Accountability Gap

Including today's attacks in Fallujah, at least 597 American soldiers have died in Iraq. According to MSNBC, at least 459 have died after President Bush landed on the USS Abraham Lincoln and declared that major combat operations had ended.

I know it's old news, but think about those numbers for a moment. They tell us that more than three out of every four deaths in Iraq came after the combat was supposed to be over.

There is a scene in the movie Fandango in which Kevin Costner and Charlie Sheen are shooting off firecrackers in a cemetery in the dark, and they stumble across the recent grave of a Vietnam soldier (the film takes place in 1972). In a moment of supremely poignant filmmaking, they look at the grave and then suddenly notice the sounds and sights of the bottlerockets and cherry bombs, which have briefly recreated the sounds and flashes of combat that probably surrounded the soldier as he died. Costner sits down next to the grave and, realizing how inappropriate his conduct has been, says "Sorry, brother."

Likewise, I don't think it's asking much for President Bush to personally apologize to the families of each and every one of those 459 soldiers for his act of supreme arrogance, and for his administration's failure to properly plan for what happened after Saddam's regime fell.

But, sadly, it'll never happen.