Verbatim

"This begins what may be a crucial week in determining future U.S. involvement in what has become a civil war in that country."
BRIAN WILLIAMS, NBC Nightly News anchor, following the U.S. network's decision to call the situation in Iraq a "civil war"

"There's all kinds of speculation about what may or may not be happening."
GEORGE W. BUSH, dismissing the use of the term civil war. The U.S. President's preferred phraseology: "sectarian violence"

"Any talk of a humanitarian crisis is not true."
OMAR AL-BASHIR, President of Sudan, rejecting a...