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Frank Gaffney Jr. in the July 20 Op Ex is so partisanly political and so wrong I feel weak inside.

I was an Army officer who served eight presidents, four Democratic and four Republican. I have no partisan ax to grind. I was also the original desk officer for Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan when we created U.S. Central Command from the Rapid Deployment Joint Task Force.

I know Iraq through that long experience (with access to all-source intelligence). On promotion to colonel just before the first Gulf War I was assigned to the U.S. Embassy in India, where we identified and shut off (thanks to the government of India) Iraq's source of precursor materials for Saddam Hussein's chemical weapons of mass destruction program.

Regarding Gaffney's article, "Bush's critics are making Saddam's day": This president made his own bed and has to stand to history for his own actions.

He and his administration failed to do their homework before they jumped to war.

If Saddam is alive and gloating, it is because the political ramifications and consequences not only were not well considered in advance; all who urged more appropriate measures to convincingly and completely defang and box Saddam Hussein were chided and denigrated.

Included were great and wonderful soldier/statesmen like former Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Merrill McPeak, Gen. Wesley Clark, and any and all others who suggested otherwise. He even fired his own outstanding Army Chief of Staff, Gen. Eric Shinseki, and his top deputy for daring to point out the cost of postwar operations.

Now the piper is being paid.

Rightfully in American democracy questions are being raised that should have been asked and answered before his premature commitment to war exposed a bumbling, lying administration.

These questions must be asked; otherwise, we will never know the lessons we need to learn from this conflict. There is no spin that partisan politicians can put on this Iraqi debacle that we are in.

Saddam Hussein survives not in spite of but because of this administration's foolhardy rush to war in a situation where the same results could have been achieved at much less loss of treasure, goodwill and faith in the integrity and capabilities of our president and his administration.

Leon T. (Tim) Hunt, Fergus Falls, Minn., is a retired U.S. Army colonel.