"Naming enables the noble-minded to speak, and speech enables the noble-minded to act."  – Analects 13.3

    Let’s keep that in mind as we read this:

A team of American and Iraqi epidemiologists estimates that 655,000 more people have died in Iraq since coalition forces arrived in March 2003 than would have died if the invasion had not occurred.

The
estimate, produced by interviewing residents during a random sampling
of households throughout the country, is far higher than ones produced
by other groups, including Iraq’s government.

It is more than 20 times the estimate of 30,000 civilian deaths that
President Bush gave in a speech in December. It is more than 10 times
the estimate of roughly 50,000 civilian deaths made by the
British-based Iraq Body Count research group.

The surveyors said
they found a steady increase in mortality since the invasion, with a
steeper rise in the last year that appears to reflect a worsening of
violence as reported by the U.S. military, the news media and civilian
groups. In the year ending in June, the team calculated Iraq’s
mortality rate to be roughly four times what it was the year before the
war.

 What shall we name it, then?  "Civil War" seems obvious and honest.  "Horrible Human Tragedy" captures it, too.  "Failed Policy" also fits the bill.  But none of these will be uttered by the Bush administration, which, for its own political purposes, is mired in denial and obfuscation.

     They cannot name it, therefore they cannot act.