Iraq reforms as a democracy:

A $1 million dollar-plus multinational force project to stand up a vehicle maintenance facility for Iraqi Police Service vehicles in Baghdad is fully operational and in the coming weeks will add a fuel point capability. The Baghdad Central Maintenance Facility project, initially undertaken in Dec. 2003 by the U.S. Army’s 18th Military Police Brigade, is now operating completely under IPS control in the city, employing some 260 Iraqis in the city’s southern Jihad District.

The site was an intelligence compound under the Hussein regime, but later identified as an ideal location to address one of the gaping holes in the Baghdad IPS’s security mission – an ability to maintain the growing fleet of up to 2,800 police vehicles in the city.

Meanwhile, Allied obliteration of terrorists in Fallujah looms. Over the past twenty-four hours, six focused attacks have taken place, knocking out enemy positions, fortifications and supply points. (In Ramadi, our forces prevented Islamofascist murderers from killing dozens of children.) Chester watches the steady procession and declares it prelude to the storm:

Phase I: Shaping Actions: We're seeing this now, as described above.

Phase II: Ground Assault. The mission will be to remove anti-Iraq forces (AIF) from power within Fallujah and other cities. The beginning of this phase may be event-driven. When this starts, watch the press releases very closely. "Defeat" means we will try to break their will to fight. "Destroy" means we will physically destroy the enemy forces. Both of course involve combat, but to differing degrees and with different objectives.

Phase III: Exploitation and Reconstruction: I expect that our victory will be followed swiftly with very aggressive moves to pursue any fleeing enemy forces, and to immediately move in to reconstruct the city, flooding it with Civil Affairs teams, probably interacting with Iraqi National forces. Our victory will be advertised a great deal in the Iraqi national and Arab regional media (more than just the token headlines we'll get in the US and Europe). Intelligence exploitation teams will be sifting through everything (and everyone) they can get their hands on too.

The stateside Marine has noticed other valuable aspects of the operation, including the introduction of Iraqi media embeds as a way to encourage trust between suspicious Iraqi Arabs and their soldier-protectors, and deflect disinformation from leftist and despot propaganda mills. Chester also takes a moment to contemplate the Ba'athist-terrorist force's reasons for having stood its ground; it could be pride, it could be overconfidence. Whatever the local motivation, strategic insight is not a talent of our enemies', and we're rich for it.

INTO THE MIND OF MADNESS: This in-country Marine believes it's a sick, lunatic pride — and, command willing, a fatal one. He and his brothers-in-arms may get their chance to finish what they began in April, as Iraqi Interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi has issued an ultimatum; only after he dismissed out of hand Kofi Annan's disgusting, grandiloquent abetting of terrorists.