| Tuesday March 22, 8:11 PM
Reuters
Baghdad mayor looks to future with Tigris park
By Luke Baker
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BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Families picnicking by the river while kids play in the setting sun is hardly the sort of image Baghdad generally conjures up.
But if the city's mayor has anything to do with it, that's exactly the scene that will play out in the months ahead as work nears completion on a park by the banks of the Tigris.
It is part of a series of efforts by the mayor to bring about small-scale improvements in the capital two years after the invasion that overthrew Saddam Hussein.
For the past four months, bulldozers have been tearing down brush and clearing up detritus along a 1.5 mile stretch of the river to make way for the park, which lies alongside Abu Nawas street, once famed for fish restaurants.
Engineers and architects have laid out a string of winding pathways, with trails for runners and cyclists, and spots for families to picnic under the shade of palm trees, in the sort of development that wouldn't be out of place in Florida.
Water sprinklers are gently soaking freshly laid grass in preparation for the park's opening, which is expected some time next month -- six months after the U.S.-funded project began.
It's all a far cry from the bombs and mortar blasts that have been the daily diet for Baghdad over the past two years, and may offer some respite for the city's five million people, frustrated by so many months of chaos and destruction.
"Abu Nawas is a very important place in Baghdad -- it is symbolic for Baghdad's citizens," said mayor Alaa al-Tamimi, a former exile who returned to Iraq after the war.
"I am pushing to rehabilitate this part of the city so people will picnic there and that sort of thing.
"We want to give the people hope that the peaceful times will come back. They need to forget the bad times, the war times," he told Reuters.
GRAND PLANS
Tamimi, an engineer who was elected mayor last May, has grand plans for Baghdad, which he regards as one of the world's great cities, even if its ancient glories are long faded.
One of his first initiatives on taking over City Hall was to order the removal of hundreds of four metre concrete anti-blast walls to allow traffic to flow more freely.
The move was opposed by U.S. forces, who were worried about the increased risk of car bombs, but lauded by residents who had suffered for months with lengthy traffic jams.
After the $10 million (5.3 million pounds) park rehabilitation project, he's planning to set up special zones for commercial and industrial development on the city's outskirts.
Apartment complexes, shopping arcades and hotels are also dreamed of, although the main focus is on providing basic services to a city where a quarter of people are without drinking water and a third don't have proper sewage facilities.
But nothing in Baghdad is easy and Tamimi faces opposition. He wants to open the whole of Abu Nawas street, once a thriving thoroughfare and now mostly blocked off by concrete barriers.
But the street passes two of Baghdad's largest hotels and other sensitive sites frequently targeted by bombers, so the U.S. military wants it to stay shut down.
The chief engineer of the project, Amer Gobbashee, says it's a shame the park will not look exactly as it was intended because the road will not be opened up. But he hopes in time, if Baghdad becomes safer, people will flock to the open space.
"The pressure of life in Baghdad is too much," he said as he surveyed work on the site. "Everyone needs somewhere to relieve the stress and strain and this park should be that place."
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