That civil war that isn't going on in Iraq?

It would be awkward to admit at this date that our policies in Iraq have led to civil war, even more that our troops are caught in the middle of it. The thing to do then is to proclaim that the civil war has not yet officially started, as General Pace did on March 5 on Meet the Press

MR. RUSSERT: If you were to be asked whether things in Iraq are going well or badly, what would you say? How would you answer?

GEN. PACE: I’d say they’re going well. I wouldn’t put a great big smiley face on it, but I would say they’re going very, very well from everything you look at...

MR. RUSSERT: Knight-Ridder reported this week that U.S. intelligence agency more than two years ago said that the insurgency “had deep local roots, was likely to worsen, and could lead to civil war.” And that was just ignored by political and military leadership because they wanted to believe their own rosy scenario.

GEN. PACE: I do not believe it has deep roots. I do not believe that they’re on the verge of civil war...

Under the circumstances, this statement yesterday to the BBC by an Iraqi minister was somewhat unhelpful:

A senior government official has, for the first time, said Iraq is in a state of undeclared civil war.

"Iraq has actually been in an undeclared civil war for the past 12 months," Deputy Interior Minister Hussein Ali Kamal told the BBC's Arabic Service.

"On a daily basis Shia, Sunni, Kurds and Christians are being killed and the only undeclared thing is that a civil war has not been officially announced by the parties involved."

Mr Kamal added that while there was a civil war, it was "not on a wide scale"....

Similar views to those of Mr Kamal were expressed in March by Iraq's former interim Prime Minister, Iyad Allawi. At the time, US President George W Bush said there were many voices that disagreed with that view.

Indeed there are, Mr. President. If you, my reader, would like to get any of them on the record, the RNC has their contact information.