I am guilty of insufficient skepticism, misplaced trust, and inaction unbecoming of a citizen of a free country.

I never voted for Mr. Bush and don't like his positions on a raft of issues. Yet I did support the invasion of Afghanistan after 9/11, which I continue to think was justified. It was never fully finished, but I'm not about to talk about that here.

When the talk started about Iraq, I didn't like the idea and thought it was wrong at its core, but when the weapons talk began, I listened. I thought that the UN had probably done a creditable job, but when Colin Powell (who I thought honorable, intelligent and independent) went to the UN and started talking about dangerous things whose use was imminent, I hesitated. Also, and this is my fault, I remember Adlai Stevenson at the UN lo these many years ago when I was a child with aerial photographs of missiles in Cuba. This effect was doubtless intended and I'm still furious with myself for falling for it.

My basic mistake was to doubt but not act on that doubt. I decided to trust that the President, whom I had not thought particularly trustworthy before, would not deliberately plunge his country into a stupid war with no clear strategy for political reasons, and so there had to be something there that I didn't know about to cause him to contemplate such a severe action. I believed this because I thought that, if nothing else, George Bush loved his country. I have since come to see that, though I still think George Bush loves his country, it's a narrow love that includes only the places he knows. His loyalty, far from being owed to his nation, is more clearly focused on the people he knows. That is his America. He doesn't know mine, and has no special reason to defend or protect it.

I have been a dupe and a fool because I gave him the benefit of my trust. It won't happen again, but that will not help the Iraqis. Neither will an American withdrawal at this time, since American (and other allied) troops are the main force maintaining what little order there is. We broke it; we bought it.

If the Iraqis embrace democracy, I will be happy for them. If they choose a government that is adversarial to ours, I won't blame them. If our government seeks to interfere with Iraqi self-determination, I will oppose that. It won't raise the dead, but it's the best I can do.