Bush: Iraq Not In Civil War

President Bush said Tuesday that the sectarian violence rocking Iraq is not civil war but part of an al Qaeda plot to use violence to goad Iraqi factions into repeatedly attacking each other.

"No question it's tough, no question about it," Mr. Bush said at a news conference with Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves. "There's a lot of sectarian violence taking place, fomented in my opinion because of the attacks by al Qaeda causing people to seek reprisal."

Mr. Bush, who travels to Jordan later in the week for a summit with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, said the latest cycle of violence does not represent a new era in Iraq. The country is reeling from the deadliest week of sectarian fighting since the war began in March 2003.

"We've been in this phase for a while," he said.

This comment appeared at odds with the assessment of the president's national security adviser, who told reporters on the way to Estonia that Iraq is in a "new phase" that requires changes.

The White House doesn't want to use the term "civil war," because it's the next category of chaos, CBS News chief White House correspondent Jim Axelrod reports. There's also a huge difference between U.S. troops engaged in a noble mission like bringing democracy to a region and being caught in another country's civil war.

Reviews of how to alter the Iraq strategy are underway within the administration, even as a bipartisan panel, led by former Secretary of State James Baker III and former Rep. Lee Hamilton, D-Ind., is completing the recommendations it is expected to present to the president next month.

CBS News national security correspondent David Martin says Iraq Study Group has hit no major snags in its talks, and could present the president with its report as early as next week.

The members, according to Martin, have agreed on several key points for their recommendations, among them, an all-out diplomatic offensive with Iraq's neighbors — including Iran and Syria — to get help in stabilizing the country.

But Mr. Bush continued to express his administration's reluctance to talk with two nations it regards as pariah states working to destabilize the Middle East

Iran, the top U.S. rival in the region, has reached out to Iraq and Syria in recent days — an attempt viewed as a bid to assert its role as a powerbroker in Iraq.
Mr. Bush said Iraq is a sovereign nation, free to meet with its neighbors. "If that's what they think they ought to do, that's fine."

But he added that the U.S. will only deal with Iran when they suspend their program of enriching uranium, which could be used in a nuclear weapon arsenal.

"The Iranians and the Syrians should help — not destabilize — this young democracy," he said.

Martin says the only issue that seems to have the group engaged in debate is whether or not to recommend a timetable for the withdraw of U.S. troops, designed to pressure al-Maliki into acting more quickly to cease the violence.

Mr. Bush said he will be asking al-Maliki to explain his plan for stopping the attacks.

"The Maliki government is going to have to deal with that violence and we want to help them do so," the president said. "It's in our interest that we succeed."

Meanwhile, the Washington Post reports that a Marine Corps intelligence memo says the insurgency, and al Qaeda factions, are so strong in the volatile Anbar province that the U.S. Military is no longer able to defeat them there.

And a senior intelligence official tells the New York Times that the militant group Hezbollah, backed by Iran, has been training members of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's militia.

Estonia, a former Soviet republic, was Mr. Bush's first stop en route to a NATO summit in neighboring Latvia where discussion will focus on the tens of thousands of alliance troops clashing in Afghanistan with insurgents, particularly in the south where the Taliban is resurgent.

Mr. Bush said in the news conference that NATO "members must accept difficult assignments." It was an apparent reference to the fact that only a handful of countries — primarily the U.S., Britain and the Netherlands — are doing much of the heavy lifting in the dangerous southern areas.

Some U.S. officials have openly hinted that Germany, for instance, which is now deployed in relatively stable northern areas, should move troops to the south. Thus far, however, Germany has balked at such suggestions.

An issue of high concern in central and eastern European countries is their lack of participation in a U.S. visa waiver program that allows business travelers and tourists to enter the U.S. for months using only a passport.

Mr. Bush promised to try to convince Congress to add more countries, like Estonia, to the program by adding new security elements to overcome wariness in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

"It's in our nation's interest that people be able to come and visit," the president said.