The United States is now stuck with a war it should never have started. The

violence continues to rage out of control. The latest fantasy out of
Washington is that somehow, miraculously, Iraqi troops will be able to take

over and win the war that we couldn't.

The American public is becoming fed up and with good reason. Support for
the war is declining and the reputation of the military is in jeopardy. The

Army has been unable to meet its recruitment goals and the search for new
soldiers is becoming desperate.

General Shinseki said it would take hundreds of thousands of troops to
pacify Iraq. That was the end of his career.
Bush & Co. sent far fewer troops into the war, and many of them were never
properly trained or equipped.

The results have been nightmarish. Roadside
bombs have caused 70 percent of American casualties in Iraq.

The military was not prepared for this tactic and has had a miserable record providing
protective armor for Humvees and other vehicles carrying soldiers and
marines.

So G.I.'s from the wealthiest, most powerful nation in the history of the
world have been dying because their nation wouldn't give them up-to-date
combat vehicles.

As for training and preparedness, the scandal at Abu Ghraib is instructive.
The problems there went far beyond the photos of Lynndie England and others
humiliating the Iraqis under their control.

We learned last week that Janis

Karpinski, the brigadier general whose reserve military police unit was in
charge of the prison, had been arrested for shoplifting at a military base
in Florida in 2002. The same army that's scouring Iraq for insurgents and
terrorists was apparently unaware of the arrest record of the woman
assigned to such a sensitive position at Abu Ghraib.

Abu Ghraib was not an aberration. It was a symptom. This is a war in which
the people in charge have had no idea what they were doing. One of the
recommendations of Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba, who investigated the scandal
at Abu Ghraib, was that a team be sent to Iraq to teach some of the
soldiers how to run prisons. How's that for an innovative step?

The United States is now stuck with a war it should never have started. The
violence continues to rage out of control. The latest fantasy out of
Washington is that somehow, miraculously, Iraqi troops will be able to take
over and win the war that we couldn't.

The American public is becoming fed up and with good reason. Support for
the war is declining and the reputation of the military is in jeopardy. The
Army has been unable to meet its recruitment goals and the search for new
soldiers is becoming desperate.

Last week, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Richard Myers, told
Congress that the war in Iraq was taking a toll on the military and would
make combat operations elsewhere in the world more difficult. That was
hardly a comforting thought as the administration was ramping up its
rhetoric about North Korea.

If President Bush had consulted with his father before launching this
clownish, disastrous war, he might have gotten some advice that would have
pointed him in a different direction

and spared his country - and the
families of the many thousands dead - a lot of grief.

May 9, 2005

Stranger Than Fiction

By BOB HERBERT
When Bob Woodward asked President Bush if he had consulted with his father
about the decision to go to war in Iraq, the president famously replied,
"There is a higher father that I appeal to."