The Golden Mosque in Samarra, Iraq, one of the holiest Shiite sites, was bombed on February 22, 2006. “That evening, [President] Bush read his nightly report on Iraq and found a grim assessment. ‘For the first time,’ said the report prepared by [Iraq advisers] Meaghan O’Sullivan, Brett McGurk, and the Iraq team, ‘all of our contacts in Iraq now speak openly of civil war.’ ”
– Peter Baker, Days of Fire, Page 447