Good point. We are bogged down in a war we were not justified in starting, a war that lies and half truths were fed us to get us into, and a war that won't seem to stay won.

But your point is we are in this situation and this is not the proper time to argue about how we got here, but to focus on how to get out.

If we leave in June as advertised, we will be leaving a mess. We can't just declare victory and go home as we did in Viet Nam. There are massive financial interests for the entire world involved here.

We can't run away and prove to malcontents world wide that terror tactics work. (They do, but it behoves us to try and keep this a secret.)

This is where we have to drop the cowboy bravado and work politics. We must work with a coalition of the religious, business, and media leaders in Iraq. And yeah, if we can get any help from nasty old Europe we should take it. It is time to use the military to enforce political reality but demonstrate it is only a last ditch alternative to political solutions.

These political solutions have to made on a city by city basis-and might earn some bad press if areas of some cities have to undergo enforced urban renewal.

But we can't just leave and think anything has been accomplished.

Publius