Pentagon finally admits Iraq violence can be described as a civil war

Pentagon: Iraq in some ways in civil war

By LOLITA C. BALDOR, Associated Press Writer 18 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - The U.S. military for the first time Wednesday said in a new report that some of the violence in Iraq can be described as a civil war.

In its bleakest assessment of the war to date, a quarterly Pentagon report said that last October through December was the most violent three-month period since 2003. Attacks and casualties suffered by coalition and Iraqi forces and civilians were higher than any other similar time span, said the report.

Most of the data in the Pentagon's 42-page report is before President Bush ordered an additional 21,500 troops and thousands of support personnel to Baghdad to deal with the escalating violence there. The report cautions that it should be considered "a baseline from which to measure future progress."

Members of the Bush administration have been loath to say that the U.S. military is struggling to quell a civil war, and the report agreed that the term does not capture the complex situation there.

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The report showed that there were an average of more than 1,000 attacks per week, compared to nearly 1,000 per week in the last quarter, and about 800 per week during the May-to-August period. The reports provide bar charts but no exact numbers.

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