From: "Rich Gauszka" 


"Gary Wiltshire"  wrote in message
news:op.s5hyqqdmeipai0{at}dsl40.bgtnvtpl.sover.net...
> On Fri, 24 Feb 2006 08:08:48 -0500, Rich Gauszka 
> wrote:
>
>>
>> "Gary Wiltshire"  wrote in message
>> news:op.s5gy4ojqeipai0{at}dsl40.bgtnvtpl.sover.net...
>>> On Thu, 23 Feb 2006 20:42:53 -0500, Rich Gauszka

>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>>  James Baker 1996
>>>> ``Removing him from power might well have plunged Iraq
into civil war,
>>>> sucking U.S. forces in to preserve order. Had we elected to march on
>>>> Baghdad, our forces might still be there.''
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>> Funny to see YOU quote him.  Just selectively when ONE thing agrees with
>>> your weltanshauung.
>>>
>>> --
>>> Gary Wiltshire
>>
>> So Iraq is not on the brink of civil war?
>>
>>
>
> In the normal sense, no.  What we have are terrorists bombing people and
> property.  Was NYC in a "civil war?"  Was Spain?
>
> --
> Gary Wiltshire

Saying terrorists are doing the bombing doesn't lessen the threat of civil
war. Which terrorists? Shiite?  Sunni? outside agitators? There are reports
of militia on either side torching mosques, using death squads

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-5645408,00.html
In the case of one cleric, Muqtada al-Sadr, influence cuts both ways. The
anti-American leader's militiamen torched Sunni mosques in Baghdad and
elsewhere - then offered to protect others when the Shiite clergy moved to
put a stop to the violence triggered by the attack on the Golden Mosque in
Samarra.

``Had it not been for the grand ayatollahs and al-Sadr's movement that
worked on calming down the situation, there would have been no stone left
standing in Iraq,'' said Reda Jawad Taqi, a senior member of Iraq's biggest
Shiite party, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution.

Even U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, whose staff worked throughout the
day Thursday to persuade Iraqi politicians to step back from the brink,
acknowledged that the clerics ``are very important.''

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