On this day after the legally observed Memorial Day and just before the traditional day of remembrance, it would have been nice to know that U.S. troops would soon be redeploying from Iraq. Perhaps not all would be coming home, but they would be getting out of immediate harm's way.

That could have been a welcome breath of fresh air in a war that has added nearly 3,500 more dead to the ranks of those honored Memorial Day. It might have been so, if Democrats in Congress had stood their ground on forcing President Bush to confront the reality of a war going sour, and had Bush chosen to favor the troops instead of $17 billion in add-ons he did not request in the Iraq war funding bill.

But, when Democrats signed off on the withdrawal timetable demand, Bush signed on to letting the extra money stay in the bill. Politics created a deadly quid pro quo.

As of Friday, May's 92 U.S. military deaths in Iraq make it the second-deadliest month of this year (104 deaths occurred in April). According to Icasualties.org figures, May already is the eighth-deadliest month in this more than 50-month-long war. If deaths continue at the current pace 3.7 a day through Friday another 22 deaths will have occurred by month's end. May would then become the fourth-deadliest month of the war.

Many who argue for the war's end use Sen. John Kerry's "mistake question," the one he posited when, as a Vietnam veteran, he testified before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations on April 23, 1971, on the Vietnam War: "How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?"

Concerning Iraq, the question should be: How do you ask men to continue dying while those in office play politics?

Bush politicized the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in his run-up to the Iraq war, invoking 9/11 and al-Qaida so often when talking about Iraq that a clear majority of people came to believe, wrongly, that Saddam Hussein had something to do with the attacks. And he continues playing the terrorist card.

Wednesday, in New London, Conn., Bush told graduates of the U.S. Coast Guard Academy he saw the Iraq war as a battle between the U.S. and al-Qaida. He might wish that so, but the true central front against al-Qaida remains in Afghanistan and northern Pakistan. Elements of terrorists do exist in Iraq, but only because the U.S. invasion created conditions for them to flourish. The reason Iraq seems on the verge of imploding comes from sectarian violence mostly Shiites against Sunnis.

Now, Democrats have politicized the war by acting too gingerly, especially in the wake of regaining power in the House and the Senate partly because the voters expected them to do what the Republicans had failed to do hold the Bush administration accountable for the muddle the Iraq war has become and to bring the war to an end.

All this plays out against the biggest political backdrop of all the 2008 presidential race. Democrats haven't yet learned from their losses in 2000 and 2004 that timidity in campaigning does not win elections. Neither party seems willing to act forcefully, lest a misstep occurs now that could be used against either at the polls. That leaves the estimated 146,000 U.S. troops in Iraq at loose ends while politicians trade sound bites.

And if you think politics doesn't play the major role in the debates that have been ongoing in the Capitol, consider this: After the Democrats capitulated on timetables and Bush rewarded them with $17 billion in extra spending, Bush announced he would follow, after months of dismissing them, the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group on withdrawing troops from Iraq.

How much different the debate might have been if Bush and the Democrats had sat down with those recommendations as a starting point.

Does no one have vision?

When Bush's father campaigned for the presidency in 1988, he spoke of a thousand points of lights people and organizations across the nation working to make their communities better places to live. As president, he created a program to honor the extraordinary efforts of these ordinary citizens. By the time he left office in 1993, he had named 1,020 points of light.

Since the first cruise missiles rained down on Baghdad in March 2003, under the son's watch, nearly 3,500 points of very bright lights have been dimmed. Thanks to the Bush administration's intransigence and the Democrats' failure to stand on principle, the forecast remains grim more violence leading to more lives sacrificed.

What a waste.

Richard Larsen is a deputy opinion page editor at The Star. His e-mail address is rlarsen@VenturaCountyStar.com.