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The wrong war

Herbert

All Americans and most of the world would have united behind President Bush for an all-out war against Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. The relatives and friends of any troops who lost their lives in that effort would have known clearly and unmistakably what their loved ones had died for.

But Mr. Bush had other things on his mind. With Osama and the top leadership of Al Qaeda still at large, and with the U.S. still gripped by the trauma of Sept. 11, the president turned his attention to Iraq.

Less than two months after the Sept. 11 attacks, according to Bob Woodward's account in his new book, "Plan of Attack," President Bush ordered Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to have plans drawn up for a war against Iraq. Mr. Bush insisted that this be done with the greatest of secrecy. The president did not even fully inform his national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, or his secretary of state, Colin Powell, about his directive to Mr. Rumsfeld.

Thus began the peeling away of resources crucial to the nation's fight against its most fervent enemy, Al Qaeda.

Gen. Tommy Franks, who at the time was head of the United States Central Command and in charge of the Afghan war, was reported by Mr. Woodward to have uttered a string of obscenities when he was ordered to develop a plan for invading Iraq.

President Bush may truly believe, as he suggested at his press conference last week, that he is carrying out a mission that has been sanctioned by the divine. But he has in fact made the world less safe with his catastrophic decision to wage war in Iraq. At least 700 G.I.'s and thousands of innocent Iraqis, including many women and children, are dead. Untold numbers have been maimed and there is no end to the carnage in sight.

Meanwhile, instead of destroying the terrorists, our real enemies, we've energized them. The invasion and occupation of Iraq has become a rallying cry for Islamic militants. Qaeda-type terror is spreading, not receding. And Osama bin Laden is still at large.

Even as I write this, reporters from The Times and other news outlets are filing stories about marines dying in ambush and other acts of mayhem and anarchy across Iraq. This was not part of the plan. The administration and its apologists spread fantasies of a fresh dawn of freedom emerging in Iraq and spreading across the Arab world. Instead we are spilling the blood of innocents in a nightmare from which many thousands will never awaken.