But the terrorists have augmented that figure. It was 138 when the military war ended. It is more than 500 today. And this is the burgeoning figure to which the politicians will draw attention. Their indictment is to the effect that we entered into a war without an imperative reason to do so. And then that we conceived the challenge so maladroitly that we can now be said to be in Iraq not to win a military victory there (that was easy, and done quickly) but to see whether we can overcome the terrorists. What the enemy wants, the intercepted letter confirms, is a civil war. A civil war in Iraq is not the kind of challenge the 101st Airborne was trained to handle.
Mr. Bush told Mr. Russert that the terrorists were protesting the prospect of peace and freedom. It seems strange to tie bombs around your torso and charge into groups of innocent civilians, including children, in order to further the defeat of freedom. But the only thing Mr. Bush can come up with is -- success. There is, conceptually, the marginal terrorist: After he is struck down, the movement withers. What Mr. Bush needs is evidence that we are moving in the direction of the marginal terrorist, because there is evidence on the other side that the terrorists are begetting more terrorists. And Don Rumsfeld himself asked the question weeks ago: Can we prove we are winning? He did not have the answer.
Mr. Bush has acquired a rhetorical side that deeply offends critics of his policies. "I'm a war president. I make decisions here in the Oval Office in foreign policy matters with war on my mind." But combating terrorists is a different challenge, and Mr. Bush hasn't met it, and the Democrats sense this and say it to the pollsters.