Editorial: AT WAR: The Fight Now

The administration's policy on Iraq, as explained by the president's speech September 7, will change in some important details, while remaining essentially the same.

The continuing theme of Bush's Iraq policy is its context. "Two years ago," Bush said, "I told the Congress and the country that the war on terror would be a lengthy war, a different kind of war, fought on many fronts in many places. Iraq is now the central front. Enemies of freedom are making a desperate stand there and there they must be defeated." This is a snapshot of a world war. We did not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy, as John Quincy Adams warned. They came to destroy us. Saddam Hussein was one of many patrons. Now the terrorists -- Baathists and al-Qaeda operatives, formerly sheltering in Iran -- buzz like flies around the corpses of his sons and his state. We must continue to swat them down.

But American policy needs to adjust itself to realities on the ground. Iraq needs money -- lots of it -- for reconstruction, and to sustain our own operations. Bush's price tag of $87 billion is a nice round sum, conveying seriousness and laying the floor for further requests, if they are needed. Nations will go into any amount of debt for necessary projects, so long as they are given a sense of the parameters. The United States will also be seeking "expand[ed] international cooperation in . . . reconstruction and security," as Bush put it. He will be rattling the tin cup abroad, and asking the Security Council for a resolution that could give countries like India the aegis for sending troops. As long as they are under American control, they will be welcome.

Soliciting foreign troops suggests that we do not have enough of our own -- a tender point to the administration. Some reporters argue that what our soldiers do is more important than how many there are: The 101st Airborne in the north and the Marines in the south show the flexibility of light infantry, which the armored divisions holding Baghdad and the Sunni Triangle might emulate. But technique is not everything. We need more troops to guard ammo dumps and patrol borders.

If the United Nations will not bless international efforts to send the necessary troops -- or if France and Germany attach unacceptable conditions to a resolution -- we will have to find the reinforcements ourselves, including National Guard units and soldiers deployed in other theaters. Over the longer run, President Bush ought to acknowledge that we downsized the armed forces too much during the holiday of the 1990s. We need a larger military.

The stubbornness and circle-closing that Bush's men have shown is hardly unique to them, though they carry it to extremes. The best achievable result might be that they correct their errors, even if they never admit making them.

Finally, the pace of Iraq-ization should be kept brisk, as we expand Iraqi police and civil defense forces, and Iraqi control over them. The terrorists know the importance of this -- hence their attacks on Iraqi policemen.

Bush and the American people must keep track of the elements of the strategic situation. Our troops have been splendid. As military historian Caleb Carr wrote, not since the professional armies of the 18th century have men at arms shown such coolness and discipline. Unlike Frederick the Great's soliders, they have shown intelligence and initiative as well. Our enemies, meanwhile, have been forced back upon themselves. Only recently, they attacked American troops (Khobar Towers, the USS Cole ), American embassies, and America itself. Now they are battling to stifle a free state emerging in the Arab heartland. Their dream of a worldwide Islamist empire looks increasingly desperate.

But there are also signs of American impatience and witlessness. The Maureen Dowd-Howard Dean Left, which wants all wars to be perfectly planned, low-cost, and over before they begin, represents a significant and seemingly unbudgeable chunk of American opinion. Should it ever win a presidential election, it will go hard with us.

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