Freedom's Truth

Forget watching the Hollywood version of "Over There". Michael Yon is over there right now, embedded with Deuce Four Stryker brigade, and his latest dispatch is gripping. This is just one snippet:

Next day, I was sitting in the TOC when intelligence arrived that a top Mosul terrorist was in a certain location nearby. It so happened that LT Orande Roy Sr, along with his Deuce Four Stryker platoon, was also nearby. Minutes later, LT Roy rolled up on a dozen Iraqi men. The soldiers began to detain and separate the men when they spied one man slowly reaching into his pocket and wrestled him down. Specialists Joseph Vanvranken and Darrell Blanchard searched him and found a hand grenade and pistol in his pocket. As the weapons were revealed, the other Iraqis, as if on cue, started pointing to the man with the grenade and the pistol saying he was a bad guy, or perhaps the bad guy.

In the excitement, a baby boy began crying. The man holding the boy was having little success in comforting him, so another man looked concerned for the child and asked to hold him. Of all the men there, LT Roy said, the man who reached for the child seemed the calmest, safest and friendliest.

About that time, one of the younger American soldiers walked out to LT Roy holding at arm's length a vest filled with explosives--luckily, his handling had not detonated the device. LT Roy decided to detain everyone, and as one soldier reached for the child, the friendly man started to shudder, his calm facade faltering. Adding to the mix, the interpreter noticed that one of the men had a foreign accent. He was Libyan.

The Libyan, like so many "jihadists" who come to Iraq itching for action in the holy war, found himself treated as exspendable bomb casing. He started confessing everything. In fact, he had no sooner sat down at the table in the detention facility here on base than he had filled three pages with detailed handwritten confessions. The Libyan had crossed the border from Syria into Iraq on foot, intent on fighting a holy war, as an infantryman engaged in direct combat with American soldiers. He did not want to be a martyr, merely a jihadist. He did not want to die in Iraq. His Iraqis "hosts" had threatened to kill him if he refused to wear and detonate the explosive vest while mingling into a crowd of Iraqi police. But the Libyan did not like that plan and was angry at the Iraqis who were trying to force a holy jihadist to become an unwilling bomb, and he was telling everything. Another cascade.

And the calm man, who appeared so clever and confident while standing there comforting a crying infant? How the picture changed when a young American solider stepped into the frame, reached for and gently took the child. Without his prop, the actor faltered, his illusion cracked and shattered as he shuddered before the soldier. This man who cowered behind a crying child was one of the top terrorist leaders in Mosul.

Editor Hit for Exposing Biased Iraq Reports.

Mark Yost, editorial page associate editor at the Knight-Ridder newspaper the St. Paul Pioneer Press, wrote the unthinkable - he criticized media coverage of the Iraq war and made himself the target of outraged colleagues for writing that the mainstream media are playing up the bad news about Iraq while ignoring the good news. His journalistic colleagues would have none of it.

What did he get for his trouble? Universal vilification from the same press that's engaged in the negative bias. Michael Fumento came to the rescue to defend Yost from the attacks. Among his points:

At Romenesko’s site, a charge Hoyt leveled at Yost was repeated time and again. “It's astonishing that Mark Yost, from the distance and safety of St. Paul, Minnesota, presumes to know what's going on in Iraq.” Never mind that Hoyt himself hasn’t gone or surely he’d have said he did. ...

As it happens, I did go to Iraq. I was embedded with the Marines at Camp Fallujah in hostile Anbar province, nearly lost my life, and returned with a colostomy bag as a souvenir. But before that I walked and drove through the streets of Fallujah, which for some odd reason fell off the media map right after the major blood-letting ended. I reported back on progress in reconstruction of buildings and providing electricity and water to parts of the area that NEVER had it. And I can't begin to count the e-mails I got from soldiers and Marines thanking me for telling it like it is.

Yost was right; media coverage on the war is terribly slanted – such that it may threaten our ability to win. This was much more clearly shown in the reaction to his piece than in the column itself. In any case, it's astonishing that his attackers, from the distance and safety of Washington, D.C. and St. Paul, presume to know what's going on in Iraq.

Iraq is a quagmire - for Al Qaeda:

But except in news reports, the war in Iraq has been going poorly for al-Qaida. Retired Gen. Jack Keane, former vice chief of staff of the Army, said in a speech July 25 that so far this year, U.S. and Iraqi security forces have killed or captured more than 50,000 insurgents, including a significant portion of the leadership. While the majority of these have to be people who were interviewed and released, that's still an impressive total.

Car bombings, al-Qaida's specialty, have fallen from (a record high of) 170 in April to 151 in May to 133 in June, with less than 100 so far in July. (Journalists describe this as a "worsening" trend.) Al-Qaida could be storing up for an offensive when the new Iraqi constitution is unveiled next month. We'll know soon enough. ...

Strategic Forecasting, a private American intelligence service, thinks al-Qaida is engaged in the terrorist equivalent of the Tet Offensive: "launching a series of attacks -- some significant, others mere psyops -- in an effort to turn the tide in a war it has been losing."

Counter Fatwa is the Solution says Mamoun Fandy in Asharq Alawsat, an English-language Arabic Daily out of Egypt.

Great idea. In fact, NPR and other outlets reported that Islamic leaders have done just that; issue a fatwa against terrorist violence against civilians. But don't get over-excited, Steve Emerson notes The Fatwa is bogus and was announced by terrorist-coddling groups:

This morning a group of American Islamic leaders held a press conference to announce a fatwa, or Islamic religious ruling, against “terrorism and extremism.” An organization called the Fiqh Council of North America (FCNA) issued the fatwa, and the Council on American - Islamic Relations (CAIR) organized the press conference, stating that several major U.S. Muslim groups endorsed the fatwa. In fact, the fatwa is bogus. Nowhere does it condemn the Islamic extremism ideology that has spawned Islamic terrorism. It does not renounce nor even acknowledge the existence of an Islamic jihadist culture that has permeated mosques and young Muslims around the world. It does not renounce Jihad let alone admit that it has been used to justify Islamic terrorist acts. It does not condemn by name any Islamic group or leader. In short, it is a fake fatwa designed merely to deceive the American public into believing that these groups are moderate. In fact, officials of both organizations have been directly linked to and associated with Islamic terrorist groups and Islamic extremist organizations. One of them is an unindicted co-conspirator in a current terrorist case; another previous member was a financier to Al-Qaeda.

The Chairman of the Fiqh Council, Taha Jaber Al-Alwani, is an unindicted co-conspirator in the case against Sami al-Arian, the alleged North American leader of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, whose trial began in June 2005 in Tampa, Florida. Mr. Alwani has been named in court documents as an official of several entities in northern Virginia suspected of being connected to terrorist financing.

It goes on. A number of these Muslim "leaders" play a double-role of putting on a moderate face while catering to and engaging in terror sponsors. Yikes.

Yet, I had a more obvious question to ask, since we are now 4 years after 911, years after Bali, long after Madrid, Istanbul, and countless other terrorist attacks. What took them so long? The lack of Muslim condemnation of Jihadist terrorism is stunning - EVEN when it comes to terrorism against Muslims!

It may be tied to the Islamic reaction to criticism of the religion. CAIR spends their time claiming to be 'moderate', whining whenever Islam is critiqued and then attacking public figures like talk-show host Michael Graham who dare to raise points about Islam like this:

Islam is a uniquely dangerous religion, that the religion itself needs a reformation much like those experienced by Catholicism and Mormonism, and that the one distinguishing attribute of "moderate" Muslims is their reluctance to publicly criticize the actions of the Islamo-fascist extremists who continue to spread terror. ... Islam has a problem, a problem with the Islamo-fascists who I'm told by folks like CAIR don't represent "real" Muslims. I point out this problem, and my frustration with the fact that so-called "moderate Muslims" appear to be doing so little to solve it, and I'm a hate-spewing bigot. Meanwhile, mosques in "moderate" countries like Egypt and Pakistan continue to support suicide bombers or, like Iran and Saudi Arabia, give money to terror groups like Hamas and the Al Aqsa Martyr Brigades.

We should note that Steven Emerson, CAIR and Fiqh Council skeptic, was blackballed by NPR. Derek Jacoby explains thusly: "NPR blacklisted Emerson in 1998, bowing to a pressure campaign by Muslim extremists who falsely libeled him as an anti-Muslim bigot." And Emerson's bigotry? For prophetically predicting things like this, in 1998:

The foreign terrorist threat in the United States is one of the most important issues we face.... We now face distinct possibilities of mass civilian murder the likes of which have not been seen since World War II. -- Emerson, Feb. 24, 1998

NPR didn't have Emerson on hand to analyze this new fatwa. Yet NPR had a representative from the Muslim council to explain the fatwa, and to assure Americans that this 'moderation' is more representative of Islam than the extremism of the terror groups.

All the news that fits.

Iraq can survive this says WP's David Ignatius, considering the possibility that Iraq may go the way of Lebanon with 'sectarian violence'. While possible, I'd reject the notion that this really represents a civil war, inasmuch as the terrorists and insurgents are living off of financing from a narrow base of Baathist ex-patraites. Yet the point Ignatius makes is crucial in a good news - bad news sort of way:

But people should realize that even Lebanonization wouldn't be the end of the story. The Lebanese turned to sectarian militias when their army and police couldn't provide security. But through more than 15 years of civil war, Lebanon continued to have a president, a prime minister, a parliament and an army. The country was on ice, in effect, while the sectarian battles raged. The national identity survived, and it came roaring back this spring in the Cedar Revolution that drove out Syrian troops.

Thus, Iraq as a nation could endure sectarian violence for some time, just as Lebanon and other nations have (consider Northern Ireland for one). We certainly hope and believe it won't come to that, as the circle of democratic participation widens and the base of support of the terrorists narrows.

Terrorism is in retreat on the Northern Ireland front, with the IRA laying down arms in an announcement that British PM Tony Blair called a step of 'unparalleled magnitude': "This may be the day when finally, after all the false dawns and dashed hope, peace replaced war; politics replaced terror on the island of Ireland," Here's hoping he is right.

Comment about it from Irish blog, Eamonn Fitzgerald's "Rainy Day", with the punchline: "The moral of the story? Never, ever believe anything that the IRA says. This is an ethnic-cleansing movement that has evolved to gangsterism in the course of 35 years.

IRA movement's claims to a Northern Ireland that just happens to be (barely) majority Protestant (and Unionist) are as outdated as their Marxist cant. The degree to which those claims echo the claims of terrorist groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad vis a vis Isreal is eerie. Extremism is as extremism does. The IRA taught the Jihadists a thing or two that have led to dead Israelis, Americans, and Muslims ... They are all the same breed of extremist murderers. It is sad that it took 9/11 and repeated Jihadist bombings to give terrorism a bad rap, but there it is.

On a personal note, like many Americans I have Celtic blood in me (1/2 Irish, 1/4 Scottish). I share a name with famous IRA leaders, and my ancestors were kicked off of lands by Cromwell's minions 400 years ago, settling in western Irish counties, but that was ancient history. We learned more about Irish relations and ancestors in recent years, when, thanks to Internet geneology sites, my family got connected with relatives who were long-lost. They told stories of finding some firearms in the chimney of the old home, that were from the 1798 Irish uprising. Old wounds and historical grudges are still alive.

That being said, we need to give peace a chance and to the holders of old grudges, give it a rest. The IRA was a useless and dangerous terrorist organization that did nothing to help Northern Ireland, but hurt it immensely, and closing the chapter on their destructiveness is a GOOD THING all around. I never liked the IRA, any more than I like Arafat or Bin Laden, and anyone who hates terrorism should hate the IRA. It's a pity Irish-Americans didn't see this earlier and aided and abetted groups in ways that are not much different from how Saudi Wahhabists help Bin Laden.

The next time I raise a Guinness, it will be to toast the end of IRA terrorism.

Even though John Bolton would be confirmed as US Ambassador to the United Nations if given and up-or-down vote, the Democrats have stalled (aka filibustered) his nomination. So Bush will make a recess appointment next week to appoint Bolton to the post. About time.

Hat tip for link: FR

I had to respond to this unfounded, silly attempt to blame Bush for Abu Ghraib, so I fired off this response:

The claim that "Bush approved of torture" was disproved by the links to this article: (a) no -high-level Bush admin person is mentioned as authorizing anything here and (b) The DoD was going above and beyond what was and is required under international law, and indeed took the 'high road' ... "We have taken the legal and moral 'high-road' in the conduct of our military operations regardless of how others may operate," Air Force Maj. Gen. Jack L. Rives wrote in a Feb. 5, 2003, memo.

Using dogs to scare a prisoner? big f-g deal. Most of these terrorists want to blow up buses of little girls, bomb holy shrines, and destroy everything we hold dear. They beheaded Nick Berg, and gleefully yet cowardly would kill bystanders to get at US troops, Iraqi policemen, officials, and even UN workers.

Not a story of limbs of prisoners torn off or crushed; no beheadings;, no stories like the ones of Soviet gulag where people (millions) would die slow of starvation, diseases that were untreated, put into 3 x 6 holes for weeks on end, forced to work 12 hour days in frozen tundra ... nothing like the Bataan march or Bridge over River Kwai.

Nope, more like fraternity-prank-level tactics with no physical harm but mere discomfort and humiliation. Gee, ordinary people face humiliations and abuses of all sorts every day, just surviving (with horrid bosses, customers, neighbors etc.) Only snivelling terrorist-abetting wimps would get their panties in a bunch over terrorists who were humiliated like this.

And it is fitting that you use a photo that looks a lot worse than it really was - a 'posed' shot by Spc Harman (who was convicted of abuse) in which the prisoner, although he had wire attached to him, was unharmed. It's a fitting metaphor for Abu Ghraib, where perception and hyperbole outpaces the reality: That a small number of soldiers abused and humiliated a limited number of prisoners, in ways that, while unjustified and unlawful, could never be called 'torture'.

Those who went beyond rule of engagement did so without authorization from above and the article cited doesn't change that.

The DoD is treating the terrorists at Gitmo better than they deserve, every single day. castigating the US Govt for their actions only aids and abets our enemies.

A Free Republic thread that exposes VIPS, and links the Plame affair and the forged Niger documents in an unexpected way!

In 2003, VIPS wanted to have CIA leakers undermine the President: "The 25-member group, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, composed mostly of former CIA analysts along with a few operational agents, is urging employees inside the intelligence agency to break the law and leak any information they have that could show the Bush administration is engineering the release of evidence to match its penchant for war."

Seymour Hersh has an interesting Niger fake doc theory: "“Another explanation was provided by a former senior C.I.A. officer. He had begun talking to me about the Niger papers in March, when I first wrote about the forgery, and said, 'Somebody deliberately let something false get in there.' He became more forthcoming in subsequent months, eventually saying that a small group of disgruntled retired C.I.A. clandestine operators had banded together in the late summer of last year and drafted the fraudulent documents themselves.”

VIPS weighs in on Plame, now against leaks instead of for them: "We, the undersigned former U.S. intelligence officers are concerned with the tone and substance of the public debate over the ongoing Department of Justice investigation into who leaked the name of Valerie Plame, wife of former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson IV, to syndicated columnist Robert Novak and other members of the media, which exposed her status as an undercover CIA officer. The disclosure of Ms. Plame’s name was a shameful event in American history and, in our professional judgment, may have damaged U.S. national security and poses a threat to the ability of U.S. intelligence gathering using human sources."

These names were the signers. Many of these also were involved in anti-Iraq-war documentary and write for the leftist journal "Counterpunch", political operatives and agitators who happened to wear CIA badges at one time or another:

Larry C. Johnson, former Analyst, CIA JOINED BY: Mr. Brent Cavan, former Analyst, CIA Mr. Vince Cannistraro, former Case Officer, CIA Mr. Michael Grimaldi, former Analyst, CIA Mr. Mel Goodman, former senior Analyst, CIA Col. W. Patrick Lang (US Army retired), former Director, Defense Humint Services, DIA Mr. David MacMichael, former senior estimates officer, National Intelligence Council, CIA Mr. James Marcinkowski, former Case Officer, CIA Mr. Ray McGovern, former senior Analyst and PDB Briefer, CIA Mr. Jim Smith, former Case Officer, CIA Mr. William C. Wagner, former Case Officer, CIA

VIPS member McGovern showed up at the Democrat clown show (aka the fake "joint session" where Democrats fantasize about being a majority again) this month and said this:

"The session took an awkward turn when witness Ray McGovern, a former intelligence analyst, declared that the United States went to war in Iraq for oil, Israel and military bases craved by administration "neocons" so "the United States and Israel could dominate that part of the world." He said that Israel should not be considered an ally and that Bush was doing the bidding of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. "Israel is not allowed to be brought up in polite conversation," McGovern said. "The last time I did this, the previous director of Central Intelligence called me anti-Semitic." Rep. James P. Moran Jr. (D-Va.), who prompted the question by wondering whether the true war motive was Iraq's threat to Israel, thanked McGovern for his "candid answer.""

Those are the dots ... connect them as you wish.

Here is the punchline ... Before becoming an enemy of the Bush administration, Larry Johnson was the worst intelligence analyst in the world, predicting "The Declining Threat of Terrorism" 2 months before 9/11.

This would be deep satire were it not reality; a Jihad where the victims are Muslims helping other Muslims. Al Qaeda kills Algerian Muslim diplomat, citing 'ties' to U.S. Pack of liars and murderers with warped excuses:

Iraq's most feared terror group said Wednesday it killed two kidnapped Algerian diplomats because of Algeria's ties to the United States and its crackdown on Islamic extremists.

Ah yes, Algeria, well-known USA ally: Algeria opposed the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. Algeria has been less than helpful in the U.N. It is in the Arab League. Then what is it?

Al-Qaida in Iraq, led by Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, linked the killing of the diplomats to the Algerian crackdown. ... Algeria's chief envoy Ali Belaroussi and fellow diplomat Azzedine Belkadi were slain because their government represses Muslims "in violation of God's will," said a chilling Internet statement posted in the name of al-Qaida in Iraq.

Terrorism is as terrorism does. Al Qaeda makes every death count, as a PR point for their many enemies. This was not about what Algeria is doing in Iraq, but what Algeria is doing in Algeria to defeat their own Jihadist / Al Qaeda 'enemy within'. The dots connect with London, Madrid, Bali, Istanbul, and even the recent bombings in Egypt. Iraq is providing an opportunity and battleground for the terrorists, but the motive lies deeper.

More proof of that is in the latest Terrorist leader caught in Iraq:

Iraqi commandos have captured an Egyptian said to be an associate of Ayman al-Zawahiri, al Qaeda's number two, police sources said on Wednesday.

Police named the suspect as Hamdi Tantawi and said he was detained in a raid on a farmhouse near the town of Yusufiya, south of Baghdad. They said Tantawi was suspected of financing insurgent operations in the area.

They said Tantawi was believed to be a lieutenant to Zawahiri, an Egyptian doctor regarded as second-in-command to Osama bin Laden in the al Qaeda network. Computers, money and weapons were also seized in the raid, the police said.

Wednesday's operation took place in an area called al-Shakhat, about 40 km (25 miles) south of Baghdad, part of a region referred to as the "triangle of death" by U.S. troops because of the frequency of insurgent attacks.

I started focussing this blog on the liberation of Iraq a little over one year ago in July 2004. I was shocked by opinions and coverage that not only claimed we were losing, but worse, claims (like Michael Moore's comparison of Fallujah insurgents with the 'minutemen') that we were on the wrong side. I did it to Debunk pessimism like this, and to point out that we could win, we should win, and we must win. I saw the Iraq war tied to terrorism and 9/11, not out of ignorance as the MSM claims but out of knowledge of the links between Saddam and terrorism, including Al Qaeda. We know even more about those links, latent then but activated as part of the terrorist insurgency against the coalition and new Iraqi Government.

I pointed out that Iraqis too were on our side, at a time when the media was lamenting claimed popular support for insurgents (a myth based on fear) and sniping at the legitimacy of a non-elected transition CPA and then Allawi Government. One of my early posts quoted Chaldean Bishop Rabban Al Qas, Chaldaean bishop of Amadiyah, saying:

"Regardless of what some may say, something new is sprouting here, a democracy, young, but real, and in need of help. Regardless of what many Europeans may think or argue, as an Iraqi I believe that we shall always be grateful to the US for our liberation. I say it as an Iraqi, as a Kurd, as a Catholic bishop. Our people were saved and can now hope in a better future."

Such hope and gratitude was not what Americans were hearing, and not what they hear even now. The Chasm between reports of gratitude from troops and from 'alternative' news sources like blogs, and hte mainstream media focus on the negative, is one I tried to correct.

I rejected notions of pessimism and doubts of our mission; I rejected the "Vietnam" comparisons, the hand-wringing over unfortunate events like Abu Ghraib, and the phony moral equivalency arguments. What I believed then and believe now are these principle points:

• The war in Iraq has been a Liberation of Iraq from Saddan Hussein's tyranny into Iraq's new democracy.
• This war in Iraq today is a part of the global War on Terror and success or failure in Iraq will dictate success or failure in the global war on terror.
• We are winning in Iraq and have the strategic elements necessary for ultimate success.

I said one year ago: "The only thing that can defeat us is defeatism itself." and I feel the need to repeat this, as the terrorist bombs continue to senselessly kill innocents. Our enemy is cowardly, evil, vile, tied to a sick and perverted interpretation of religion and ideology.

As we move forward, I feel both relieved - at the success of the Bush re-election and Iraqi election that I felt were twin keys to ultimate success - and mostly justified in my optimism. My claims that Iraqis really did want democracy was proven on January 30th, 2005 when 8 million Iraqis went to vote. It was enough to make even Jon Stewart and other cynical Liberals sit up and notice. Since then, the question of the legitimacy of the Government we helped shape is passing. The writing of the permanent Constitution will lay that to rest more permanently and secure Iraq's future.

One dark mark on my optimism: I expected the twin elections to snuff out the cause, excuses and motivations of the terrorist insurgency. I frankly expected the spring-time post-election lull to be permanent. I expected some limits in the insanity of the terrorists, but there is none. They continue to kill with impunity, with no political program except the spread of death and chaos.

My own ambition was to spread the good news about Iraq, yet I find myself but a shadow of Chrenkoff and his continued encyclopedic efforts to share good news.

It seems that doing the right thing is not enough. Even doing the right thing in the right way is not enough (and I don't mean to say that America's efforts were without mistakes; one can, with 20/20 hindsight, list innumerable items where we could have done better). I've learned that America is so strong militarily, yet so uncertain in our application of it that: "The only thing that can defeat us in Iraq is defeatism itself."

To win in Iraq, we have to continue to remind ourselves of the worthiness of the cause, the certainty of victory should we persist, and the valor of the effort.

I was on a recent hiatus. I will be posting periodically going forward, as time allows, with reminders of what it will take to win.

MSM leads with the negative spin with Rebels Banking on U.S. Pullout. Yet the picture in the details is "of an insurgency increasingly driven by a small minority of foreign fighters carrying out bolder and deadlier bombings under the leadership of Jordanian Al Qaeda figure Abu Musab Zarqawi." It's not growing, it's not succeeding, but it is surviving and persistently attacking targets and killing. Those insurgents have the money (several hundred million, from Saddam Hussein's family) and the influx of recruits (about 200 a month) to continue the current pace of suicide bombings and other attacks for now:

"We have to make certain assumptions for planning. Because the number of incidents and indicators have been relatively stable, we must assume that will hold true for the next several months, absent a diplomatic and a political breakthrough" with insurgents, Army Lt. Gen. John R. Vines, the commander of coalition forces in Iraq, said in an interview.

A few thoughts. First, stay for the long haul; as long as it takes. Second, kill Saddam Hussein. He should be executed not just for his past crimes against fellow Iraqis, but because his continued presense on this earth gives hope to his close supporters for a comeback. There are reasons why revolutionaries kill the previous rulers; they want to prevent a counter-revolution. Yet today, while much of the Sunni and Baathist leadership is coming to terms with the new Iraq, Sunni elements continue supporting insurgents:

"A fundamental of conflict resolution is negotiation," Vines said. "To terminate hostilities, the two sides have to negotiate." Short of a surprise diplomatic solution, however, American commanders expect anti-coalition Sunnis to pursue a two-track strategy: infiltrating the new government and security forces while continuing to back the insurgency.

While there is hope to resolve Sunni opposition to the new Iraq politically, the Al Qaeda terrorist element will never be gotten rid of through political evolution. Making Iraq a functioning democracy with rights for all Iraqis, and even making their security forces strong, won't prevent terrorist attacks - any more than London 7/7 could be prevented. This ground is a part of the global war on terror, and will require extinguishing the Jihadist mindset and ideology as a whole.

Here's something big going on in Iraq: Iraq's Constitution is taking shape. On Carnegie Endowment website, you can find Analysis and Commentary by Nathan Brown, including a PDF Analysis of the Constitutional process and translation of Iraq's Bill of Rights, as of a draft from July 20.

Commentary notes it follows the TAL in many provisions of the Constitution, but the Bill of Rights is not based on TAL; it makes welfare commitments from the state that are a 'departure from the TAL. It has elements that European Constitutions as well as our own. It is more robust in Bill of Rights than comparable Arab constitutions, yet the Constitution allows law to define how rights operate.

PUblius Pundit also comment on it and note a lot of 'progressive' ie pro-freedom changes since the earlier draft.

Of key importance: "Freedom of religion, belief and performance of religious rites are guraneteed in accordance with law."

Robust and repeated rights: to express opinions ("provided it does not disturb the private morals" - take that, ACLU); freedom of the press; security of conversations and private property against search and seizure - "Privacy of homes is protected", "No one may be detained ... except by a decision of a competent Judge."

Due process rights are given. "The judiciary is independent"; "The right of defense is sacred"; "innocent until proven guilty"; "It is forbidden to punish an innocent person for the crime of another".

There are duties (i.e. to pay taxes) of citizens and obligations of the Government ("Iraqis have the right to enjoy security, education ... and social insurance"). Also notes "Family is the basis of society" and provisions on freedom note limits based on "public morals", which as commentary notes, give the constitution a "conservative flavor".

Sunnis have yet to come back to the table and set terms for return, after they walked out when some of their members were killed by terrorists. The August 15th deadline looms, but most of the work is done.