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:"I don't think anybody anticipated the level of violence we encountered" in Iraq.—Vice President [[Dick Cheney]], [[National Press Club]] in Washington, D.C., June 19, 2006. [http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&sid=alTj0kZnWubQ&refer=us]
"The debate is over: By any definition, Iraq is in a state of civil war. Indeed, the only thing standing between [[Iraq]] and a descent into total Bosnia-like devastation is 135,000 U.S. troops—and even they are merely slowing the fall. The internecine conflict could easily spiral into one that threatens not only Iraq but also its neighbors throughout the oil-rich Persian Gulf region with instability, turmoil and war," Daniel L. Byman and [[Kenneth M. Pollack]] [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/18/AR2006081800983.html wrote] August 20, 2006, in the ''Washington Post''. "The consequences of an all-out civil war in Iraq could be dire. Considering the experiences of recent such conflicts, hundreds of thousands of people may die. Refugees and displaced people could number in the millions. And with Iraqi insurgents, militias and organized crime rings wreaking havoc on Iraq's oil infrastructure, a full-scale civil war could send global oil prices soaring even higher," Byman and Pollack wrote. "Across central Iraq, there is an exodus of people fleeing for their lives as sectarian assassins and death squads hunt them down. At ground level, [[Iraq]] is disintegrating as [[ethnic cleansing]] takes hold on a massive scale," Patrick Cockburn [http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article548945.ece reported] in ''The Independent'' (UK), May 20, 2006.
In the [[war in Iraq]], the "worst-case scenario has always been a full-blown civil war between its former Sunni ruling class and the long-oppressed Shiite majority with U.S. forces caught in the middle" and the "new worst-case scenario has [[Iran]] or [[Syria]] getting directly involved as the [[Iraq Coalition Casualty Statistics|body counts rise]]. [[Multi-National Security Transition Command-Iraq|Iraqi security forces]] are obviously incapable of keeping the peace. Americans can't leave but don't have the numbers to impose [[martial law]] on the entire country and, in the process, expose themselves to greater risk," according to a March 1, 2006, ''Detroit Free Press'' [http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060301/OPINION01/603010326/1069 editorial].