UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said on Monday that Iraq was "almost" in a state of civil war before his scheduled teleconference with US government's Iraq Study Group.

When asked by a reporter in the UN headquarters whether Iraq was in a civil war right now, Annan said "given the developments on the ground, unless something is done drastically and urgently to arrest the deteriorating situation, we could be there."

"In fact, we are almost there," he said hours before a scheduled teleconference with the Group, which is preparing proposed new policy options on Iraq for the Bush administration.
 
UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters at the daily briefing that the UN chief will soon be speaking to the Iraq Study Group, led by former US Secretary-General of State James Baker and the former Chairman of the US House of Representatives International Relations Committee Lee Hamilton.

He described the meeting as a "conversation" and not as testimony before the Group, adding that the Group had asked for it since September, and Annan had also spoken with his special representative for Iraq Ashraf Qazi, and with Deputy Secretary-General Mark Malloch Brown.

However, Annan's remarks coincidentally echoed what NBC News said on the same day.

NBC News, a major US television network, called on Monday the Iraq conflict a civil war, saying on "The Today Show" that the Iraqi government's inability to stop spiraling violence between rival factions fit its definition of civil war.

Reuters reported that several analysts said NBC's decision was important as the administration would face more pressure to pull US troops out of Iraq if the US public comes to view the conflict as a civil war. 

Meanwhile, the White House denied the saying by NBC that Iraq has fallen into a civil war.
 
The situation in Iraq is serious, but neither US President George W. Bush nor Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki believe Iraq conflict is a civil war, National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe said.

Iraq has been troubled with growing violence for months. But the Bush administration is reluctant to say that the war-torn country is in civil war.

Sectarian violence between Shi'ite and Sunni Muslims in Iraq has increased dramatically in the past week. Multiple bombings in a Shi'ite neighborhood of Baghdad last Thursday killed more than 200 people and drew reprisal attacks in Sunni neighborhoods.  

(Xinhua News Agency November 28, 2006)