By: E&P Staff There have been many memorable images out of the Iraq war, but this one may be one of the more simple and significant.
It's just one slide from a recent classified briefing but it received front-page play -- and reproduction -- in The New York Times today, and also sat atop its Web site for hours, and then was reprinted widely on the Web.
It's a slide from a classified briefing prepared on Oct. 18 by the United States Central Command, obtained somehow by the Times, that "portrays Iraq as edging toward chaos," reporter Michael Gordon reveals. The slide "provides a rare glimpse into how the military command that oversees the war is trying to track its trajectory, particularly in terms of sectarian fighting," Gordon adds.
The slide includes a color-coded bar fever chart that illustrates an ?Index of Civil Conflict.? It shows a sharp escalation in sectarian violence "and tracks a further worsening this month despite a concerted American push to tamp down the violence in Baghdad," Gordon explains.
"The slide shows Iraq as moving sharply away from 'peace,' an ideal on the far left side of the chart, to a point much closer to the right side of the spectrum, a red zone marked 'chaos.' As depicted in the command?s chart, the needle has been moving steadily toward the far right of the chart."
Gordon then reveals details from a grim intelligence summary at the the bottom of the slide.
A spokesman for the Central Command declined to comment on the index or other information in the slide. ?We don?t comment on secret material,? the spokesman told the Times.
Gordon concludes: "Still, for a military culture that thrives on PowerPoint briefings, the shifting index was seen by some officials as a stark warning about the difficult course of events in Iraq, and mirrored growing concern by some military officers."
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