U.N. chief brands 'civil war' in Iraq worse than Lebanon's / 10 U.S. troops killed by bombs, in combat, jet crash

A victim of Saturday's car bomb attacks rests at a hospital in Baghdad's Sadr city December 3, 2006. REUTERS/Kareem Raheem (IRAQ) 0 A victim of Saturday's car bomb attacks rests at a hospital in Baghdad's Sadr city December 3, 2006. REUTERS/Kareem Raheem (IRAQ) 0 Photo: KAREEM RAHEEM Photo: KAREEM RAHEEM Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close U.N. chief brands 'civil war' in Iraq worse than Lebanon's / 10 U.S. troops killed by bombs, in combat, jet crash 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

2006-12-04 04:00:00 PDT Baghdad -- Kofi Annan, the U.N. secretary-general, said Sunday that Iraq had descended into a civil war that was even deadlier and more anarchic than the 15-year sectarian bloodshed that tore apart Lebanon.

"When we had the strife in Lebanon and other places, we called that a civil war; this is much worse," Annan said in an interview with the British Broadcasting Corp.

Meanwhile, the U.S. military announced on Sunday 10 deaths of service members, an unusually high toll.

In making his remarks, Annan joined a growing number of foreign and Iraqi leaders, policymakers and news organizations who say Iraq is in the grip of civil war.

Former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said Wednesday at a conference in the United Arab Emirates that Iraq is in a civil war. A former Iraqi prime minister, Ayad Allawi, said the same in March.

The Bush administration has not characterized the conflict as a civil war.

The debate over the term raged last week in the United States, after NBC and other major news organizations said they were ready to apply it to Iraq. The discussion is highly political, because backers of the war fear that calling Iraq a civil war would erode support among ordinary Americans. Scholars say that the widening sectarian conflict meets the common definition of a civil war and that when measured by deaths per year, Iraq is among the top civil wars of the past half century. The civilian death toll is believed to be at least 50,000.

Last week, Annan suggested conducting an international conference on Iraq that would include all of the country's major political groups and representatives from around the region.

In Baghdad on Sunday, President Jalal Talabani rejected Annan's call, saying the Iraqis were working to stanch the bloodshed through their own political process.

"We have an ongoing political process and a Council of Representatives that is the best in the region," Talabani said in a written statement, using the formal name of the Iraqi parliament. "We became an independent sovereign state, and we decide the issues of the country."

In addition to Annan, some U.S. advisers have suggested that the United States and Iraq should hold a conference that would bring together all the countries in the region to try to re-establish stability in Iraq. Such a meeting might include Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia, all accused by various U.S. and Iraqi leaders of fomenting violence in Iraq.

The military said Sunday that U.S. forces destroyed two buildings west of Baghdad, killing six suspected insurgents, two women and a child.

It was the latest in a series of raids in which civilians have been killed, as U.S. and Iraqi forces battle insurgents in residential areas. The U.S. command has accused insurgents of using women and children as human shields.

Neighbors disputed the military account, claiming that the victims were members of a local family and that there were more extensive civilian casualties than the United States acknowledged. It was not possible to verify the conflicting accounts.

Two soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb while on patrol in Anbar on Saturday, and three Marines died the same day in Anbar from combat wounds. Another soldier was killed Saturday by a roadside bomb near Taji. A soldier died in combat in Baghdad on Sunday, and two others were killed by a roadside bomb in northern Iraq. The Air Force said Maj. Troy L. Gilbert, a pilot listed as missing after his F-16 crashed last Monday in Anbar, had been killed in the incident.

In Baghdad, the police found at least 50 bodies across the city. The body of Hideab Majhool Hasnawi, the head of a famous soccer club, was identified in the morgue. A car bomb killed three civilians and injured 10 in northern Baghdad, an Interior Ministry official said.

Also Sunday, attorneys for former President Saddam Hussein formally appealed his death sentence for the killing of 148 Shiite men and boys from the town of Dujail in the 1980s, a spokesman for the Iraqi High Tribunal said.

The case will now go to a higher court, which can rule on it at any time. If the court upholds his conviction, his execution, by hanging, must occur within 30 days, according to Iraqi law.

Tribunal spokesman Raid Juhi said that two of Hussein's attorneys had submitted the appeal papers.

Hussein was convicted Nov. 5 of crimes against humanity for the Dujail killings, which took place after an attempt on his life in 1982. He and two of his seven co-defendants, including his half brother, were sentenced to death. Four defendants received prison terms ranging from 15 years to life, and an eighth was acquitted.