The debate over whether Iraq is on the verge of a bloody civil war was fueled by recent remarks by UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw and his Saudi counterpart during a conference in Riyadh.

On BBC news website, Sir Lawrence Freedman, Professor of War Studies at King's College London explained the historical precedents and why the argument over a possible outbreak of a civil war in Iraq matters. He discussed what causes a civil war, referring to historical examples like, civil war in Russia, Lebanese civil war.

Sir Lawrence Freedman suggested that once a broadly-based government is agreed, it might get a grip on the situation, and stop the almost daily sectarian killings and attacks in Iraq.

In an editorial published on AIM.org, the media is seen as a key element in instigating a civil war in Iraq.

Following the February 22 attack on one of the most revered Shia mosques in the Iraqi city of Samarra, all media reports were focusing on allegations that Iraq has swept up in a wave of retaliatory religious violence, and national news outlets in the U.S. continued for weeks to feed Americans with daily headlines, all affirming the bloody sectarian violence Iraq has fallen into.

90% of the main stream media was dedicated to painting a bleak image of the situation in Iraq, focusing on the between 90 and 200 Sunni mosques across Iraq that were attacked, burned or bombed.

Later on, numerous surveys were conducted, showing that the majority of Americans believe that Iraq will soon fall into an open civil war.

Last month, the Pentagon Chief, Donald H. Rumsfeld, speaking at a press conference expressed his anger over the media biased reporting, saying they all failed to present the true situation in Iraq at the moment.

"From what I've seen thus far, much of the reporting in the U.S. and abroad has exaggerated the situation, according to General Casey," said Rumsfeld. "The number of attacks on mosques, as he pointed out, had been exaggerated. The number of Iraqi deaths had been exaggerated. The behavior of the Iraqi security forces had been mischaracterized in some instances.

"Interestingly, all of the exaggerations seem to be on one side," said Rumsfeld.

"It isn't as though there simply have been a series of random errors on both sides of issues. On the contrary, the steady stream of errors all seem to be of a nature to inflame the situation and to give heart to the terrorists and to discourage those who hope for success in Iraq.

"And then I notice today that there's been a public opinion poll reporting that the readers of these exaggerations believe Iraq is in a civil war-a majority do, which I suppose is little wonder that the reports we've seen have had that effect on the American people."

On the other hand, experts suggest that the military's intentions are quite the opposite of that the Defense Secretary expressed or military officials claimed.

Who would benefit if a civil war broke out in Iraq and the entire Middle East region? Surely they're not the Iraqis or the Arabs and Muslims; it's the U.S. who has so far failed to achieve all its intended goals in Iraq and needs a reason for an extended military presence in the war-torn country.

Claims that Iraq is about or has already fallen into a civil war benefits the occupation hugely.

In a recent interview with Robert Fisk, one of the most experienced observers of the Middle East, Fisk said:

"I still go along and say what I said before - Iraq is not a sectarian society, but a tribal society. People are intermarried. Shia and Sunnis marry each other. It's not a question of having a huge block of people here called Shias and a huge block of people called Sunnis any more than you can do the same with the United States, saying Blacks are here and Protestants are here and so on. But certainly, somebody at the moment is trying to provoke a civil war in Iraq.

"Someone wants a civil war. Some form of militias and death squads want a civil war. There never has been a civil war in Iraq. The real question I ask myself is: who are these people who are trying to provoke the civil war? Now the Americans will say it's Al Qaeda, it's the Sunni insurgents. It is the death squads. Many of the death squads work for the Ministry of Interior. Who runs the Ministry of Interior in Baghdad? Who pays the Ministry of the Interior? Who pays the militia men who make up the death squads? We do, the occupation authorities. I'd like to know what the Americans are doing to get at the people who are trying to provoke the civil war. It seems to me not very much. We don't hear of any suicide bombers being stopped before they blow themselves up. We don't hear of anybody stopping a mosque getting blown up. We're not hearing of death squads all being arrested.

"Something is going very, very wrong in Baghdad. Something is going wrong with the Administration. Mr Bush says, "Oh, yes, sure, I talk to the Shias and I talk to the Sunnis." He's talking to a small bunch of people living behind American machine guns inside the so-called Green Zone, the former Republican palace of Saddam Hussein, which is surrounded by massive concrete walls like a crusader castle. These people do not and cannot even leave this crusader castle. If they want to leave to the airport, they're helicoptered to the airport. They can't even travel on the airport road. What we've got at the moment is a little nexus of people all of whom live under American protection and talk on the telephone to George W Bush who says, "I've been talking to them and they have to choose between chaos and unity." These people can't even control the roads 50 metres from the Green Zone in which they work."

So it seems that the U.S. is not intent or actually doesn't want to stop the violence going in Iraq, if not supporting and fueling it. A civil war and continuous violence, serves the U.S., it asserts what the U.S. claims that its "mission" has not finished in Iraq yet, and the that the occupation army is still needed in the country.