We saw

When the plan for a five day-long buyback of arms from Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army in Baghdad's Sadr City was announced, I said "we'll see." Well, we've seen - and despite attempts to put the best possible face on it, the results don't seem all that impressive.

The first sign of trouble was that in early reports many of the weapons being turned in were described as "rusty." The next was when the program was extended for two days. And then on Sunday it was extended again.

Iraqi officials claimed that was because things were going so well, so well in fact that they were considering extending it to other cities. But the fact is, programs like this are rarely extended because they're going well. They're usually extended because they're going poorly and an attempt is being made to turn it into a success by allowing more time.

In fact,

[a] U.S. officer said earlier [on Sunday] Shi'ite militiamen had surrendered few serviceable weapons under the plan meant to halt weeks of fighting with U.S. forces in Sadr City.

"Our expectations had been that thousands of weapons would be handed in," said Captain Brian O'Malley of the First Cavalry Division in Sadr City's east. "We haven't seen that many."

O'Malley told Reuters many of the surrendered weapons were old and broken and it did not appear that militiamen loyal to anti-U.S. cleric Moqtada al-Sadr had completely disarmed.

Even the New York Times, which focused on the upbeat assessment of Iraqi officials, acknowledged that

Iraqi and American officials contend that Mr. Sadr still has much of his arsenal.

The gap between PR and reality can be seen in the Times' report that

[u]nderscoring the buyout's progress, Prime Minister Ayad Allawi ventured into the heart of Baghdad's hostile Shiite district to salute the militia, the Mahdi Army, for surrendering more than 1,000 of its heavy weapons in the past week

and to say he was "thrilled" by the results. But note that O'Malley said they expected "thousands," plural. Simply put, they got many fewer weapons than they expected a good number of those they did get were rusty or "old and broken."

I can't help but wonder how much of the money that went to buying those old, broken weapons is going to go to buy new, unbroken ones.

On the other hand, let it be said that whatever else this has or hasn't done, it has apparently brought some measure of peace or at least quiet to a neighborhood that has seen occasionally heavy fighting and almost nightly raids by US jets. It may only be a lull - but such a lull is not to be dismissed, because at the very least it means fewer people are dying.