White House On Defensive As US Media Breaks Taboo To Declare Conflict 'Civil War'

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell said at a business conference that the war in Iraq "could be considered a civil war," the conference organizer said. Powell made the comment during a question-and-answer session after a keynote speech, according to David Hellaby, who organized the "Leaders in Dubai Business Forum." No cameras were allowed in to record the talk, but Hellaby was present and issued a press release quoting Powell. Powell's comments come in sharp contrast to those of President Bush, who said Tuesday that Iraq is not in a civil war.

Hellaby said, Powell said the Iraq war had three phases. The first, the invasion phase, went as planned. But the second phase, the military occupation, was "badly handled," Powell said, according to the conference organizer. Mistakes during the second phase led to the third, "which could be considered a civil war," Powell told the conference, according to Hellaby.

Here is an interesting article taken from The Guardian, UK, November 29, 2006
By Julian Borger

The Bush administration appeared yesterday to be losing its fight to stop the US media calling the escalating violence in Iraq a civil war after one of the main television networks formally announced it would break the taboo.

The New York Times and Los Angeles Times have been using the phrase for a while without fanfare, but on Monday NBC News used one of its best-known presenters, Matt Lauer, to declare the network's semantic defiance of the White House. "After careful consideration, NBC News has decided a change in terminology is warranted, that the situation in Iraq, with armed, militarised factions fighting for their own political agendas, can now be characterised as civil war," Lauer, the host of the Today show, said.

Bill Keller, the New York Times' executive editor, said: "It's hard to argue that this war does not fit the generally accepted definition of civil war."

With rival sectarian militias fighting over Baghdad district by district, other US news organisations have said they were reconsidering their policies on the highly politicised issue, but the administration stuck to its position. Speaking at the opening of the Nato summit in Latvia yesterday, George Bush refused to accept the "civil war" label, arguing that the conflict was being artificially stoked.

"There's a lot of sectarian violence taking place, fomented, in my opinion, because of these attacks by al-Qaida, causing people to seek reprisals," he said.

His national security adviser, Stephen Hadley, was more explicit in countering the "civil war" terminology. "The Iraqis don't talk of it as a civil war, the unity government doesn't talk of it as a civil war," Mr Hadley said. "At this point in time the army and the police have not fractured along sectarian lines, which is what you've seen elsewhere, and the government continues to be holding together and has not fractured on sectarian terms."

But interviews printed in the US press suggest that many Iraqis believe a civil war is under way. Ayad Allawi, a former prime minister, said in March: "We are losing each day as an average 50 to 60 people throughout the country, if not more - if this is not civil war, then God knows what civil war is." The death rate has since doubled and to many in Iraq the debate over words appears a grotesque quibble, but the choice of language has far-reaching significance in the US, where public support for military involvement is dwindling.

"There is a good deal of public opinion research that shows the American public generally doesn't like to get involved in what they see as other countries' civil wars. That's why the administration is fighting this," said Christopher Gelpi, an expert on war and public opinion at Duke University, North Carolina. "They think they can shape public opinion by talking about it in a certain way, but saying it doesn't make it so."

"There's no question there is a civil war by any reasonable political science definition of what that means," he added. "You have organised groups engaging in violence against one another where the goal is the destruction of the authority of the government or secession from the state."

Sam Gardiner, a retired air force colonel who has taught military strategy, said: "I think the important question is whether or not it's controllable. There's an implication with an insurgency you can do something about it. In a civil war, you can't." He rejected the White House argument that the survival of Nuri al-Maliki's government meant a civil war had not begun. "It is a failed state. It can't provide security or services, so it's irrelevant to whether there is a civil war," he said.

US news organisations have mostly been cautious about using the phrase. Some have left it to correspondents, and in general reporters in Washington have avoided it, while those in Baghdad have had no such qualms. Asked about the debate by a Washington-based presenter on Monday, CNN's Baghdad correspondent, Michael Ware, gave an emotional response. "Well, put it this way ... anyone who still remains in doubt about whether this is civil war or not is suffering from the luxury of distance," he said.

"We have areas that people of one sect cannot enter for fear of immediate execution by another sect. You drive in a minibus on your way to work. Suddenly, there's a checkpoint. If you're of the wrong faith, you are dead. There's literally defensive fighting positions now built in some suburbs. If that's not civil war ... then honestly I don't know what is."

John Daniszewski, international editor of Associated Press, which often sets the agenda for the rest of the US media, said he and his colleagues were still debating the issue. "There are different views in the newsroom," he said. "One of the editors who was in civil war in Lebanon felt it had not reached the zenith of disorder he saw as a civil war. Others thought it had, with armed groups fighting each other. We're being fairly agnostic about it now. We don't preclude saying civil war in our copy, if a correspondent thinks it appropriate. But we don't want to go out and declare it a civil war. It's something intelligent well-informed people can disagree on."

The administration has resisted terminology it did not like before. In a debate three years ago that now seems quaint, the defence secretary resisted the labels "guerrilla war" and "insurgency".

Howard Kurtz, media correspondent for the Washington Post, said the current dispute over the words "civil war" will ultimately be seen as equally irrelevant. "This is a sideshow," he said.

"Americans are smart and have already figured it out. Anyone with a TV set can see that something resembling a civil war is raging there."