Word: samarra
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...getting e-mails and phone calls from people I knew who wanted to come. And these were people who had been here before. Many away from their families for a long time. One of my aides, who had only six months before come back from a tough assignment in Samarra, Iraq - he volunteered to go. And the energy that I found in that group of people and here in the embassy. It's not what you'd think after eight years. You'd think there would be cynicism, you would think there would be fatigue, but it is actually...
...help promote reconciliation on a national scale, Samarra's security forces last month invited some 12,000 Shi'ites from Najaf and elsewhere to visit the shrine site. "After two months, it will be Ramadan, and we will invite many more," said Mohammed. "We are trying to re-build the relationship between both sides...
...progress in Samarra, like much of Iraq, is precarious. Though insurgent attacks have dropped dramatically, "the biggest concern now is unemployment, because it directly affects the security situation," said General Mohammed. And reconstructing the shrine is central to the prospects of a city whose economy has for years depended largely on religious tourism. "Ninety percent of the people lost their jobs [as a result of the bombing]," says Mohammed. And unemployment creates fertile ground for insurgent recruitment. "When someone finds himself without work for three years, he'll do anything for money - even setting off explosions or killing people," Mohammed...
...Samarra's residents are quick to confirm that assessment, directly confronting the security forces with their frustration. On the market street near the shrine, civilians blame the Shi'ite-dominated government in Baghdad, and the police force it has sent to the city, for failing to provide jobs. "Unemployment is high. We apply for jobs with the police and they reject us," yelled one shopkeeper in a crowd of angry civilians - many of whom echoed his grievance. "How could you secure the town without the people of the town?" called another. "Each [commander] has his own people...
...Kageleiry says Samarra is now "better than it has ever been" and "the biggest obstacles standing in the way are lack of electricity and water." But as residents reveal, it's a sizable obstacle. And given its centrality to both sectarian conflict and the prospects for reconciliation in Iraq, Samarra has a lot riding on its success. "What they should do is take away all these concrete barriers and let all the [Shi'ite] pilgrims come and go. To hell with sectarianism. They are welcome," said one shopkeeper - a reassuring voice in a cloud of tension on the street...