Allawi: Iraq is in civil war

Iraq in civil war, says former PM
BBC

Iraq is in the middle of civil war, the country's former interim prime minister Iyad Allawi has told the BBC. He said Iraq had not got to the point of no return, but if it fell apart sectarianism would spread abroad.

The UK and US have repeatedly denied Iraq is facing a civil war, but Mr Allawi suggested there was no other way to describe the sectarian violence.

Meanwhile, at least 12 people have been killed in a series of violent incidents in the north of the country.

Cycle of reprisals

Analysts say Mr Allawi's comments are part of political manoeuvring as talks continue over creation of a government.

Speaking to troops in Basra, UK Defence Secretary John Reid insisted that the terrorists were failing to drive Iraq into civil war.

There has been a cycle of sectarian reprisals and revenge killings between Sunnis and Shias.

The destruction of the Shia shrine at Samarra on 22 February made some observers wonder if the country was heading towards civil conflict.

The BBC News website's world affairs correspondent Paul Reynolds says the unrest is threatening hopes among the US and its allies for substantial troop withdrawals in the coming months.

In other incidents across the country on Sunday:

• US-led Operation Swarmer, against insurgents and foreign fighters near Samarra, is now into its fourth day
  
• Police say that at least eight civilians - including a woman and a child - were killed when US forces opened fire after coming under attack in the town of Dhuluiya, north of Baghdad
  
• Gunmen killed three Iraqi police in the northern town of Mosul
  
• Two bomb attacks killed a policeman and wounded 12 other people in Baquba, north-east of Baghdad
  
• There were reports of a mortar shell exploding in the southern city of Karbala as Shias gathered for one of the biggest events of their religious calendar. No casualties were reported.

'Sectarianism will spread'

Mr Allawi heads the Iraqi National List, a secular nationalist alliance made up of Sunnis and Shias.

Speaking on BBC TV's Sunday AM programme, he said it would be a mistake to underplay Iraq's problems, although the country was "edging towards" a political deal.

He said he had warned against creating a vacuum in the country and raised concerns about the insurgents and the dismantling of the military.

"It is unfortunate that we are in civil war. 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."

Mr Allawi added that a national unity government may not be "an immediate solution" to the country's problems.

Iraq is moving towards the "point of no return", he said, when the country would fragment.

"It will not only fall apart but sectarianism will spread throughout the region, and even Europe and the US will not be spared the violence that results...," he said.

And you gotta love this comment by a viewer:

"The country may not be in a state of civil war but it is certainly a country in serious conflict" - Tom McLaughlan, Western Isles, United Kingdom

Quick, someone give that man a degree in War Studies!

Cheney: Iraq not in civil war, predicts success
Reuters

Vice President Dick Cheney on Sunday said Iraq had not fallen into civil war despite extremist attempts to foment one, and predicted success despite the constant violence.

Three years after the U.S. invasion, the violence in Iraq continues unabated with bombings, killings and kidnappings.

Former Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi said on BBC television that Iraq was nearing the "point of no return" and had already plunged into sectarian civil war.

Cheney said "terrorists" like Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, and others were trying to stop the formation of a democratically elected government in Iraq by violence such as the bombing of the Golden Mosque in Samarra on February 22, one of the holiest Shi'ite sites.

"What we've seen is a serious effort by them to foment civil war, but I don't think they've been successful," Cheney said on CBS television's "Face the Nation."

Increasing public discontent over the Iraq war in which more than 2,300 American troops have died has helped push President George W. Bush's approval ratings to the lowest of his presidency.

Bush has repeatedly said that U.S. forces will not pull out until Iraqi forces can take over security operations. He has started a new push to explain his Iraq strategy to the public, with the next speech scheduled for Monday in Ohio.

"We are implementing a strategy that will lead to victory in Iraq. And a victory in Iraq will make this country more secure and will help lay the foundation of peace for generations to come," Bush said on his return from Camp David on Sunday.

He urged Iraqi leaders to get a unity government "up and running," and added, "I'm encouraged by the progress." He ignored a shouted question about Allawi's civil war comment.

Gen. George Casey, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, said a civil war had not started in Iraq and nor was it imminent or inevitable. "Is there terrorist violence in Iraq? Yes there is ... But we're a long way from civil war," he said on CNN's "Late Edition."

"But I don't want to sugar-coat it either. This is a very fragile time," Casey said, adding that people were getting killed as the extremists try to derail the political process.

Democrats sharply criticized the administration's Iraq policies.

"I think that the political leaders in Washington have failed when it comes to our policy in Iraq. They misled us into believing there were weapons of mass destruction and connections between 9/11 and Saddam Hussein. None of that existed," Sen. Richard Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, said on "Fox News Sunday."

"Here we are, on the third anniversary, with no end in sight," he said.

Cheney said it was important for the whole region and the security of the United States that the insurgency in Iraq does not succeed.

"There's a lot at stake here. It's not just about Iraq, it's not about just today's situation in Iraq, it's about where we are going to be 10 years from now in the Middle East," he said.

"If they ("terrorists") succeed then the danger is that Iraq will become a failed state as Afghanistan was a few years ago when it was governed by the Taliban," he said. That had allowed Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda network to launch attacks against the United States and its allies, Cheney said.

He said the "biggest threat" faced now was not another September 11 attack in which hijacked planes were used as weapons, but the danger of extremists having nuclear or biological weapons to use against the United States.

Cheney attributed the administration's "aggressive, forward-leaning strategy" in going after extremists since the September 11 attacks as one of the main reasons the United States had not been struck again at home.

"I think we are going to succeed in Iraq, I think the evidence is overwhelming," Cheney said.

'I hate to say it, but we were better off under Saddam'
The Times

Three years after dictator's fall our correspondent is reunited with his two Baghdad guides, whose euphoria has given way to despair

IN APRIL 2003, as looters ran wild and Iraq woke up to a world without Saddam Hussein, I found two guides to navigate through the chaos. Noor was an English-speaking student and Abu Yasser a streetwise taxi driver who hung around outside al-Hamra Hotel in Baghdad to work for the newly arrived journalists. Together we explored a city gone mad.

Screaming mobs thronged underpasses, convinced that secret underground prisons inside the walls held their missing relatives. Giant fires burnt out of control. Gunfights raged day and night. In traffic jams polite Iraqis tapped on the windows of our car, thanked us personally for getting rid of Saddam, and asked if the American soldiers could now please leave their country. It was a confused but intoxicating time for Iraqis. The tyrant’s statue had been pulled down. What would freedom be like?

Three years on, my friends are still hanging around the Hamra, which is even shabbier than before but considerably more fortified. Abu Yasser has a new car and more cash than he had ever dreamt of, but does not know whether he will live to enjoy spending it.

Noor is still a gentle young man, but much more worldly-wise. Liberation should have offered him so many opportunities. Instead, he is a prisoner in the Hamra, sheltering behind its blast walls and armed guards like the few journalists still huddled there. He tried to set up an electrical goods shop when his employer pulled out as security worsened at the end of 2003. The economy was doing well and Baghdadis wanted to buy goods that they had been starved of for years.

A sure-fire business success ended with a Kalashnikov thrust in Noor’s face. The robbers then spent a leisurely afternoon removing his stock. Later they called him on his mobile phone and demanded $50,000 or they would kidnap him. He has barely ventured out since.

Few Iraqis do these days. They fear being caught in a bomb blast, hit by a stray bullet, rounded up by sectarian killers or abducted by criminal gangs. Three years ago the suburb surrounding the Hamra was full of children playing and grandparents whiling away the day. Now everyone is indoors watching corny Egyptian romantic films to try to take their minds off grim reality. Iraqi army patrols pass the few pedestrians at crazy speeds, training machineguns on them. US troops no longer have the swagger of victory but roar past encased in armour.

Three years ago Noor thought Iraq would be an oil-rich capitalist success story like Dubai by now. He isn’t quite able to explain how it has all gone so wrong.

Most Iraqis simply blame the hated Americans for their plight. In 2003 they were ambiguous, unsure whether they had been liberated or conquered. That ambiguity vanished long ago. Noor is less willing than most to blame the American scapegoat. “We were not ready for democracy,” he said. “Under Saddam the Iraqis had no respect for the law; they were afraid of the law. When Saddam went they had never known what freedom meant. So they behaved like outlaws.”

He is ashamed of the savagery — the kidnappings, beheadings, car bombings. Like most Iraqis he blames Americans, Syrians and Iranians for stoking the violence and hates the foreign jihadi fighters. But Iraqis have failed, he believes, and like everyone else he fears what the future holds now.

Noor is still a friend of America, but no longer an enthusiastic one. Too many friends have been shot by US patrols or humiliated at checkpoints. “I thought the Americans had come to Iraq to help the Iraqi people,” he said. “But we have learnt that they came here for their wants. We still need their help, though, if we are to build our country.”

If anything, Abu Yasser is even more despondent. Many of his friends, drivers and translators who worked for foreign journalists, have been murdered. In Baghdad today anyone working for a foreigner risks death as a spy or traitor.

Abu Yasser remembers that brief spring of 2003 with great fondness. “I thought we would have real freedom after Saddam,” he said wearily, “but now if you criticise a politician or a party, you can be killed the next day. I cannot relax, I suffer tension all the time. If civil war comes I will lock myself in my house and rot there. I would rather die than kill someone. I hate to say it, but we were better off under Saddam.”

Noor still clings to the hope that the political process may work. Abu Yasser believes that civil war is very close. Both could afford to get out of the country but are determined to stay. Abu Yasser said: “I still believe there will be freedom one day. But what will we have to pass through first to get there?” Leading article, page 23

THE COST OF WAR

# 156,000 coalition troops from 26 countries are still stationed in Iraq

# There have been 2,520 coalition deaths since the war began, including 103 British casualties

# According to the website Iraq Body Count, about 37,000 civilians have died

# 91 journalists have died

# Before the 1990 embargo there were two art galleries in Iraq. Several dozen opened after the invasion, but all have closed

# Before the war Baghdad zoo housed 800 animals. It now has only 86, including the pet lions that were owned by Saddam Hussein’s sons, Uday and Qusay

# The US spends $9 billion a month on Iraq, according to the Pentagon, excluding costs of equipment and training Iraqi forces

# The cost to Britain so far is £3.1 billion