David Westphal is Washington editor of the McClatchy Washington Bureau and McClatchy Tribune Information Services.A year ago, there was heated debate over whether Iraq was in a Civil War. David Westphal wasn't shy about jumping into the debate to give his view.
''The White House has obviously made a big deal about saying it's not a civil war. But in our discussions here there was not a whole lot of argument that this thing did not constitute a civil war,'' said Westphal. 'What's going on in Iraq is so awful that a dispute over whether the term is `civil war' is innocuous to me,'' Westphal said. ``The facts of the carnage, of the strife there are so profound that civil war doesn't quite even cover it.''Developments in the war have changed since then. Even Al Jazeera is reporting violence has dropped dramatically. Also see AP report here. Has
David Westphal's view changed? We don't know.
My earlier post on David Westphal is here.
