Amnesty

For Iraqi insurgents. Captain Ed has the story where Iraq is offering amnesty for the local insurgents and in exchange American withdrawal. In other words if those who are fighting are fighting because they feel the Americans are occupiers, well, here's the deal.
Thankfully the Senate yesterday didn't give away the Iraqi govt.'s bargaining chip by deciding to withdraw next July.

Apparently there have been hints that these insurgents are ready to talk. OPFOR has the link.

At the same time this is going on Iraq the Model has the local news about operation "Forward together now" and it's successes. YEAH

Yesterday Prime Minister al-Maliki told the commanders in charge of the ongoing security operation to give explanations for the disturbing security breaches that happened over the past week. He asked the commanders to identify the troublemaking entities "whoever they may be" and to deal firmly with them.

The answer came from the chief of operations in the defense ministry general AbdulAziz Mohammed who sent a message to the PM telling him that the presence of armed partisan militias was the major obstacle complicating the execution of the operation.

Al-Maliki's response to this info was quick, today the front page story on al-Sabah reports that al-Maliki promised to take decisive steps to overcome these obstacles and insisted that his government was determined to make this operation succeed.