US commander warns of Iraqi civil war
James Sturcke and agencies
Thursday August 3, 2006
Guardian Unlimited
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The wreckage of a bus hit by a roadside bomb that killed all 24 people on board in northern Iraq. Photograph: Reuters
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>The most senior US military commander in the Middle East today told senators that "Iraq could move toward civil war" if the raging sectarian violence in Baghdad was not stopped.
His assessment came hours after it emerged that Britain's outgoing ambassador to Baghdad, William Patey, warned that civil war was the most likely outcome in Iraq.
"I believe that the sectarian violence is probably as bad as I have seen it," General John Abizaid, the commander of US central command, told the Senate armed services committee.
<!-- This site/section combo is not set up to show MPU's -->He said the top priority in the Iraq war was to secure the capital, where factional violence has surged in recent weeks despite efforts by the new Iraqi government to stop the fighting.
A similar remark was offered by General Peter Pace, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, who told the panel: "We do have the possibility of that devolving into civil war."
He added that this need not happen, and stressed that ultimately it depended on the Iraqis more than on the US military.
He said that for the tensions to be overcome "Shia and Sunni are going to have to love their children more than they hate each other".
"The weight of that must be on the Iraqi people and the Iraqi government," he added.
The US president, George Bush, and his defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, have repeatedly refused to call the situation in Iraq a civil war, although Mr Rumsfeld acknowledged that the violence was increasing at a news conference on Wednesday.
Earlier today, a leaked confidential memo to ministers written by Mr Patey predicted civil war and the break-up of Iraq along ethnic lines.
The grim assessment from Britain's most senior civil servant in Iraq will have come as a blow to Tony Blair, and his attempts to portray Iraq as "at a new beginning" on the road to a stable democracy.
Details of the judgment, which was contained in Mr Patey's final telegram, or e-cable, from Baghdad before he left the Iraqi capital last week, were obtained by the BBC. Among those who received the letter were the prime minister, the foreign secretary, the defence secretary, the leader of the House of Commons, and senior military commanders in both Iraq and the UK.
"The prospect of a low-intensity civil war and a de facto division of Iraq is probably more likely at this stage than a successful and substantial transition to a stable democracy," Mr Patey wrote.
"Even the lowered expectation of President Bush for Iraq - a government that can sustain itself, defend itself and govern itself and is an ally in the war on terror - must remain in doubt."
But the memo also said that the position was not hopeless, although it added that Iraq would remain "messy and difficult" for the next five to 10 years.
Talking about the Shia militias blamed for many killings, Mr Patey said: "If we are to avoid a descent into civil war and anarchy then preventing the Jaish al Mahdi [the Mahdi Army] from developing into a state within a state, as Hizbullah has done in Lebanon, will be a priority."
The BBC reported it has also learned from military sources that British troops in Basra are planning to dramatically step up operations against Shia gunmen.
Mr Patey's memo urged the government to ensure that Iraqi troops are brought into this effort, as the British forces "can't confront the militias alone".
The Conservative director of policy development, Oliver Letwin, called on the government to be open about the scale of difficulties in Iraq.
"We need a frank assessment from the government, and the government needs to be very open with all of us about all the information it has received and what it really believes the position to be in Iraq," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.
"We are all in this together and we can't act together and do the right things unless we know what is really going on.
"If the frank assessment is that more needs to be done, that is what we should be hearing and we should be working out how, collectively, the alliance to carry out that task can perform it."
The Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman, Michael Moore, said the raw truth was in "sharp contrast" to the public statements of Mr Blair and senior Iraqi politicians.
"Nobody has been drawing attention to the still parlous security situation in the country, and the desperate way in which the country is still trying to get back on its feet after the war three years ago," he told the Today programme. "We need a strategy. At the moment, there is no clear strategy from our government or from the Americans, apart from a hope that things will get better."
