US flies into storm as 'civil war' declared

The heat is on: A US helicopter flies into the sunset in Iraq, while back home a war of words erupts over the conflict.

Bryan Bender, Washington
November 29, 2006

WHEN legendary TV newsman Walter Cronkite declared in 1968 that the US was losing the Vietnam War, it was considered a turning point in public opinion.

Now America's Iraq venture may have its "Cronkite moment" with the declaration by NBC Today Show host Matt Lauer that the network would buck the White House and describe the Iraq War as a civil war.

Media specialists say the NBC policy could become a benchmark in public opinion.

"For months now the White House has rejected claims that the situation in Iraq has deteriorated into civil war," Lauer told millions of Americans.

"But … NBC News has decided the change in terminology is warranted — that the situation in Iraq, with armed militarised factions fighting for their own political agendas, can now be characterised as civil war.

"We didn't just wake up on a Monday morning and say, 'Let's call this a civil war'," Lauer added. "This took careful deliberation."

A few other media outlets with reporters in Baghdad have slowly begun to refer to the conflict as a civil war and still more are debating the issue.

But the White House still maintains that the expanding cycle of sectarian warfare in Iraq — where official figures conservatively put Iraqi civilian deaths at around 50,000 — does not yet amount to civil war.

National security adviser Stephen Hadley admitted that the conflict in Iraq was entering "a new phase", but added: "The Iraqis don't talk of it as civil war."

However, the Government's position is increasingly being called into question. After one of Iraq's bloodiest weeks, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, was asked on Monday whether Iraq had descended into civil war. "We are almost there," he replied.

He said concerted action to dampen vicious sectarian violence was needed urgently.

Along with media outlets, several leading military analysts have begun using the term "civil war" in recent weeks.

The Los Angeles Times flatly referred to the conflict as a civil war on Monday. So too have The Christian Science Monitor and McClatchy newspapers. John Walcott, Washington bureau chief for the McClatchy chain, said: "When the (Shiite) population is at war with the Sunni population and members of the Interior Ministry kidnap people from the Education Ministry, that sounds like a civil war."

Some other news organisations said they would permit the use of the term "civil war" where appropriate.

Observers said the media's willingness to reject the White House's depiction of events was reminiscent of 1968, when Cronkite filmed a Vietnam War documentary and offered his belief that the US was losing the war. "To say that we are mired in stalemate seems the only realistic, yet unsatisfactory, conclusion," Cronkite remarked at the time.

"The only rational way out then will be to negotiate, not as victors, but as an honourable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy and did the best they could," he said.

President Lyndon Johnson, after hearing Cronkite's broadcast, reportedly remarked: "If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost Middle America."

Edward Pease, a journalism professor at the University of Utah, said: "There is a clear parallel (between the Cronkite and NBC stands). The way the media frames things helps lead the public perception."

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