Pentagon generals warn of Iraq spiraling into civil war

I just don't believe it. It took the Pentagon brass four years to realize that Iraq was going into a civil war? Why didn't they consider this in the first place--before they invaded Iraq?

From Yahoo News:

WASHINGTON - Two top Pentagon commanders said Thursday that spiraling violence in Baghdad could propel Iraq into outright civil war, using a politically loaded term that the Bush administration has long avoided.

The generals said they believe a full-scale civil war is unlikely. Even so, their comments to Congress cast the war in more somber hues than the administration usually uses, and further dampened lawmakers' hopes that troops would begin returning home in substantial numbers from the widely unpopular war in time for this fall's elections.

"I believe that the sectarian violence is probably as bad as I have seen it, in Baghdad in particular, and that if not stopped it is possible that Iraq could move toward civil war," Gen. John Abizaid, the top U.S. commander in the Middle East, told the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the senators, "We do have the possibility of that devolving into civil war."

Okay General Pace, Iraq is spiraling into a civil war--what are you going to do about it? Because obviously the American forces currently stationed in Iraq can't seem to stop the escalating sectarian violence. And it is certainly obvious that the ethnic and religious sects in Iraq will also target the American occupation forces there.

What are you going to do about it?

Oh, and by the way, the Bush White House is continuing to live in fantasyland. Continuing with the Yahoo story:

Bush and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld have steadfastly refused to call the situation in Iraq a civil war, although Rumsfeld at a news conference on Wednesday acknowledged that the violence was increasing.

Asked whether the United States would continue to have a military mission in Iraq in the event that a major civil war broke out, Rumsfeld declined to respond directly, saying he didn't want to give the impression that he presumed there would be a civil war. He said the question must ultimately be handled by the Iraqis.

"Our role is to support the government. The government is holding together. The armed forces are holding together," he said at the Senate hearing Thursday.

It is only a matter of time before the government of Iraq collapses into anarchy and chaos.