There is a Baghdad that Sen. Barack Obama probably won't see.

It's places like the dirt strip that crosses under a highway and leads to a small home _ and a couple and their six grown children seeking to move forward in a city where violence has eased but life for many remains mired in economic miseries and few opportunities.

"I want to believe that the future for Baghdad is now better, that we've turned a corner," said Abdul-Karim Sami, a reed-thin 60-year-old who once hobnobbed with Baghdad's elite as a tennis coach. "I truly want to believe that."

Then he ticks off the family's list of woes: food costs so high they have cut back on all but essentials; jobs so scarce his oldest son peddles trinkets on the street despite a university degree in economics; not enough money left over for a doctor visit or any emergency.

"I pray every day that nobody gets sick," Sami said.

Obama's visit to Iraq _ the timing is being kept secret for security reasons _ is expected to be brief and dominated by meetings with Iraqi officials and U.S. military commanders in the heavily guarded Green Zone.

Discussions about future U.S. troop withdrawals and the transition to Iraqi security control should be high on the agenda.

There likely will be less attention to other long-term challenges facing whoever next occupies the White House: how to help rebuild Iraq and lift an economy flattened by sanctions and war, but holding oil riches and potential paydirt for investors willing to gamble that security gains will stick.

Both Washington and Iraqi officials have shifted more resources toward reconstruction and development projects of all kinds. The U.S. military announced Friday the completion of a water pumping station south of Baghdad and an elementary school in eastern Baghdad. On Saturday, a groundbreaking ceremony was planned for a new hotel in the Green Zone.

Like many Iraqis, Sami and his family are impatient for some direct benefits to come their way.

Sami's family, too, represents the questions many Iraqis have about Obama's views.

The family strongly backed last year's U.S. troop "surge" that is now credited with halting much of the insurgency attacks and sectarian killings in and around the capital.

Obama, who criticized the reinforcements at the time, has lauded the military successes, but argues that sending 30,000 additional soldiers to Iraq pulled away focus from the widening battles against the Taliban and al-Qaida in Afghanistan and border regions of Pakistan.

Sami also supports the idea of a slow pullback by U.S. forces _ not the rapid withdrawal that Obama has suggested.

Some past visits by American politicians, including Obama's main presidential rival, Sen. John McCain, have included tours of public markets or other sites in Baghdad. Obama's specific plans once in Iraq have not been made public.

It's unlikely, though, that he will have time to fully inspect areas like Sami's Wahda district in eastern Baghdad. The mixed Sunni-Shiite neighborhood is dotted with police checkpoints, barriers of concrete and razor wire, and rows of government posters denouncing insurgents and armed factions.

Sami's home gets about four hours of electricity a day. Even that little bit of juice is better than last summer, when the family could go for days at a time without power.

Sami's wife, Mediha, sweeps the previous night's collection of wind-blown dust into their garden: a tiny patch of grass, a few sunflowers and a single date palm. "Will Obama see firsthand how real Baghdad families struggle?" she asks.

Her husband says he doesn't think so. But he hopes Obama will come away with an understanding that military gains and reconstruction progress are twin blows to insurgents and other armed groups. Continued...