Former US Secretary of State Colin Powell said Wednesday that Iraq's violence has reached the level of a civil war. He said if he were heading the State Department at the moment, he might recommend that the administration use that term. Many news organizations and analysts are already calling the Sunni-Shiite sectarian warfare that exploded this year a civil war. US President George Bush has avoided using the term "civil war" to describe the situation in Iraq. He called the latest violence in Iraq "part of a pattern" of attacks by al Qaeda to divide Shiites and Sunnis and vowed he won't support the removal of U.S. troops "before the mission is complete." White House national security adviser Stephen Hadley also dismissed the notion that civil war has begun in Iraq. Powell's comments, which he made in the United Arab Emirates, have attracted quite a lot of attention as he backed the war and was the top U.S. diplomat when the United States invaded Iraq in 2003.

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