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Iraq PM goes walkabout in Baghdad
Ammar Karim
AFP
November 6, 2007


BAGHDAD -- Prime Minister Nuri Al Maliki has gone on a rare walkabout in central Baghdad in the latest sign of the improving security situation in the war-ravaged Iraqi capital.

During his stroll around the landmark Abu Nuwas street, Maliki inspected newly-renovated gardens and chatted to residents and young soccer players, the premier's office said Tuesday.

Maliki was accompanied by interior minister Jawad Bolani and other senior officials during Monday's tour of the riverside Abu Nuwas, named after a renowned poet and once Baghdad's most prominent street.

The premier, dressed in a suit, was surrounded by bodyguards, and the area around Abu Nuwas was sealed off during the tour, a security official said.

More than four years of violence has virtually closed the once-bustling street, with its lines of cinema halls, restaurants, and shops now standing empty and deserted.

But, with a sharp decline in bloodletting since a "surge" in US troops from mid-February, Baghdad municipal authorities are now reviving Abu Nuwas, and have already given the gardens a makeover.

Baghdadis are slowly returning to the gardens, and officials say they expect shops to start reopening soon.

During his one-hour visit, Maliki met residents who expressed their grievances, while one mother asked for government aid to assist her son who lost his legs in an explosion.

Locals showered the premier with sweets while he took time out to pose for pictures with children.

"Security has been reestablished, and we have beaten the terrorists in many areas of Baghdad," he told those who turned out to greet him. "Life is returning to normal. Terrorism is living its last days."

Maliki also met teenagers playing football on an open field who complained to him about lack of proper facilities.

Popular Iraqi footballer Laith Hussain was among those who shook hands with the prime minister, a photograph released by Maliki's office showed.

US officials blame Maliki, a Shiite, for failing to effect the political reconciliation needed to halt the sectarian violence that has ravaged Iraq since a Shiite shrine was bombed in the city of Samarra in February 2006.

The embattled premier denies he is not doing enough to rein in militants and, at the weekend, told a conference of Iraq's neighbors and major Western powers in Istanbul that the threat of civil war and violence was receding.

"Ethnic violence is decreasing ... The civil war that Al Qaeda wanted to spark has been prevented," Maliki said. "Iraq has overcome the period of danger, and is stronger and more experienced today."

Iraqi officials and US military commanders have, for several months, been claiming the security situation in Baghdad and other violent regions is improving on the back of sustained military assaults against insurgents.

Residents of the capital, too, report that violence levels have dropped noticeably and that some neighborhoods are returning to a semblance of normality.

The debate is still open, however, over whether this reflects a lull in the war or the tentative start of a long road to peace.

The second in command of US forces in Iraq, Lieutenant-General Ray Odierno, recently told reporters that the momentum was "positive," but "not yet irreversible."

Iraqi newspapers Tuesday reported that a project for the reconstruction of Mutanabbi Street in downtown Baghdad, the cultural heart of the Iraqi capital with rows of libraries and booksellers, has also begun.

The street was devastated by bombings earlier this year that destroyed many bookstores and forced cafes and libraries to close.

Data from Iraqi ministries said 887 Iraqis were killed in the month of October, up on the September figure, but significantly lower than the 1,992 deaths recorded in January, the peak of violence in the country.
http://www.metimes.com/storyview.php?StoryID=20071106-080536-9345r