Free Republic

What seems to have happened in Iraq in the last few months is that the Iraqi mainstream has finally done some liberating of itself. With the help of the troop surge ordered by President Bush, the mainstream Sunni tribes have liberated themselves from the grip of Al Qaeda in their provinces. And the Shiite mainstream — represented by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and the Iraqi Army — liberated Basra, Amara and Sadr City in Baghdad from both Mahdi Army militiamen and pro-Iranian death squads.

Iraqis are selling the oil the left says we went to war to steal. Does VP Cheney and Halliburton know about this?

While the media focus on the car bomb du jour, hope has appeared in an unexpected place: the maternity ward. Iraq is undergoing a baby boom. What kind of a nation will we leave them? On Monday, the Pentagon handed out a report card on progress in Iraq, and it's impressive. It includes six new primary care facilities with 66 more under construction. Saddam Hussein hadn't built a new hospital in 20 years. Eleven hospitals have been totally renovated and more than 800 schools that often served as armories for Hussein have been fixed up. The Ministry of Electricity now...

(CNSNews.com) - Soldiers in Iraq last week completed a water treatment and storage project that provides purified water to residents of four communities north of Baghdad, according to the Department of Defense.

Despite bombs, Baghdad stock exchange thinks big 22 Nov 2005 12:25:03 GMT Source: Reuters By Deepa Babington BAGHDAD, Nov 22 (Reuters) - Bomb blasts around Baghdad routinely shake the trading room and it takes 10 days for an investor to receive proof of a stock order, but Iraq's fledgling stock exchange is thinking big. Operating out of a heavily protected building in a residential sidestreet, the Iraqi Stock Exchange's 50 brokers write up their prices on white boards but there are plans to introduce electronic trading by next summer. Despite the technological challenge of running a virtual exchange in...

American forces attacked a dusty border town from the air and with tank fire yesterday, capturing 100 militants in the third major recent effort to uproot insurgents who are believed to use the region to sneak foreign suicide bombers in from Syria. "Coalition aircraft using precision-guided munitions destroyed these targets. Only buildings occupied by insurgents firing on Marines and Iraqi soldiers were bombed. Three buildings were confirmed destroyed," Pool said. No American or Iraqi military casualties were reported. Marines carried out two major operations in the Karabilah area last month, killing 125 insurgents in the first campaign, Operation Matador, and...