of their work.

They are also clearing blockages in the city's main sewage lines, and upgrading water-purification and pumping capacity. The engineers have more than $125 million in sewage and water projects that have just begun, or are scheduled to start soon, for Sadr City alone.

The work didn't come soon enough for Amel Khadim, a laborer who died of typhoid in late July.

Here in sector 74, the stench of human waste and garbage is enough to make the eyes water. Most residents now pay for water to be trucked in. However, the side street where the long, narrow tent has been erected for Mr. Khadim's funeral was ankle deep in sewage until a few days earlier, when it was drained by a mobile pump team, almost certainly one arranged for by the US military. But no one here seems to know it.

"The Mahdi Army are the ones who drained the sewage," says Bassim Nasser. "They're the only ones who help us."

Distefano says he tries not to get frustrated. "We're not here for the credit. We're here to get things done."

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