Hey gang! I'm back from vacation. Two weeks in the Provence region of France. Great family trip to a wondeful region of Europe.

I see the news about Iraq here is still as pervasive an issue as ever.

As I said months ago, the issue about what Mr. Bush said in order to justify going to an unprecendented pre-emptive war isn't going to go away anytime soon and that certainly has proved out. You can't have a President make erroneous claims in a State of the Union Address and expect them to be easily shuffled aside. Meanwhile, American casualties mount and the costs to American taxpayers skyrocket. Combat deaths have now exceeded those of the first Gulf War. And, stabilizing the country and rebuilding it is actually costing us twice what Mr. Rumsfeld claimed it would in April - its now running about $4 billion a month.

The American military is finally now admitting we are in the middle of a guerrilla war - their words, not mine. Isn't that special?

Well buckle your seatbelt folks because this little experiment in American foreign policy is going to be costing us in American lives and taxdollars for years to come. Meanwhile, the search for so-called weapons of mass destruction has turned up completely empty. No such weapons apparently exist. And we now have a President telling us he didn't lie because his public statements were based upon what those clever Brits said. Since when do we go to war based upon another nation's erroneous intelligence reports?!? Let the finger pointing begin.

Don't get me wrong or attempt to put words in my mouth. I am happy to see Mr. Hussein out of power. He was a two-bit despot that deserved to be taken out. But he's apparently still out there, just as is Osama bin Laden. One would think that the most powerful nation on earth would have the wherewithall to find these hoodlums.

But the current controversy isn't about Saddam Hussein. Its about what the leader of the free world said in order to justify ignoring the U.N. and going to war - resulting in the deaths of thousands of innocents. No sitting President of these United States should be summarily excused for making things up to include in his constitutionally mandated annual report to Congress and the nation. No way. No how.