Something Fishy in Iraq

I was listening to Middle East correspondent Robert Fisk (no relation AFAIK) on the ABC morning show last Monday (March 6). In between music selections and discussing his new book, the possibility of the threat of civil war was discussed. Fisk thought it unlikely, making two points:

• civil war was *not* being fomented by Iraqis: it isn't in their history, and they are *not* a divided sectarian society. You only have to look at a blog like Baghdad Burning to see this.
• civil war *is* being fomented via 'death squads' with the backing of someone having connections in the Iraqi government. Just who it is, Fisk didn't know (or wasn't willing to say). He commented that it 'was a very dangerous story'. (I wouldn't argue with that!)

Now, I've just noticed a BBC article: ' US envoy warns of Iraq civil war'. In it he states:
"The US ambassador to Iraq has said that continuing sectarian violence there had the potential to turn into civil war.
In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Zalmay Khalilzad indicated that the US had little choice but to keep a strong military presence in Iraq. "

Hmm! Using the threat of a (non-existent) sectarian based civil war that is being agitated for by non-iraqis with government connections as an excuse to keep US forces in place?

Who would want to do that?