So why is it that 'civil war' is not obvious to all. You would think it would sound awkard to most to hear phrases like 'sectarian violence' in such a case like this (those are two necessary, though insufficient, conditions for civil war anyhow)....? Then again, it is 1968...

[snip]
In London, Mr Allawi told BBC 2's Sunday AM programme: "We are losing each day, as an average, 50 to 60 people throughout the country, if not more. If this is not civil war, then God knows what civil war is."

According to figures compiled by the Brookings Institution, in Washington, there were 75 attacks a day last month, compared with 54 on average a year earlier. The number of Iraqi civilians being killed in the conflict rose to 1,000 in February, from 750 in February 2005. There are now 232,000 Iraqi security personnel, up 90,000 over the past 12 months, but their ability to control the situation is a matter of dispute. Oil production, the mainstay of the economy, is in decline.

Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Rumsfeld singled out as crisis deepens in Iraq: "A former US army general yesterday called for Donald Rumsfeld to resign on grounds of incompetence in Iraq, hours after Ayad Allawi, the former US-backed Iraqi prime minister, declared the country to be in the thick of a civil war that could soon 'reach the point of no return'."
[snip]