So are Danish troops and the Lithuanians.

Tony Blair knows when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em. He gradually cut British troops from 46,000 in the beginning to fewer than 8,000 in southern Iraq.

Took him years to declare "Mission (Not Quite) Accomplished." At least he acknowledged that British forces are stretched too thin for this mission in Iraq.

The U.S. Army is maxed out, too. And the Guard and Reserve are running on empty. But you can never get enough shock and awe, folks.

One-Beer Dick ain't calling it quits, that's for sure. He spun the Blair pullout as a good thing while blasting Democrats for wanting the same.

It so happens that the biggest warmonger in the White House is a vice president who had almost as many deferments as Liz Taylor had husbands. The closest Dick Cheney ever came to combat was as defense secretary while others watched his back.

Naturally, The Decider can't decide squat besides sending in more troops. Odd that Blair wants to cut 2,100 troops by summer while President Bush insists on deploying 10 times as many Americans. Stranger still that this White House could negotiate with nuke-happy North Korea but won't with Iran.

Blair wants the fractious Iraqis to work harder to walk without a foreign crutch. Unlike Bush, who birthed a diaper state that requires our troops to stay and clean up the mess. Some legacy!

Maybe The Decider should decide to support the troops when they come home. He can decide to go after the slumlords responsible for Walter Reed's Building 18. He can decide that heads will roll over The Washington Post's exposé of unsanitary conditions and delayed outpatient care.

The White House initially treated Building 18 like Area 51. Officially, it didn't exist. Even D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton toured the fleabag facility for vets, though as a nonvoting member of Congress she hasn't any real power. Too bad Democratic presidential hopefuls are too busy cannibalizing on the campaign trail to focus on vet care.

"There is no reason that even one soldier should come home to such an unacceptable standard of care," said Paul Rieckhoff, head of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. "The staff at Walter Reed are good people who are trying their best, but they can't fix this if they aren't given the resources they need." Déjà vu, Catch-22.

Of course, Bush never was a detail man. He feels the urge to purge and goes with the flow. No entry plan, no exit strategy, no diplomatic option and no way to meet the needs of thousands of injured troops, some suffering post-traumatic stress.

Cheney accused Nancy Pelosi and John Murtha of using the power of the purse to "validate the al-Qaida strategy." (He really is starting to resemble Jon Stewart's deranged-penguin parody.)

Foreign-war vets at VoteVets.org accuse the Republican minority of "emboldening the enemy" by squelching Senate debate. They object to the GOP's resistance to a bipartisan challenge to the president as "anti-troop."

"So far the president has ignored generals, foreign policy's greatest minds, the American people and the troops when it comes to his escalation of the war in Iraq," said Jon Soltz, VoteVets' chairman and co-founder. VoteVets describes itself as a "pro-military" anti-terror organization.

"If Prime Minister Blair truly believed in the course we are on in Iraq, he would not pull out troops when U.S. forces are severely overstretched and when the president sees a need for more troops, not fewer, in Iraq," Soltz added. "Instead, he would deploy those troops from southern Iraq to aid in the escalation of Baghdad." Good point.

Blair seems to have more credibility among our war vets than does the commander in chief. That's because while Bush has the cowboy swagger, he's no straight shooter. In war, as in peace, he's just all hat and no cattle.

Rhonda Chriss Lokeman is a columnist for The Kansas City Star. Readers may write to her at: The Star, 1729 Grand Boulevard, Kansas City, Mo. 64108-1413, or e-mail her at lokeman@kcstar.com

Copyright © 2007 The Seattle Times Company

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