From Fallujah, two cautiously optimistic reports: first, patrols led by the Fallujah Brigade, a hastily assembled force of Iraqis, have begun without incident. The Ba'athist-led insurgents may simply have wised up and resolved not to enter into a conventional battle with Allied forces; then again, the enemy has not shown much strategic foresight at all, and it remains to be seen if the terrorist mix will risk heavy losses for another offensive simply for the purpose of whittling away at American public support. But for now, Fallujah is quiet.

Another report was found by Robert Tagorda (via IP), this one on the "political process" referred to by Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt towards the end of last month:

Marines and Navy Seabees are seeking Iraqi contractors to repair and refurbish mosques in an effort to dispel the notion that the United States has declared war on Islam. The effort is proceeding more quickly in the surrounding nearby villages than in this Sunni Triangle city where Marines and insurgents waged bloody combat for three weeks.

The Marines have a growing list of mosques that villagers would like help in repairing, renovating or expanding. Few, if any, village mosques were damaged during the fight, but the Americans said that fixing the mosques could elicit more goodwill in return than almost any other construction project. "The mosques are part of their communal life, and that's what we're here to improve," said Lt. Col. Colin McNease, officer in charge of the civil affairs unit of the 1st Marine Regiment. "This is a good way to demonstrate that this is not a war against Islam."

While this outreach won't put down the intransigent thugs and so-called jihadists, it can at least begin to dissolve the encrusted culture of strength, deceit and violence that defines Fallujah and the other pinpoints in Iraq still stuck in the Hussein era — helping to convince the population that their familiar ways are not worth lawlessness and intimidation from foreigners and fellow Iraqis. The simple and the peaceful are the overwhelming majority now. Those inside Iraq working to undermine the country's transition to democracy can't even manage a whole percentage in representation; the Khomeinists in the south and Ba'athists in the Sunni Triangle each boast no more than a few thousand members out of 25 million. Even at that, Allied troops are steadily thinning out insurgents in the south. It's unlikely that recruitment responds apace. Despite the power of the elite journalism and the telephoto lens, most Iraqis are reacting like any people liberated from years of tyranny: frightened, unconfident, distrustful, and disoriented, but eager to try their hand at peaceful self-rule. They are not to be confused with the angry young men lobbing mortars and detonating car bombs. The gulf between most Iraqis and their former and would-be Near East oppressors is wide, and if we examine events throughout the occupation we'll see two distinct campaigns.

The first is the battle against the forces of terrorism, meant to be completed last year, prolonged doubly by Ba'athist cowardice, Iranian-Syrian-Saudi meddling and our own underestimation of the enemy's desire to keep Arabs captive under strongmen. The second is the cultivation of a modern, civil and pluralist society — one that, above all, embraces equal rights of the sexes and a congenial blending of Iraq's wealth of heritage. Allied intention was to finish the first before it began the second. As events unfolded, both have been fought simultaneously, the first with weapons and the second with goodwill; the first campaign, however, has, in politics, been used as a foil to the second. Terrorists attack our troops or Iraqis and headlines imply or impose that the Iraqi people themselves are fomenting violence and rejecting their own liberation. That's the worst sort of lie; whether or not the insurgents intended it as a political weapon, many press agencies and public figures endorse the bigotry. Read Zeyad, Alaa, Ali, Mohammed, Omar and others: they know they're being framed. The Marines in Fallujah know it, too.

Omar took some snapshots of reconstruction in Baghdad.

It's usually helpful — and a relief — to hear the military's explanation of events cut through the media's finely applied layers of bovine excrement. Here's Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt:

Good afternoon. The coalition continues offensive operations to ensure a stable Iraq in order to repair infrastructure, stimulate the economy and transfer sovereignty. To that end, in the past 24 hours the coalition conducted 2,000 patrols, 26 offensive operations, 46 Air Force and Navy sorties, and captured 57 anti-coalition suspects. In the northern area of operations, 47 police officers from Najaf began a weeklong advanced skills training program at the Irbil police academy. This training will enhance their capabilities and provide officers from both regions the opportunity to build better relationships and share effective tactics, techniques and procedures.

When asked several questions about the Sadr-beset south of Iraq, Kimmitt had the following to say:

Number one, these fights that we are having against Mugtada militia are not stretching us thin at all. They are pretty much street thugs with weapons. They don't present much of a military threat. They're a nuisance. They're a harassment. And sadly, as you can imagine with street thugs with weapons, sometimes they kill and wound our soldiers. But in engagement after engagement, they have not been able to stand and fight. They're incapable of acting and responding as a disciplined force.

And it's sad that they have taken to hiding within the holy sites for the Shi'a religion as their only capability to defend themselves because they know that we have one of two choices, which is to either attack them and risk provoking an outcome which would have strategic implications, or we can be a little more precise, reposition if necessary.

As Kimmitt explained earlier, most residents in areas frequented by these knuckle-draggers are imploring the Allies to make like exterminators and zap the vermin. So much for popular support. As Roger Hedgecock said on the radio today of Iraqi patriots like Izzedin Salim, "these are the real martyrs." Kimmitt's words encapsulate the saga in post-Saddam Iraq: enemies not worth our undue fear, certainly not our surrender.

Now they're trying sarin gas. The chemical payload in the roadside bomb, detonated safely by American troops, is being reported as a 155-millimeter artillery shell. One of Saddam's, perhaps? Or Syria's? Or Iran's? Let there be no mistake: if our enemies had more than an artillery shell's-worth, they'd use it, and they'd use it on American soil if capable. They must be defeated.

MORE: Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt announced at a press conference the military's belief that insurgents were unaware of the shell's chemical payload, especially because the binary agents did not mix. Maybe. Overestimating one's enemies is safer than not — again, if they knew, they'd take full advantage. What if terrorists return to a source where there are many more like it? Indeed, further down the report, some experts weigh in on the implications, particularly in the WMD debate.

EVEN MORE: The IED detonated itself, but still without causing harm. And then there's this in an update of the same article to which I linked:

Two weeks ago, U.S. military units discovered mustard gas that was used as part of an IED. Tests conducted by the Iraqi Survey Group and others concluded the mustard gas was "stored improperly," which made the gas "ineffective."

They believe the mustard gas shell may have been one of 550 for which former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein failed to account when he made his weapons declaration shortly before Operation Iraqi Freedom began last year.

WMDs in Iraq? Fancy that.

IT'S OFFICIAL: For one news agency, anyway. The headline on Fox's website reads "U.S. Confirms WMDs Found in Iraq." And where there's smoke, there's fire. As I said earlier, is there likely to be a stockpile from where the sarin- and mustard-filled shells originated? There's more than enough evidence proving Saddam's gratuitous violation of Security Council Resolution 1441 (and every other resolution before it). But this could get interesting.

Have tactics switched again? During the April Khomeinist-Ba'athist offensive, more than one observer noted the absence of murder-bombings — targeted or indiscriminate. Now that the military confrontations of last month have largely subsided, it seems one group or the other has reverted to the cowardly work of killing Iraqi partners of the Allies to thin and intimidate their numbers. A few women translators died over the weekend, shot in their homes or en route to work; the current head of the Iraqi Governing Council, Izzedin Salim, was murdered this morning. When insurgents can't muster the force strength to cause havoc in numbers, they'll bide their time sniping at people who work for Iraq's better future. Baghdad is a target within the reach of both terrorist combines: it's a part of the Sunni Triangle on one hand and houses the Shiite slum of so-called Sadr City, one place from where Muqtada al-Sadr recruits his mob. Either group is suitably despicable. And so it seems that the "quiet" enjoyed in recent days will be relative.

If Americans are contemplating panic, if Europe and the left aren't looking forward to another round of misanthropic tongue-clucking, they should look to Baghdad: Salim's post has been refilled and the Governing Council, indeed, the Iraqis, are pressing forward. Who's looking for a "turning point"? The Iraqis, natural allies of ours against terrorists, have responded to a year of deadly trials with a greater thirst for freedom than ever. Far from enervation, these brutal killings will only encourage them. As Glenn Reynolds writes this morning, this is what terrorists fear: faced with slavery, people will eagerly face death to win liberty. The Iraqis were enslaved for twenty years under Saddam and twenty years before that. The Allies have given them the first — and probably last — opportunity to live freely. For Islamofascism, a country full of would-be discontents will be lost, an enemy gained.

The last response Americans choose for Salim's murder or any other atrocities to be faced in days ahead should be discouragement. We should be calmly circumspect and recognize two things: a blessing and a warning. The warning is that the substance and intent of our authoritarian enemy is clear, and surrender to such a depraved lot overseas would not only be a fatal moral failure but an invitation for our own destruction, one car bomb — or dirty bomb — at a time. The blessing is that of the resilience and common purpose of good men from all nations; that it is not ironic we should be offering to others our own coveted way of life to save ourselves.

I WILL FOLLOW: We can learn a lot from the Iraqis themselves. Says Omar:

Are we sad? Yes of course, but we’re absolutely not discouraged because we know our enemies and we know their ways and we decided to go in this battle to the end. They think they can force us to give up but they’re totally mistaken. I’ve tasted freedom, my friends and I’d rather die fighting to preserve my freedom before I find myself trapped in another nightmare of blood and oppression.

They're ready to stand firm. Are we?

While Washington D.C. and other elitist capitals of the world hummed with the litany of Bush's descent, Iraq's irretrievability, the evil of Paul Wolfowitz and the rise of a presidential candidate whose attempts to define himself only further illustrate his lack of rudder, news happened:

Syrian technicians accompanying unknown equipment were killed in the train explosion in North Korea on April 22, according to a report in a Japanese newspaper. A military specialist on Korean affairs revealed that the Syrian technicians were killed in the explosion in Ryongchon in the northwestern part of the country, according to the Sankei Shimbun. The specialist said the Syrians were accompanying "large equipment" and that the damage from the explosion was greatest in the portion of the train they occupied. The source said North Korean military personnel with protective suits responded to the scene soon after the explosion and removed material only from the Syrians' section of the train.

...The United States and other countries have expressed concern that Syrian and North Korea are developoing Scud-D missiles, as well as chemical and biological weapons.

Syria, the country where some of Saddam's WMD material might have gone, whose leadership wages a campaign to smother liberated Iraq. North Korea, the geographically codified hell on earth, a country with a record of perfidy outstripped only by its list of horrors committed against its own people and the rest of mankind; and a would-be vendor, to Saddam's erstwhile regime, of advanced missile technology. After all the manufactured outrage leveled at the White House and denigration of the intelligence community for their sins of maintaining the conclusion that, before March of 2003, satisfied every consequential nation in the world but Ba'athist Iraq, we ought to ask again: has a skepticism less forgiving of democratic nations than compulsive dictatorships become conventional wisdom because of or in spite of fact?

MORE: IP watches headlines as they come in.

Alaa recognizes the animalistic murder of Nick Berg well. He and his people lived through it:

Throughout the reign of the Baath party and particularly the Saddam era, it was customary to suffer periodic atrocities carefully planned and imaginatively variable to keep the people terrified all the time. It was considered necessary not to leave the people too long without some thing awful to keep them intimidated properly. The Baathists were masters of the “Terreur”, and it was the essential means of their hold on power. In fact what we see now is something rather similar. It is a similar technique; they are trying to intimidate both the Iraqi people first but mainly the western people. They will stop at nothing. You must understand that this is their only expertise; their sole training and method and way of thinking.

This is rule of the strong, existence to consume and dominate, in its naked, practical horror. This is what citizens of dictatorships face in some degree daily, from what Iraqis are struggling to free themselves with our help, and what will surely follow home an American retreat. Read it for yourself.

There is always hope: I've made my case. Belmont Club, via IP, tells more of the good news.

Ali tells us a delightful story of an uncle's wry lesson to his son. He also has a few thoughts on Iraq's economy and currency, with a few sharp jokes thrown in. As with anything on Iraq the Model, set aside ten minutes and read, read, read.

Mohammed retells a touching conversation he shared with a relative who served in Saddam's army and recently volunteered for the new Iraqi armed forces. Take some time to read his experiences so far and hopes for the future.