Pentagon Finds ‘Elements’ of Civil War in Iraq

The findings of a new Pentagon study–“Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq”–are sobering: The conflict, it concludes, has clearly morphed from a Sunni-led insurgency fighting foreign occupation “to a struggle for the division of political and economic influence among sectarian groups and organized criminal activity.” In other words, “some elements of the situation in Iraq are properly descriptive of a civil war.” Most of the daily, convulsive conflicts are characterized by a sectarian competition for power and influence, “principally,” the report notes, “through murders, executions, and high-profile bombings.” But the report emphasizes that the violence remains relatively localized–at least among the country’s 18 provinces. While four provinces, among them Baghdad, Anbar, and Diyala, are home to 37 percent of the population, they account for some 80 percent of the country’s attacks. Full Story