'A THEATER OF THE ABSURD"

Moqtada Sadr is an angry young man. He is also a suspect in a double murder investigation, but that's not official yet. For now he is simply a pest.

He is a pest to the point that the United States' First Marine Division has designed a psychological operations campaign just for him, which they are relatively quite about. They don't want to confer the legitimacy as an anti-American firebrand that he seems to crave. So they publicly ignore him, and in subtle ways undermine him where they can.

"He's more of an annoyance than a threat," says Lt. Col. Christopher Conlin, the commander of the Marines' 1st battalion, 7th regiment, in residence at a dusty technical college on the outskirts of the city.

Conlin doesn't look like your stereotypical Marine. He's lithe and small, with thick black brows that arch over clear gray eyes and make him look perpetually bemused. Conlin is credited by both headquarters and the lowest grunt in his unit for his deft touch with the notoriously touchy Iraqis. The city, the spiritual center for Shiites the world over, should have been a powder keg for the U.S. occupiers. Instead it has been an oasis of tranquility relative to Baghdad, just 60 miles north.

Take last Sunday: Some 4,000 of Sadr's supporters (though Sadr says there were 10,000) staged a demonstration on the college that serves as home to the small military team charged with restoring Najaf. It holds the tomb of Ali, who, as the son-in-law and cousin of the Prophet Mohammad, is the martyred father of Shiites.

Conlin is all for pubic demonstrations -- what better way to practice democracy? But this one was getting ugly. Marines in town had been roughed up, and a quick reaction force had to be called out to guard the barracks.

Conlin has worked long and hard to win the trust of the people of Najaf through his soft-power approach: His Marines don't wear body armor when they are out in town. They pass out candy to kids. They take off their sunglasses when talking to people, so they can look into the Americans' eyes and know they are not threat. It works. Not a single Marine has died in Iraq from hostile fire since April 20. The Army has lost nearly 40.

These demonstrators -- hooligans, by Conlin's estimation -- were not from Najaf. They had come down in buses and cars from Baghdad and Fallujah at Sadr's urging, specifically to cause trouble.

The Friday before, Sadr preached at the nearby Kufa mosque against the Americans, feeding the fears and hostility of his predominantly out-of-town congregation. Before they boarded buses for home, some of them beat up a newly minted blue-shirted Kufa police officer who had been directing traffic.

On Saturday, Sadr called the local television station -- there is only one -- with a cry for help. His house, the house of his late and beloved father, was under siege by the Marines. They had surrounded him and were going to take him to jail, or worse.

The station manager aired the report, despite the fact his reporters on the scene were unable to detect an American presence, Conlin said.

"We don't even know where he lives," he said. "We weren't there."

Sadr's followers came to his rescue the next day, marching on the partially built university that serves as home to the government support team, soldiers and Marines overseeing the rebuilding of hospitals, schools, roads, sewers, electricity and much more.

As the crowd surged toward the compound singing songs in praise of Sadr, Conlin had his Marines sing back to them the songs they use to keep time when running. Not the baudy ones, he noted with a sheepish smile.

"We were trying to orchestrate a theater of the absurd," Conlin laughs.

But when the crowd turned angry, he ordered the guards to "fix bayonets" -- strap a knife to the end of their rifles and prepare for hand-to-hand combat. It would kill fewer people than using the guns. If these demonstrators wanted trouble, they were going to get it.

"You don't hear that order every day," one of his officers laughed later. "Pretty much not since World War II."

The threat of bayonets did the trick. The crowd, made up of young men who have lived with the constant threat of violence under the Saddam Hussein's Baathists for so many years, backed down, and Conlin told them his men did not surround the house.

"You write up your statements, and I'll write up mine, and we'll present them to Sestani and let him decide," Conlin told the demonstrators. They did not take him up on his offer.

They boarded their buses for the north -- many for "Sadr city" the vast Shiite slum in eastern Baghdad, but not before Sadr had accomplished his goal. The dramatic footage from the protest condemning the U.S. occupation of Iraq was broadcast around the world on CNN and al-Jazeera. Sadr was now one to watch in the eyes of the media.

The station manager, apparently in league with Sadr, resigned his post on Monday. The Marines found out he was pocketing a large percentage of the generous salaries they had arranged for the 42 employees in an attempt to kick start a free media. He was given a choice: Retract the statement and resign, or they would tell the staff about the money he had been stealing from them. He recanted the report and quit his job.

Back at the Marine post, the crowd had trampled a local farmer's new crop and broken his irrigation pipes. The Marines paid for their repair.

"He's got little green shoots already, did you see it?" Conlin said.

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