2A - The Michigan Daily - Thursday, March 16, 2006 NATION/WORLD Corpses, assasinations : Civil war? NEWS IN BRIEF 6 Scholar-politician: 'In Iraq (civil war) is no longer a matter of definition' BAGHDAD (AP) - Deep within the Pentagon, they're trying to piece together a picture of an Iraqi civil war. What would it look like? Donald Rumsfeld asks. Here on the streets of Baghdad, it looks like hell. Corpses, coldly executed, are turn- ing up by the minibus-load. Mortar shells are casually lobbed into rival neighborhoods. Car bombs are killing people wholesale, while assassins hunt them down one by one. Is it civil war? "In Iraq it is no lon- ger a matter of definition - 'civil war' or 'war' or 'violence' or 'terrorism.' It is all of the above," said one familiar with all of the above, Beirut scholar- politician Farid Khazen, a witness to Lebanon's 1975-1990 civil war. Phebe Marr, a historian of Iraq, hesi- tates to put a name to what's happening today, a chaotic mix of anti-U.S. resis- tance, Sunni-Shiite communal bloodshed, Islamic-extremist terrorism. "But it's civil strife," said the Washington-based Marr, "and it's getting extremely serious." It's only a term from a dictionary, defined as a war between opposing groups of citizens of the same country. But once media headlines begin refer- ring to the "Iraq civil war," it will mark not only an escalation of vocabulary, but of international concern. Some aren't ready for the label. "It's not a state of civil war yet, but we're on the verge of it," said Baghdad political writerJabir al-Jabari. "Iraq is in the first steps toward civil war," agreed Bassem al-Sheik, editor in chief of Baghdad's al-Dustor newspaper. Rumsfeld said in Washington on Tues- day he doesn't believe a civil war has begun here, but intelligence analysts are "'trying to look for a way to characterize what are the ingredients of a civil war, and how would you know if there was one, and what it would look like." Specialists might tell them not to waste their time: Iraq was there long ago. "By the standard that political sci- entists use, there's been a civil war going on in Iraq since sovereignty was handed over to the interim gov- ernment in 2004," said Stanford University's James Fearon, who has done detailed studies of modern internal conflicts. One threshold political scientists use is a casualty toll of 1,000 dead, "and this conflict is Way over that," Fearon said. Besides the more than 2,000 U.S. dead here, at least 33,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed since 2003, says the British anti-war group Iraq Body Count, whose count, drawn from media reports, does not subdi- vide the deaths into categories. American military analyst Stephen Biddle says U.S. policy-makers make a mistake if they "miss the nature of the conflict, which in Iraq is already a civil war between rival ethnic and sectar- ian groups." Washington should work to broker a peace by allocating power AP PHOTO Iraqi army soldiers escort Shiltes walking toward Karbala, Iraq from Najaf, Iraq yesterday to participate in a ceremony marking the fortieth day of the death of Imam al-Hussein. and resources - that is, oil revenues - along those same lines, said Biddle, of the Council on Foreign Relations. Marr, author of the 1985 book "The Modern History of Iraq," takes a long view and sees revolution where others see civil war. With the 2003 U.S. invasion, she said, "we have brought about two revolutions in Iraq." One was a change of leader- ship, the toppling of President Saddam Hussein. The second is a revolution in the nature of the Iraqi state: Will it sur- vive, or break up into separate Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish entities? "We occupied the country and not only removed Saddam, but the institu- tions and the underpinnings of govern- ment - the Baath party and the elite that ran the country, and the military - leav- ing a huge political vacuum," she said. Political scientist Khazen, reached by telephone in Beirut, said he saw striking parallels between Iraq and the devastating Lebanese civil war of a generation ago - but differences, too. IRAQ Saddam to Iraqis: Fight Americans Saddam Hussein, testifying yesterday for the first time in his trial, called on Iraqis to stop killing each other and instead fight U.S. troops. The judge reprimanded him for making a rambling, political speech and ordered the TV cameras switched off. Saddam began his speech by declaring he was the elected president, touch- ing off a shouting match with chief judge Raouf Abdel-Rahman. "You used to be a head of state. You are a defendant now," Abdel-Rahman told him. Saddam, dressed in a black suit and wearing large reading glasses, repeat- edly brushed off the judge's demands that he address the charges against him - the killing of 148 Shiites and the imprisonment and torture of others during a crackdown in the 1980s. Instead, he read from a prepared text, addressing the "great Iraqi people" - a phrase he often used in his presidential speeches - and said he was "pained" by the recent wave of Sunni-Shiite violence. "Let the people unite and resist the invaders and their backers. Don't fight among yourselves," he said, praising the insurgency. WASHINGTON Dubai company details plans to sell U.S. ports A Dubai-owned company announced yesterday it will sell all its U.S. port operations within four to six months to an American buyer, providing new details about its sales plans that were forced by congressional concerns over terrorism security. Lawmakers who criticized the Bush administration for approving DP World's earlier plans to operate in the United States said they were satisfied. Still, the House voted 377-38 yesterday to formally express its opposition to DP World running any port terminals in America. DP World, the world's third-largest ports company, said that until the sale is finalized its U.S. businesses will operate independently. The announce- ment was the first time it described its plans for the newly acquired U.S. operations as a "sale" to a single, unrelated American buyer and indicated it would retain no stake. NEW YORK World Trade Center rebuilding talks stall State officials walked away from negotiations with the developer of the World Trade Centef site after the two sides failed to come to terms over who should control the building of the 1,776-foot Freedom Tower at ground zero. They also couldn't agree on how to split billions of dollars in rebuilding money. The dispute threatens to hold up the entire project. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the trade center site, wants to take over construction of the tower, saying it fears developer Larry Silver- stein could run out of money before finishing the job. The agency has proposed to leave Silverstein in charge of the smaller office buildings planned at the site. Talks broke down Tuesday night after officials said Silverstein asked for too many financial concessions in return. Silverstein held the $3.2 billion lease on the World Trade Center complex before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. PISMO BEACH, Calif Gunman kills two in California restaurant A gunman opened fire inside a crowded Denny's restaurant during lunch hour yesterday, killing two people and wounding two before taking his own life, police said. "There could have been 30 or 40 people inside. As the shootings occurred, peo- ple were fleeing the restaurant, hiding in bathrooms," Cmdr. Jeff Norton said. Police Chief Joe Cortez said authorities have not found any connection between the gunman and the victims, and it does not appear he had a grudge against Den- ny's or its employees. - Compiled from Daily wire reports CORRECTIONS Please report any error in the Daily to corrections@michigandaily.com. t a idlgrnt1&ilg 420 Maynard St., Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1327 www.michigandaily.com i DoNN M. 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