There seems to be no hope of avoiding all out Civil War. The Shia leaders will actively sabatoge any progress towards a strong central government, preferring a strong southern Iraqi Shia province. Saudi Arabia decries this solution because that places Iranian agents on it's borders. The Saudis will continue to support the insurgency for that reason alone. The Sunnis will fight as long has they are faced with landlocked oil deprived poverty. The Kurds won't share the oil riches of Kirkuk. The Turks and their Iraqi brethern will not tolerate an oil rich Kurdish state on it's borders.
The only solution possible is to put the Iraqis and their neighbors in charge of the solution. There will be civil war, regional war or not. More US casualties will not serve any purpose. It's time to force a local solution.
The other solution is to forever forbid pre-emptive and voluntary war by the US. War only serves when there is no other option. There were plenty of options in dealing with Iraq. I'm convinced if Bush had stayed out of Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran and North Korea would be no where near the threat they are today. The threat of war is MUCH more of a deterent than any direct action.
Guardian Unlimited
A stunning new death count emerged Thursday, as Iraq's health minister estimated at least 150,000 civilians have been killed in the war - about three times previously accepted estimates.
Moderate Sunni Muslims, meanwhile, threatened to walk away from politics and pick up guns, while the Shiite-dominated government renewed pressure on the United States to unleash the Iraqi army and claimed it could crush violence in six months.
After Democrats swept to majorities in both houses of the U.S. Congress and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld resigned, Iraqis appeared unsettled and seemed to sense the potential for an even bloodier conflict because future American policy is uncertain. As a result, positions hardened on both sides of the country's deepening sectarian divide.
Previous estimates of Iraq deaths held that 45,000-50,000 have been killed in the nearly 44-month-old conflict, according to partial figures from Iraqi institutions and media reports. No official count has ever been available, and Health Minister Ali al-Shemari did not detail how he arrived at the new estimate of 150,000, which he provided to reporters during a visit to the Austrian capital. But later Thursday, Hassan Salem, of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, or SCIRI, said the 150,000 figure included civilians, police and the bodies of people who were abducted, later found dead and collected at morgues run by the Health Ministry. SCIRI is Iraq's largest Shiite political organization and holds the largest number of seats in parliament.
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