In comments the Los Angeles Times calls “among the frankest and bleakest public assessments of the Iraq situation by a high-level American official,” U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad has warned of a full-blown civil war. Referring to the recent bombing of a Shiite shrine in Sammara, Khalilzad said: “If another incident [occurs], Iraq is really vulnerable to it at this time.” Khalilzad went on to say: “We have opened the Pandora’s box and the question is, what is the way forward?” His comments come just days after General Peter Pace, Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said things were “going very, very well” in Iraq.