>Saturday, July 23, 2005
>Sunday Independent(UK):
>
>Patrick Cockburn :
>Iraq has descended into chaos way beyond West's worst-case scenario
It was a little surprising to see two stories in today's NYT that concede things are getting really bad:
<http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/24/international/middleeast/24insurgents.html?hp>
>Defying U.S. Efforts, Guerrillas in Iraq Refocus and Strengthen
>
>By DEXTER FILKINS and DAVID S. CLOUD
>
>BAGHDAD, Iraq, July 23 - They just keep getting stronger. Despite
>months of assurances that their forces were on the wane, the
>guerrillas and terrorists battling the American-backed enterprise
>here appear to be growing more violent, more resilient and more
>sophisticated than ever.
and
<http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/24/weekinreview/24burns.html?hp>
>If It's Civil War, Do We Know It?
>
>By JOHN F. BURNS
>
>[...]
>
>If it did, opponents of the American-led invasion had warned,
>American troops could get caught in the crossfire between Sunnis and
>Shiites, Kurds and Turkmen, secularists and believers - reduced, in
>the grimmest circumstances, to the common target of a host of
>contending militias.
>
>Now, events are pointing more than ever to the possibility that the
>nightmare could come true. Recent weeks have seen the insurgency
>reach new heights of sustained brutality. The violence is ever more
>centered on sectarian killings, with Sunni insurgents targeting
>hundreds of Shiite and Kurdish civilians in suicide bombings. There
>are reports of Shiite death squads, some with links to the interior
>ministry, retaliating by abducting and killing Sunni clerics and
>community leaders.
>
>The past 10 days have seen such a quickening of these killings,
>particularly by the insurgents, that many Iraqis are saying that the
>civil war has already begun.
If the official organs of reassurance are saying this, it must be getting really bad.
Doug