Not just a few...we've broken all the eggs, strangled the chickens, and butchered the pigs...the cows are now only giving kerosene...but you say its all right.
Civil war in Iraq near, Annan says
Iraq Study Group begins closed, two-day meeting
By Robin Wright and Thomas E. Ricks
Updated: 8:35 p.m. PT Nov 27, 2006
The Iraq Study Group began two days of intensive behind-closed-doors deliberations yesterday as the White House conceded that Iraq has moved into a dangerous new phase of warfare requiring changes in strategy. In a sign of the growing global concern about Iraq's fate, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan appealed for immediate steps to prevent the country from crumbling into all-out civil war.
"Given the developments on the ground, unless something is done drastically and urgently to arrest the deteriorating situation, we could be there. In fact, we are almost there," Annan said when a reporter asked about the prospects of civil war in Iraq.
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"Obviously, everyone would agree things are not proceeding well enough or fast enough," national security adviser Stephen A. Hadley told reporters traveling to Estonia with President Bush. Washington must find ways to "adapt," Hadley added.
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Events over the past week, including the deadliest attacks since the war began in March 2003, have created a new sense of diplomatic urgency about finding a viable strategy to contain Iraq's violence and limit spillover damage across the region. The White House again resisted assertions that Iraq is now in a civil war, but that stance is increasingly hard to defend, according to analysts, diplomats and even some U.S. officials in private.
"While the situation on the ground is very serious, neither Prime Minister [Nouri al-] Maliki nor we believe that Iraq is in a civil war. The Iraqi government is making slow but sure progress on important issues that will help stop the violence and bring the country together," National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe said yesterday.
At least one Iraqi leader says otherwise. "It's worse than a civil war. In a civil war, you at least know which factions are fighting each other," lamented a senior member of Iraq's government in an interview a few hours after Johndroe's comments. "We don't even know that anymore. It's so bloody confused."
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