Today, Sen. John McCain appeared on Meet the Press and freely criticized Rumsfeld for underestimating the numbers of troops needed in Iraq at the beginning of the war and still today. But McCain would not say that that failure was shared by the President.

Democrats and Republicans, while attempting to appear to have grown a backbone since the days of blindly authorizing the President to take the nation to war for whatever reason he felt would "keep us safe", still are trying to play an unmanageable political game of intellectual dishonesty.

Senators McCain, John Kerry, and Hillary Clinton are very smart people. They know history, and if they forget, advisors surely remind them. Nations do not destroy and rebuild other nations overnight. It takes not years, but decades -- especially in a region like the present-day Middle East.

After World War II, the task of rebuilding Germany and Japan took the combined efforts of several nations, and many years. It was done after fighting had stopped, unlike in Iraq where fighting continues to escalate. It was also done without the German and Japanese people being burdened with the high cost of maintaining a military in a potentially hostile region. That is impossible in Iraq. Iran and Syria pose a great threat to any democracy that would grow in Iraq. And even under those more ideal conditions, 60 years after the end of World War II, America still has a military presence in both Germany and Japan.

Today's debate should not be on the deceit that occured before the last election, but that which continues as we approach another. When Congress and the White House took America to war in Iraq, they committed our country to a decades-long mission.

We will likely see a small decrease in the numbers of U.S. troops in Iraq just ahead of the November elections. But when things flare up in the region, we will be forced to send troops back. And if things get worse -- and yes, they could get worse with all-out civil war, another attack on U.S. soil, or a crisis in some other part of the world -- voluntary recruitment efforts by the millitary may not be enough.

On Oct. 11, 2000, during a debate with then-Vice President Al Gore, Bush said: "I don't think our troops ought to be used for what's called nation-building. . . . I think what we need to do is convince people who live in the lands they live in to build the nations. Maybe I'm missing something here. I mean, we're going to have a kind of nation-building corps from America? Absolutely not."

That is exactly the task Bush and Congress have committed America to. And they continue to mislead the American public about it.

The White House will not deliver an exit strategy to the public because the timetable would lead to a complete turnover of Congress next year. Americans are not yet prepared for the reality of decades of Iraqi sponsorship.