You're right. We asked for it, so now we gotta pay for it. We're stuck. The only course we have is to spend billions of dollars and risk hundreds of lives.

My main problem with all of this is that it could have been avoided. There was no need to go to war. There was no threat to American interests. Iraq was a fully shackled nation, under sanctions and perpetual scrutiny. Saddam Hussein had been essentially contained...superfluous to middle east politics and devoid of influence.

My other problem is that the Bush administration exaggerated the case for war. The American people were told something that simply wasn't true in order to get public opinion to support engaging in an unprecendented pre-emptive war.

And, finally, our complete dismissal of the U.N. was incredibly bad judgement and will work against our long term foreign policy interests. It was very short-sighted.

Now we are paying the price. We're going to have to pay the tab. And, we're going to continue to lose American lives. But we have no other choice. We have to succeed. The consequences of failure are great.