Not with my children.(The Last Word)

"Bring 'em on," blustered President Bush, referring to the Iraqi militants making war on our troops. That was hundreds of American casualties ago. The escalating guerrilla warfare in Iraq provoked a similar reaction from Senator Trent Lott (R-Miss.): "If we have to, we just mow the whole place down, see what happens."

Apart from party affiliation and a peculiar generosity with the lives of other men's sons, the president and Senator Lott have something else in common: Both of them spent much of the Vietnam War as male cheerleaders. Mr. Bush did serve as a pilot in the Texas Air National Guard, but spent at least some of his term AWOL.

Vice President Cheney arguably did more than any other administration official to hype the purported threat from Iraq. A former Director of the Council on Foreign Relations, Cheney brought in his train a cluster of CFR-connected Trotskyite policy wonks eager to spread war and mayhem throughout the Middle East. Cheney was the beneficiary of numerous Vietnam-era student deferments. "I had other priorities," he replied when asked about military service.

The same could have been said by the 58,000 Americans whose names are etched in the black granite of our nation's saddest memorial.

It isn't necessary to have a military background to be a credible commander in chief. The only critical qualification is a serious commitment to fulfill the solemn presidential oath to uphold the Constitution. Like too many of his predecessors, George W. Bush ignored that oath, taking our nation to war on his own supposed authority without a congressional declaration of war. With American men and women being killed and maimed in Iraq, and the advertised rationale for war exposed as a tissue of lies, King George and his retainers have a lot to answer for.

Private First Class Rachel Bosveld of Berlin, Wisconsin, is among the hundreds of Americans killed in Iraq since the president bellowed to "bring 'em on." Bosveld, a slightly built 19-year-old MP, was killed in a mortar attack on a Baghdad police station in October. A few weeks earlier, Bosveld had been injured when her Humvee exploded. "Mom, don't worry so much about me," wrote Rachel in a letter to her mother as she recovered from her injuries. The letter arrived the day after Rachel's mother learned that her daughter was dead.

Sgt. 1st Class Vaughn Holcomb and his wife, Army medic Simone, had to leave their children with family members when they were ordered to Iraq. After Vaughn's ex-wife went ...