Other People's Blood

Bob Herbert

For the smug, comfortable, well-off Americans, it doesn't seem to matter how long the war in Iraq goes on - as long as the agony is endured by others. If the network coverage gets too grim, viewers can always switch to the E! channel (one hand on the remote, the other burrowing into a bag of chips) to follow the hilarious antics of Paris, Britney, Brangelina et al.

The war is depressing and denial is the antidote. Why should ordinary citizens (good people, religious people, patriots) consider their role in - and responsibility for - the thunderous, unending carnage? Enough with this introspection. Let's go to the ballpark, get drunk and boo Barry Bonds. The nation is in deep denial about Iraq. For years the president and his supporting cast of arrogant, bullying characters have tried to put the best face on this war. They had no idea what they were doing when they ordered the invasion of Iraq, and they still don't. Many of the troops who were assured that the Iraqis would welcome them with open arms are now dead. And there's still no plan.

Paul Wolfowitz, who fashioned the phony intellectual underpinnings of this catastrophe, told us that Iraqi oil revenues would cover the cost of reconstruction. He was as wrong about that as the president was about the weapons of mass destruction. (And as wrong as Dick Cheney was last June when he said the insurgency was in its last throes.)