IV 

109TH CONGRESS 

2D SESSION H. RES. 984 

Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that Iraq is in the 

midst of a civil war since the February 22, 2006, bombing of the 

Golden Mosque in Samarra, Iraq, one of the holiest places for Shiite 

Muslims. 

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

SEPTEMBER 6, 2006 

Ms. WATERS submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the 

Committee on International Relations 

RESOLUTION 

Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that 

Iraq is in the midst of a civil war since the February 

22, 2006, bombing of the Golden Mosque in Samarra, 

Iraq, one of the holiest places for Shiite Muslims. 

Whereas the United States went to war with Iraq on March 

19, 2003; 

Whereas the government of Saddam Hussein fell in April 

2003 as a result of the military action taken by the 

United States; 

Whereas since the fall of the Hussein government there has 

been a struggle to gain political power by numerous Iraqi 

political and religious factions; 


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•HRES 984 IH 

Whereas a majority of political scientists define a civil war 

as a war between different sections or parties of the same 

country or nation in which casualties are in excess of 

1,000; 

Whereas the death toll in Iraq has far exceeded this level, 

with a conservative estimate of 30,000 and may be in excess of 100,000 Iraqis killed since the war began on 

March 19, 2003; 

Whereas violence in Iraq has claimed the lives of approximately 100 Iraqis each day in May and June of 2006; 

Whereas Baghdad’s central morgue reported that it received 

the bodies of 1,855 people in July of 2006, an average 

of nearly 60 a day, representing a 16 percent increase 

compared to June and a 71 percent increase compared 

to January; 

Whereas the United Nations estimates that more than 

14,000 civilians have been killed in Iraq in the first half 

of 2006; 

Whereas on February 22, 2006, Sunni Muslims bombed and 

partially destroyed the Golden Mosque in Samarra, one 

of Shiite Muslims holiest sites, unleashing a nationwide 

wave of sectarian violence between Iraq’s Shiite and 

Sunni Muslims which has yet to subside; 

Whereas Iraq’s former interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, a 

Shiite, declared in March 2006 that Iraq was in a civil 

war; 

Whereas Adnan Dulaimi, a Sunni Arab leader, said of the violence in Iraq, ‘‘It’s bloodshed and killing of the innocents, killing the elderly and women and children. It’s 

mass killings. It’s nothing less than an undeclared civil 

war’’; 


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•HRES 984 IH 

Whereas Ayad Samaraie, a leader of the Iraqi Islamic Party, 

said of the violence in Iraq, ‘‘It is actually a civil war’’; 

Whereas Fadhil Sharih, a leader of the Sadr movement, said 

of the violence in Iraq, ‘‘It seems clear that it’s been 

moving toward the direction of civil war’’; and 

Whereas a senior Iraqi government official was quoted by 

Reuters on July 23, 2006, saying of the violence in Iraq, 

‘‘If this is not civil war . . . then I don’t know what is’’: 

Now, therefore, be it 

1 Resolved, That it is the sense of the House of Rep2 resentatives that Iraq has been in the midst of a civil war 

3 since the February 22, 2006, bombing of the Golden 

4 Mosque in Samarra, Iraq, one of the holiest places for Shi5 ite Muslims. 

Æ 


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