How would you like it if you hadn't had a trash pick-up since August 5. Well the residents of Sadr City are finally getting not only the basic services back after months of fighting, but the promised sanitation infrastructure repairs and improvements are about to get underway after the weapons buy-back program appears to have worked to reduce the level of violence.

Not that there aren't enough weapons floating around for the Mahdi Army to rise again, but the program and the cash seem to have been the agreed signal to start getting life back on a more normal footing.

Perhaps most important -- around 130,000 Iraqis are to be employed on the projects.