Reporter John Burns on the Charlie Rose Show

And there`s no doubt that the price of staying is very, very high in American blood, to begin with, and American treasure too.

But it seems to me incontrovertible that the most likely outcome of an American withdrawal any time soon would be cataclysmic violence. And I find that to be widely agreed amongst Iraqis, including Iraqis who strongly opposed the invasion. And especially amongst Sunnis, a minority who ruled here, whose power was usurped by the invasion and who now find themselves facing Shiite militias and 350,000 man and woman Shiite-led Iraqi security force, that`s to say army and police, which is overwhelmingly Shiite and would be likely, first of all, to disintegrate in the face of a civil war, but with its principal units falling on the Shiite, not the Sunni side of that war.
--John Burns

John Burns is a reporter for the New York Times.

Makes for quite a contrast with the reporting-from-afar that we received from Kaleem Omar, eh?

Hat tip to Captain's Quarters.

Update: The video embed from the Charlie Rose Show site doesn't appear to be working--if it's not working, go here.