- WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration
has received a warning from two senior senators that Iraq faces the possibility
of civil war.
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- Richard Lugar and Joe Biden, the Republic and Democratic
Party leaders of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the US should
consider postponing the handing over of sovereignty which at the moment
is set for 30 June.
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- The date is an important political deadline for the White
House, which wants to be able to show the American people that it is making
progress towards handing Iraqi affairs back to the Iraqi people.
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- The political fallout from the violence of the last few
days in Iraq is beginning to take on worrying proportions for the Bush
administration.
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- Election message
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- Democrat Senator Joe Biden talked over the weekend of
the real prospect of civil war in Iraq if the White House sticks to the
30 June deadline for handing over sovereignty.
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- Mr Biden said Nato should be involved and the UN should
be invited to send a commissioner to help run the country.
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- Mr Biden's Republican colleague, Richard Lugar, also
talked of the possibility of civil war.
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- He said it was time to begin a debate on whether the
30 June handover could still take place.
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- The Foreign Relations Committee will begin hearings on
the subject soon.
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- The White House is heavily committed to its deadline.
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- Letting that date slip would send a message to the American
people, only months before the presidential election, that Iraq was out
of control.
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- © BBC MMIV http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3599909.stm
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