Consensus

"If this is not civil war, then God knows what civil war is."

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Ayad Allawi Former Iraqi Prime Minister

Hagel: I think the former Prime Minister is correct. I think we've had a low grade civil war going on in Iraq for the last six months maybe the last year-our own generals have told me that privately George, so that's a fact.




Murtha: Now, is it going to be a civil war? It’s already a civil war. Twenty-five thousand Iraqis are fighting with each other inside the country, the best estimates I see, less than 1,000 al-Qaida. The minute it’s over, they’ll, they’ll fight with each other, somebody will win, just like we did in our civil war, and they’ll lose a lot less people than we did in our civil war, and they’ll settle it themselves. I, I would like to be optimistic about it, but the figures don’t show it that way.