Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said on Monday his country will not slide into civil war but acknowledged that mounting sectarian violence is now killing 100 civilians a day.
Three huge bombs killed at least 62 people in Baghdad and Kirkuk on the eve of Maliki's first trip to the West since being named prime minister three months ago in a unity government.
Maliki stopped in London to meet Prime Minister Tony Blair on his way to the United States for talks with President George W. Bush, leaders of the two countries whose 140,000 soldiers in Iraq have failed to stop the killing there. In east Baghdad, shattered vehicles showed the power of one of Sunday's blasts, which killed 34 people. Blood lay in pools.
While Maliki visited London on Monday more bombers struck in Samarra, two parts of Baghdad, and twice in Mosul, killing at least nine and wounding nearly 30. Gunmen killed civilians in attacks reported in Kut, Hilla, Kerbala and Mosul.
"There is a sectarian issue, but the political leaders ... are working on putting an end to the sectarian issue," Maliki told BBC radio. "Civil war will not happen to Iraq."
But even top Iraqi officials are already privately calling it just that. "If this is not civil war ... then I don't know what is," a senior government official told Reuters on Sunday.
Maliki confirmed UN data showing an average of 100 civilians a day were killed in May and June. Asked how long Iraq would need foreign troops, he said he expected improvements in Iraq's ability to police itself by the end of the year.
"It is definitely not decades, not even years," he said. "There are certain aspects of our local forces that need development. When that happens, foreign troops can start leaving." He said disarming ethnic militias was key, and the government had a plan to do it. "We have reached an agreement in the government that we will have to confront them (the militias) and deal with them."