United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan sounded one more alarm bell to remind the international community of the critical situation in Iraq.

His alert is no exaggeration.

Annan informed the heads of state at the annual General Assembly meeting in New York on Monday that the nation is in "grave danger" of falling into civil war.

Indeed, sectarian violence and insurgent attacks have come to be daily news.

The country is far from being on the road to freedom, peace and prosperity as assured by the US-led coalition forces. On the contrary, it is sliding into civil war.

Ill-prepared military blunders and a lack of post-conflict planning have created far more problems than existed in the first place.

Far from dealing a body blow to terrorism, the war on Iraq has ripped open a hornets' nest of ruthless, pitiless, pointless violence. The awful reality for the coalition troops and, most importantly, for the great mass of Iraqis themselves is that violence, in its still-rising intensity, is neither comprehensible nor escapable.

Iraq has become one of the most violent conflict areas in the world, with violence spreading north into the comparatively peaceful Kurdish areas of Diyala and Kirkuk.

Annan urged Iraqi leaders to crack down on sectarian killings that have left thousands of people dead since the February bombing of a revered Shi'ite Muslim shrine, and to step up efforts to resolve religious and ethnic differences.

The more than 150 bodies found last week dumped across Baghdad are a case in point. The killings were believed to result from Sunni-Shi'ite sectarian hostilities.

Meanwhile, insurgent bombings of crude oil pipelines have crippled the country's oil industry, the lifeblood of its economy.

The mounting violence underscores the coalition forces' failure to achieve a political solution a unity government in Iraq.

While the spread of violence revives talk of civil war in the country, the international efforts to aid it seem to be a mission impossible.

Iraqi officials ask for strategic injections of aid to plug gaps in their country. They met with the UN and foreign donors on Sunday to prepare a road map for the reconstruction of Iraq and try to make the country economically self-sufficient within five years.

Under the initiative, called the International Compact for Iraq, the country would seek aid from governments and multilateral organizations while encouraging private-sector investment into its strategic oil industry.

The economically volatile country is thirsty for money. Throwing bucks into the pot, however, is not the cure.

What the country needs is a road map to make real political equilibrium possible and restore general stability.

Relentless bombings, shootings and kidnappings have kept foreign companies away from Iraq. So long as such daily violence continues, international assistance can hardly deliver a miracle.

(China Daily September 20, 2006)