[Chase]

A major reason why they're saying that Iraq isn't in a civil war yet is because much of the attacks are still in a centralized part of the country. It isn't that widespread. For there to be a civil war... they believe that you would full scale fighting and attacks in the Kurdish region, the Shiite region, and the Sunni region. It's just the centralized larger cities in the center of the country where it's densely populated... which is a big reason why these terrorists are attacking there. In addition, for it to be an actual civil war... you would have more internal fighting amongst the Iraqis of different ethnicities. Instead what you have is a coalition of occupying forces trying to rebuild the country and maintain the peace and foreign terrorists who are being funded by foreign governments or terror organizations. A very significant number of the insurgency is composed of foreign fighters. In fact, the most wanted terrorist in Iraq is Jordanian. Yes, Iraq is a war zone... is it strictly civil war? I don't think so. The only glimpses of a civil war are when the Iraqi military or police combat strictly Iraqi militant groups. Other than that, one should be able to recognize that this is bigger than the nation of Iraq when you have so much funding being sent in from foreign sources.