Rumsfeld says Iraqi forces would handle civil war

WASHINGTON, Mar 9 (Reuters) US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld today said that if an all-out civil war eruptsin Iraq, the plan would be to have U.S.-backed Iraqi government security forces, not U S forces, deal with the violence.

''The plan is to prevent a civil war,'' Rumsfeld told a Senate panel in response to questions by Sen. Robert Byrd, a West Virginia Democrat, ''and to the extent one were to occur to have the, from a security standpoint ... the Iraqi security forces deal with it to the extent they're able to.'' Hundreds of people were killed in sectarian violence that flared after the February 22 bombing of the Golden Mosque in Samarra, one of Iraq's four holiest Shi'ite shrines, and some experts said Iraq appeared to be on a verge of civil war.

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