"In recent polls, 60 percent of those surveyed thought the war in Iraq was a mistake, 70 percent thought it wasnÕt worth American lives, and only a quarter believed it made us safer from terrorism. This sour judgment is entirely reality-based. The war failed in all its stated missions except the toppling of Saddam Hussein.

While we were distracted searching for IraqÕs nonexistent weapons of mass destruction, Iran began revving up its actual nuclear program and Osama bin Laden and his fanatics ran free to regroup in Afghanistan and Pakistan. We handed Al Qaeda a propaganda coup by sacrificing AmericaÕs signature values on the waterboard. We disseminated untold billions of taxpayersÕ dollars from BaghdadÕs Green Zone, much of it cycled corruptly through well-connected American companies on no-bid contracts, yet Iraq still doesnÕt have reliable electricity or trustworthy security. IraqÕs Òexample of freedom,Ó as President Bush referred to his project in nation building and democracy promotion, did not inspire other states in the Middle East to emulate it. It only perpetuated the Israeli-Palestinian logjam it was supposed to help relieve.

For this sad record, more than 4,400 Americans and some 100,000 Iraqis (a conservative estimate) paid with their lives. Some 32,000 Americans were wounded, and at least two million Iraqis, representing much of the nationÕs most valuable human capital, went into exile. The warÕs official cost to U.S. taxpayers is now at $750 billion.

Of all the commentators on the debacle, few speak with more eloquence or credibility than Andrew Bacevich, a professor of history and international relations at Boston University who as a West Point-trained officer served in Vietnam and the first gulf war and whose son, also an Army officer, was killed in Iraq in 2007. Writing in The New Republic after ObamaÕs speech, he decimated many of the warÕs lingering myths, starting with the fallacy, reignited by the hawks taking a preposterous victory lap last week, that Òthe surgeÓ did anything other than stanch the bleeding from the catastrophic American blundering that preceded it. As Bacevich concluded: ÒThe surge, now remembered as an epic feat of arms, functions chiefly as a smokescreen, obscuring a vast panorama of recklessness, miscalculation and waste that politicians, generals, and sundry warmongers are keen to forget.Ó

Bacevich also wrote that Òcommon decency demands that we reflect on all that has occurred in bringing us to this moment.Ó AmericansÕ common future demands it too. The warÕs corrosive effect on the home front is no less egregious than its undermining of our image and national security interests abroad. As the Pentagon rebrands Operation Iraqi Freedom as Operation New Dawn Ñ a Òname suggesting a skin cream or dishwashing liquid,Ó Bacevich aptly writes Ñ the whitewashing of our recent history is well under way. The price will be to keep repeating it."


(NYT columnist Frank Rich