David Westphal, Washington editor of the Washington Bureau, weighed in on the Civil War debate in November 2006. A year ago Westphal said the violence was so bad in Iraq that there was little debate over calling the conflict a civil war.
'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.''The war has changed since Drama Queen Westphal offered his view last November.
Violence is down, al-Qaeda has been routed, Iraqis are returning to Baghdad. By Westphal's standards, the case for calling the conflict a Civil War seems to have disappeared. When will McClatchy come clean and admit it?
.
