Embattled City Now a 'Success Story'; Spending Millions, Troops Start to Rebuild Najaf, Win Back Goodwill

A few hundred yards from the cemetery where Marines engaged infierce hand-to-hand combat five months ago, Marine Col. AnthonyHaslam slid out of his armored Humvee and was immediately surroundedby friendly men and happy children.

"This is a success story," Haslam said about Najaf.

Najaf is a place where Americans appear welcome and the peopleeager to vote Sunday -- all in a city that had seemed on the verge ofunraveling the U.S. effort in Iraq. Last August, four days afterHaslam's Marines took responsibility for the city's security, theywere at war with the Mahdi Army, a militia loyal to Moqtada Sadr, ayoung cleric who sought to inflame Shiite Muslims against Americans.

Now Sadr follows the orders of his senior religious leaders andofficially, if reluctantly, has tolerated the election. His followersquickly disowned an explosive shell that landed on a polling sitehere Friday. And they vowed that the Mahdi Army would protect pollingplaces, if asked.

At Friday prayers, Shiite clerics told the men kneeling beforethem on vast carpets that they and their wives must vote. Sadr Al-deen Kubbanchi, a bearded preacher who wore the black turban andwhite robes symbolizing a man prepared to die for God, addressed thecrowd with phrases that could have been borrowed from a speech byPresident Bush.

"This election is a battle between freedom and tyranny, betweenindependence and occupation, between peace and terrorism," he said inhis sermon. "If we fail, it means Saddam Hussein is still running thecountry."

Elsewhere in Iraq, fear and suspicion are expected to keep manypeople away from the polls. But in Najaf's empty streets, closed by apre-election curfew Saturday, Shiite pilgrims trudging toward thegold-domed Shrine of Imam Ali were unanimous in their intent tovote.

"It's very important that the people decide their own governmentand ruler," said Ibrahim Hassan, 19, a book of recitations in hishand. "And if I die voting, I will be a martyr."

Sunni opponents of the election have repeatedly attacked Shiitesand taunted them with shrill insults in videos shown on the Internet.Najaf, the spiritual center of the Shiite world and the burial placeof Ali, the son-in-law of the Prophet Muhammad, is seen as a likelytarget for bombs. The police chief, Maj. Ghalib Jazaeri, warnedSaturday night that women might try to hide explosive belts undertheir black robes and stage suicide attacks.

Najaf has a grim history of bombings, including a powerful carbomb in December that killed at least 50 people. Najaf officials haveflooded the area with 15,000 police officers and soldiers and havelocked down the city with curfews and driving restrictions. "We'vegot a tight grip on the place," said Abdilal Kufi, the head ofelections security.

People huddled in their homes Saturday night, as the dark streetswere given to police, who charged to and fro at shadows, nervouslyfiring warning shots.

Protection by police is a novel concept for Najaf's residents.Saddam Hussein dealt ruthlessly with the Shiites here, and many knewthe authorities mainly as thugs and torturers. Still not entirelytrustful of their countrymen, some here said they welcomed thepresence of Americans to help keep security in this election and thetwo local elections that are supposed to follow it.

"We have no problem with the Americans," said Ahmad Ali, 30,lingering outside the shrine. "They haven't tried to violate ourtraditions by going in the shrine. And they have given money tocompensate for buildings destroyed by the fighting and built schools.Till now, they have done a good job."

Haslam, commander of the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit, credits asplurge of money spent by the Marines for goodwill in Najaf. TheBrooklyn-born commander rattles off a lengthy list of schools built,computers bought, clinics repaired, shops reconstructed with theenthusiasm of a mayor running for reelection.

In just four months since the fighting ended, Haslam has paid $21million to fix parts of this ancient city battered during the threeweeks of combat. He and his officers walked door to door in somesections, offering payment on the spot for damage done to the oldcement houses as his tanks had rumbled through. And when he saw oldschools -- or no schools -- in this place long slighted by Hussein,he ordered up construction crews that are raising neat and newbuildings, brightly painted, with local laborers glad for the work.

There is much to be done. Najaf is a shabby city of 500,000, withgarbage and foul ponds in the streets. Many of its buildings arepunctured from the fight between the Marines and Mahdi Army. Thefighting, ended by a truce, was a military success for the Americansbut a public relations disaster, as Shiites around the world heardfalse stories about infidel soldiers invading the sacred shrine.

The Marines say they have repaired their image.

"We own the place now, because of all the work we've done," Haslamsaid as he drove past a line of buildings sheathed with scaffolding.

But many here say that Najaf is quiet and accommodating now onlybecause of loyalty to one man: Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani.

Sistani ordered Sadr to quit fighting. Sadr quit. He has orderedthe Shiites here to vote. They say they will vote. And he hasendorsed the temporary presence of U.S. troops. So the Marines arewelcomed.

"Sistani is The Guy. He is the driver now," Haslam acknowledged.

Sistani, a white-bearded, reclusive 74-year-old cleric, has playedthe volatile politics of the American presence here deftly,abandoning the isolation from politics to which he had long clung. Hehas embraced the election, and the relative security offered byAmerican troops, because democracy is likely to empower his people,the Shiites.

"We hope this election will be a political victory for allMuslims, and for the Shiites specifically," said Mohammad Khuzai, aspokesman for Bashir Najafi, one of the three grand ayatollahs juniorto Sistani in the religious leadership.

In city hall, the governor of Najaf said he hoped to change that.Adnan Zurfi spent nine years in Chicago and Dearborn, Mich., andreturned with U.S. authorities to help run Najaf. He was appointedgovernor and is running to keep his job. As he talked, his outeroffice filled with supplicants. Zurfi fiddled with his computer,calling up a photo of three of his seven children at home inMichigan.

"I think it's the money and the projects" that will keep Najafquiet, he said. "People are happy that they are starting to see theirgovernment working. Now, when you ask them, are you going to theclerics, or going to the government with your problems, they say thegovernment. That's what I'm trying to do."