US officials are increasingly highlighting their success with small community projects like the Rashid water treatment plant after work on a lot of major infrastructure projects stalled because of the increased violence.

Billions of dollars initially pledged by Washington for rebuilding Iraq were later channeled to equipping and training Iraq's nascent forces and to deal with the worsening security situation.

The US military hopes providing clean drinking water would make a difference in the daily lives of residents besieged by car bombs and crime during the day and plunged in darkness and curfew after sundown.

They also hope people's attitude towards their presence would soften.

"We hope to finish the work before the spring and summer when people's demand for water is highest," says Lieutenant Colonel Brian Dosa of the 1st Cavalry Division at the plant in Al-Zafaraniya.

He speaks with pride about the half a million dollars that will be invested in works at the plant to increase the water quality and quantity, which currently serves about 300,000 people in the area.

About 150,000 dollars has been spent on repairing the pumps at the plant which dates back to 1969.

No major work or maintenance had been done since then, according to the plant's manager Mohammed Hashim who stands nearby.

He says water from the river goes through special sand filters and is treated twice with chlorine.

Both the Tigris and Euphrates are among the world's most polluted rivers, according to experts, choked by industrial, agricultural and household waste and the occasional leakage from oil pipelines.

Dosa says nearly 40 million dollars has been spent just on sewerage projects in Zafaraniya and says the area is "relatively calm" compared with Dura just across the river where roadside bombs and mortar attacks are a daily occurrence.

Since May 2004, work on more than a dozen water treatment projects has been carried out in Baghdad alone, according to the US Project and Contracting Office charged with managing and spending the 18.4 billion dollars earmarked for rebuilding Iraq.

Almost three billion of this money has been shifted to security.

Ali Mehdi, 42, says he is grateful for the potable water he gets from the Rashid plant, but complains about everything else from the lack of security, to economic prospects and fuel.

He lives with his wife and seven daughters in a shack on the bombed out remains of the Al-Rashid military camp, one of the largest bases during the rule of ousted leader Saddam Hussein.

Hundreds of families have squatted in the ruins of destroyed barracks.

"The only way our lives will improve in a real way is when the Americans leave and we take charge," says Mehdi.

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