November 29, 2006
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (CNN) -- Former Secretary of State
Colin Powell said Wednesday that Iraq's violence meets the
standard of civil war and that if he were heading the State
Department now, he might recommend that the administration
use that term.
Many news organizations and analysts are calling the Sunni-Shiite
sectarian warfare that exploded this year, killing thousands
and causing widespread displacement, a civil war.
Powell's comments -- made in the United Arab Emirates at the
Leaders in Dubai Business Forum -- are significant because
he backed the war and was the top U.S. diplomat when the United
States invaded Iraq in 2003. (Watch why some call Iraq's violence
a civil war )
Bush has avoided using the term "civil war" to describe
the situation in Iraq.
Tuesday, he called the latest violence in Iraq "part
of a pattern" of attacks by al Qaeda in Iraq to divide
Shiites and Sunnis and vowed, again, he won't support the removal
of U.S. troops "before the mission is complete."
"There's a lot of sectarian violence taking place, fomented
in my opinion because of the attacks by al Qaeda, causing people
to seek reprisal," he said. (Full story)
White House national security adviser Stephen Hadley also
dismissed the notion that civil war has begun in Iraq.
"The Iraqis don't talk of it as a civil war. The unity
government doesn't talk of it as a civil war," Hadley
said Monday. "You have not yet had a situation also where
you have two clearly defined and opposing groups vying not
only for power but for territory."
But he added: "We're clearly in a new phase characterized
by an increase in sectarian violence that requires us to adapt
to that new phase," according to The Associated Press.
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Monday said that he believes
Iraq is near civil war. "Unless something is done drastically
and urgently to arrest the deteriorating situation, we could
be there. In fact we are almost there," he said. (Full
story)
A spokesman for the powerful political bloc of Iraqi Shiite
cleric Muqtada al-Sadr said Wednesday the group has suspended
its participation in Iraq's government. The group had threatened
to take such action if Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki met with
President Bush in Jordan this week. Al-Maliki was in Jordan
Wednesday with talks scheduled for Thursday.
A classified memo prepared by President's Bush's national
security adviser after a recent trip to Iraq questions whether
al-Maliki can rise above Iraq's widening and bloody Sunni-Shiite
divide. (Watch why some question whether al-Maliki can hold
Iraq together )
Powell proposed a two-part solution to the problems in Iraq.
First, he said, coalition troops must remain, but their numbers
must be reduced. Second, a political solution must emerge among
Iraqis themselves and not be imposed on them.
In 2003, Powell set out a lengthy argument at the United Nations
that buttressed the eventual invasion, including supposed evidence
of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
Asked Wednesday whether he regretted those statements, he
said he does. He noted he was working with the information
that was available to him at the time.
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