9/27/2006

A ‘council of colonels’ concluded, in a September 27, 2006, briefing titled, ‘Strategy for the Long War, 2006-2016: *Where we are going,* ‘ that “Iraq was indeed in a ‘low-grade’ civil war…and on the path to a bigger one. ‘We are losing because we are not winning and time is not on our side,’ they flatly stated… Their warning that Iraq was experiencing ‘an intensifying civil war’ was a finding that both the Pentagon and the White House had long resisted.” [Editor’s note: the author incorrectly identified the date of the briefing as October 27, 2006.]

 – Thomas E. Ricks, The Gamble, Page 103