Bush's Crusade Same As 1095's: Mass Madness.(ISSUES & INSIGHTS)(ON THE LEFT)

Byline: RICHARD COHEN

I do not write the headlines for my columns. Someone else does. But if I were to write the headline for this one it would be, "Impeach George Bush."

Of course, I realize there's no chance Congress would impeach the president at this point or under almost any circumstance. It somehow reserves its outrage for lying about sex under oath and not, as now seems clear, the making of war under false pretenses. Say what you will about President Clinton; no one died in the White House pantry.

The same cannot be said in the larger sense about George Bush.

Well over 1,000 Americans and countless more Iraqis have died because the president insisted on going to war.

I know I should grieve the Iraqi dead as much as I do American ones, but I simply don't. It is the Americans -- those names I read almost every day, the hometowns, the lives I conjure up for them, the hideous moments of death -- who would comprise every one of my articles of impeachment. I would read every name from the well of the House.

I do not hold George Bush accountable for believing Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. I have talked with senior administration officials who opposed the war and they, too, thought Saddam had chemical and biological weapons -- but not nuclear ones.