The news in the Washington Post this morning that the outgoing British Ambassador to Iraq seems willing to use the "c w" words is telling:

Britain’s outgoing ambassador to Iraq has advised his government that
the country is more likely headed to "low intensity civil war" and
sectarian partition than to a stable democracy, the BBC reported
Wednesday.

     What is notable here is the Ambassador’s continuing coyness. "Likely headed…"?  Of course, Iraq is now, and has been for some time, in the grip of a vicious sectarian civil war.   It is only to reduce the embarrassment of his political master, and his master’s masters, that the Ambassador hides behind the feckless "likely headed…" formulation.   Bush and company still refuse to name the civil war in Iraq:

President Bush has acknowledged that the situation in Iraq in many ways
has worsened lately. But administration officials have resisted "civil
war" analogies.

    Confucius tells us that names matter.  If we do not properly name a thing – a political situation in this case – we will not be able to act effectively:

      If names aren’t rectified, speech doesn’t follow from reality.  If speech doesn’t follow from reality, endeavors never come to fruition.  If endeavors never come to fruition, then Ritual and music cannot flourish.  If Ritual and music cannot flourish, punishments don’t fit the crime.  If punishments don’t fit the crime, people can’t put their hands and feet anywhere without fear of losing them.
     Naming enables the noble-minded to speak, and speech enables the noble minded to act.  Therefore, the noble-minded are anything but careless in speech.
(13.3)

     Bush is not simply careless in speech; he cannot use the language.  His speech, and Rumsfeld’s and Cheney’s, does not follow from reality.

UPDATE: Leading US generals today take the same vacuous position:

Two senior American military commanders said today that the wave of
sectarian bloodshed in Iraq has heightened the danger that the country
will slide into all-out civil war.

     "Slide"?  By the time they publicly articulate the obvious the civil war will be over.