The vehicle, part of the hearts-and-minds counter-insurgency campaign being waged amid the recent downturn in violence, is microgrants; small amounts of money to help businesses improve, expand and then hire more workers.

"It isn't a free money program," said Capt. Clint Rusch, who oversees the microgrant project of Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 68th Armor Regiment, which is attached to the 1st Battalion of the 6th Infantry Regiment. "We're not giving away money. We're here helping people to get the technology and equipment they need to do better business.

"Better business means more jobs, more money in the community and working for terrorists to feed families no longer being an alternative."

The microgrant project is part of the U.S. Army's Commander Emergency Response Program (CERP), which allows commanders to spend money to rectify pressing civil reconstruction and humanitarian needs in their battlespace, such as repairing schools and homes damaged in fighting, fixing broken water pipes and reopening health facilities.

There are two CERP streams in Iraq. One is that of U.S. commanders. About $27 million has been allocated for the greater Baghdad area, according to the U.S. Army 4th Infantry Division. The second is Iraqi CERP (about $81 million), which is used exclusively for infrastructure projects that U.S. commanders identify, assess and approve in cooperation with central and local government. Microgrants are strictly an American initiative.

"They [the Iraqi government] would like their money to be spent on schools, clinics, road repair, sewage repair and items like that," said Col. John Hort, commander of 3rd Brigade Combat Team, Fourth Infantry division and in charge of U.S. efforts in Baghdad's districts of Adhamiya and southern Sadr City.

"We take that and apply that money to those major areas. And then we look at the peripheral areas that don't necessarily fit this plan. For example, local businesses, and we apply microgrants to those areas.

"That's what I would call hard U.S. dollars going into a local business so that he [the business owner] can regenerate that shop and make it a better place and employ more people."

Adhamiya and Sadr City are in northeastern Baghdad. A major portion of Adhamiya is Sunni Muslim and peopled by former officials of then President Saddam Hussein's Baathist Party government, teachers and other professionals.

It's an area where al-Qaida has operated. Other sectors are predominantly Shiite and influenced by anti-American Islamist cleric Moqtada Sadr and his Jaish al-Mahdi (JAM) militia.

JAM, together with Iran-influenced Special Group gunmen, were concentrated in Sadr City, a teeming slum next to Adhamiya until U.S. and Iraqi forces drove them out of its southern sectors. Iraqi forces later took control of its northern confines under a ceasefire agreement.

Charlie Company dispenses its microgrants in Beidhaa, part of Adhamiya and directly next to Sadr City.

Microgrants are for a maximum of $2,500. Since June, when the program started, about $375,000 in funding has been recommended. About 60 percent of the nominations are for $2,000 or less, Rusch said. About 10 percent have so far been paid -- the rest are still in the review/approval/disbursement pipeline at the brigade and division level -- but it's hoped that a 10 to 14 day processing timeline will be operating soon.

"Allison. Allison, my friend. Welcome, welcome," Faris Hassan Jabber said with a broad smile.

Jabber, a carpenter, was a recipient of a microgrant and was working at his bandsaw as Capt. Todd Allison of Charlie Company entered his cubby-hole shop in a neighborhood called Taribiya.

Jabber proudly showed Allison the carved, upper back frame of a sofa he had just produced and a completed entertainment center. On the wall behind him was a photograph of Jabber shaking hands with the American.

Jabber was the first business owner to get microgrant funding in Beidhaa , and Allison was the soldier that made it happen. When Allison first visited, Jabber was working with just one saw, a plane, and a few hand tools. Other saws and attachments on his carpentry station had long ceased to function and the furniture maker was having a difficult time supporting his family of five.

With funds from the microgrant, $500 of his own money and trading in the decrepit machine table, Jabber purchased a fully functioning second-hand one.

"Business is better," he said through an interpreter. "I have two people working for me now. The quality of my work is better, and I can use harder woods." he said.

An upholsterer next door also received a microgrant for a generator to power a compressor for stapling cushioning and fabric onto furniture. The $1,200 generator funded by a microgrant is used by all the half-dozen businesses on the street for power during the long electrical blackouts in the area.

Like Jabber, the upholsterer has hired additional workers, and like all microgrant recipients he'll later take on vocational training students -- Sons of Iraq ( also known as Concerned Local Citizen) neighborhood guards not absorbed into the regular Iraqi Security Forces.

"Jabber and Taribiya weren't chosen to be the first to get the grants by accident," Allison said. "The people of Taribiya all work in Taribiya and they shop in Taribiya. Helping these businesses has a direct impact on the community."

Allison and Rusch said those wanting grants must fill out applications that details business background, what grant money would be used for, and a future business plan. The application, if approved by Charlie Company, then goes up the chain of command for review and approval. Follow up visits are made after disbursement of funds to verify the money was used as planned.