August 28, 2006: Corruption is still the biggest problem in Iraq. This lack of honest governance has caused all the problems Iraqis suffer from. The ethnic, political and religious differences are more easily handled than the problems with corruption. Without honest officials, there can be no effective government. This is a problem throughout the Middle East, and is not unique to Iraq.
August 27, 2006: The government has made a deal with most of the tribal chiefs and elders, to provide amnesty for most of those involved in the violence during Saddam's rule, and the last three years. The deal involves disarming most of the tribal militias, and cooperating in taking down those terrorists who refuse to make peace.
August 26, 2006: Since the new government took power last May, some 10,000 Iraqis, most unarmed civilians, have been killed by terrorists determined to stop the new government from ruling the country. That campaign has failed, and the last of the terrorists have concentrated their efforts in Baghdad. But this last stand is fading away as well. The diehards will continue to fight, to the death, but more and more Iraqis will be fighting the killers.
August 25, 2006: The government and Kurdish regional leaders have reached an agreement on the merger of the Kurdish militias into on 'Kurdish Regional Guard Force' controlled directly by the regional government rather than indirectly through the two principal Kurdish parties, the KDD and the PUK. This could be the first step in trying to bring all local militias under a sort-of 'National Guard' concept that some American advisors have been promoting, as a way of providing ethnic and sectarian groups self-defense forces without having to cope with a plethora of local militias beholden to various imams or tribal leaders.