"THE BIRTH OF A NEW COUNTRY"

More on the governing council.

Images of the inauguration were broadcast live by Western and Arab satellite television, received in about 40 percent of homes in Baghdad. Council members — some dressed in traditional Arab robes, some in Islamic clerical garb, others in business suits — sat in a semicircle of chairs on a stage before an audience of dignitaries.

The council includes 13 Shi'ites, five Kurds, five Sunnis, one Christian and one Turkoman. Three members are women. Shi'ites make up 60 percent of Iraq's 24 million population, but they have never ruled the country and suffered deeply under Saddam's minority Sunni government.

"I helped deliver thousands of Iraqi babies, and now I am taking part in the birth of a new country and a new rule based on women's rights, humanity, unity and freedom," said Raja Habib al-Khuza'ai, one of the female council members and the director of a maternity hospital in southern Iraq.

Read it all here and note the huge amount of symbolism here - from declaring the Ba'ath party holidays void, and Mr. Bremer saying nothing, to the statement by the UN representative.

We're getting closer, folks.

UPDATE: I enjoyed this quote found here.

"Saddam has been tossed into the rubbish bin of history and will not be coming back," said Mohammad Bahr al-Uloum, drawing applause
at a press conference.

Indeed.