The Pentagon report, though consistent with what news media have reported for months, is significant because it represents an official acknowledgment of trends that are widely believed to be driving the country toward full-scale civil war.
Insurgency, sectarian violence, civil war, full-scale civil war, all-out civil war...
Split hairs as finely as you like. And keep pretending the truth isn't true, that your names determine what actually happens.
Pentagon Cites Spike In Violence in Iraq
Averting Civil War Called Main Goal
By Ann Scott Tyson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, September 2, 2006; A01
Rising sectarian bloodshed has pushed violence in Iraq to its highest level in more than two years, and preventing civil war is now the most urgent mission of the growing contingent of 140,000 U.S. troops in the country, according to a new Pentagon report released yesterday.
Executions, kidnappings and other sectarian attacks targeting Iraqi civilians have soared over the past three months, contributing to a 51 percent rise in casualties among the population and Iraqi security forces, the report said. More than 3,000 Iraqis are killed or wounded each month, and by July, 2,000 of the casualties were the result of sectarian incidents, it showed.
The Pentagon report, though consistent with what news media have reported for months, is significant because it represents an official acknowledgment of trends that are widely believed to be driving the country toward full-scale civil war.
"It's a pretty sober report this time," said Peter Rodman, assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs. "The last quarter . . . it's been rough, and the levels of violence are up, and the sectarian quality of the violence is particularly acute and disturbing," he said at a news briefing.
"This is reality catching up with Rumsfeld and the Pentagon," said Michael O'Hanlon, a military analyst at the Brookings Institution.
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