Rice: Iraq is not sliding into a civil war

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
US President George W. Bush's administration continues to insist Iraq is not heading toward a civil war, even as some senators and military leaders have expressed concerns that such a conflict may be inevitable. "It would be, really, erroneous to say that the Iraqis are somehow making a choice for civil war, or, I think, even sliding into civil war," US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Sunday on ABC's "This Week." But Sen. Chuck Hagel, a Nebraska Republican, an influential member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, sounded more pessimistic and questioned whether the US should keep sending more troops to Iraq. Hagel said this country cannot "ask them to do the things that we're asking them to do in the middle of a civil war, and that's where it's headed."