July sees most Iraqi deaths yet.

July appears to have been the deadliest month of the war for Iraqi civilians, according to figures from the Health Ministry and the Baghdad morgue, reinforcing criticism that the Baghdad security plan started in June by the new Iraqi government has failed.

An average of more than 110 Iraqis were killed each day in July, according to the figures. The total number of civilian deaths that month, 3,438, is a 9 percent increase over the tally in June and nearly double the toll in January.

The rising numbers indicate that sectarian violence is spiraling out of control and seem to bolster an assertion that many senior Iraqi officials and American military analysts have been making in recent months: that the country is already embroiled in a civil war, not just slipping toward one, and that the American-led forces are caught between Sunni Arab guerrillas and Shiite militias.

110 people dying each day! Can we even fathom what living in these conditions must be like?

How is this not a civil war? How many more have to die per day for this to be acknowledged as a civil war? The fact that this administration believes that by ignoring a problem it will disappear has certainly not served us or the Iraqi people very well at all.

It is long since past the time for grownups to start making the decisions in this crisis. The overgrown children have made a horrible mess of things.