Here's a very interesting article from the BBC:
IRA arms story about to unfold
By Brian Rowan
BBC Northern Ireland security editor
We are expecting the decommissioning men to emerge soon to tell us of the secret work they have been involved in over the past few weeks.
The men on this latest Irish mission are General John de Chastelain, Andrew Sens and Tauno Nieminen - the commissioners of the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning.
Their job has been to put the IRA's weapons "beyond use", and confirmation that this has now happened is likely to come within a few days - possibly at the beginning of next week.
This is the follow-up to the IRA statement of July when it ordered an end to its armed campaign and said it would complete the decommissioning process.
There won't be the photographs demanded by Ian Paisley's Democratic Unionist Party last year, and there is nothing to suggest that the DUP-nominated church witness - the Reverend David McGaughey - will be involved.
But when de Chastelain and his colleagues come to tell the story of decommissioning next week, it will be different from anything we have heard before. It has to be.
This time it has to be "definitive", one source told the BBC News website.
The general has to be able "to account for all the weapons that he knows about," he added.
What he means is that this time the IICD has to be able to say that the job is done - that they have put beyond use all the weapons the IRA has hidden in its arms dumps.
The commissioners are working with security estimates of the scale of the IRA's arsenal - much of it Libyan-supplied, including the potent explosive Semtex.
So, within days, we are expecting a detailed IICD account of what has happened over the past few weeks and, this time, there will be additional commentary from two churchmen - one a Protestant, the other a Catholic - who have been asked to witness the process.
These are the new watching eyes, and what they have to say will be an important part of convincing a listening and watching public that the threat of the IRA's gun has now gone.
Some believe the DUP is positioning itself to "reject" whatever is said on decommissioning, and there is a belief that the party will use the fact there are no photographs and that their witness was not chosen, to dismiss what is said and done.
The deputy leader of the DUP, Peter Robinson, puts it differently.
"I absolutely cannot understand their (the IRA's) logic," he said. "This is the sort of thing you can't do twice. If it doesn't convince us, there will be long delays (in terms of re-building the political process).
"The key is, it's got to be convincing if it's going to build confidence in the unionist community. And it's obvious their priority is international opinion rather than unionist confidence."
One source dismissed the fact that the Reverend McGaughey has not been involved saying: "It doesn't really matter (so long as) it's somebody who has mainstream unionist approval."
The IRA has not commented publicly on the witnesses, and while there has been much speculation, there is no confirmation yet of who they are.
We will know soon and, as the story of decommissioning plays out over the next few days, there will be statements also from the Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams and the IRA itself.
This could be the last time that "P O'Neill" speaks in this IRA campaign.
The focus will switch soon to the business of loyalist decommissioning.
It has been their guns that have been loudest recently, and not one weapon has been decommissioned by the main organisations - the Ulster Volunteer Force and the Ulster Defence Association.
This is the next phase of work for the IICD but, within days, the story of the end of IRA decommissioning will have been told.
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/4279256.stm
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Two points of interest for me in this report:
1) SinnFein is planning a MPH (MakePartitionHistory) rally in Dublin
(an interesting play on words of the MakePovertyHistory organization founded by fellow Dubliner Bob Geldof)
2) truly the next phase of this struggle should be the decommissioning of loyalist forces - especially after the loyalist violence we've seen over the last month
When all is said and done - may peace, tolerance and goodwill
come to all of northern Ireland soon!