That prewar intelligence on Iraq was "dead wrong," a conclusion most people already knew and didn't need a presidential commission to confirm (a pdf copy of the unclassified report is available at FindLaw.com), should not fool people into complacency. Investigations have yet to delve into the more important aspect of how policymakers used, or abused, the intelligence. (See "Failures, faults and fluff.")

Nothing yet revealed lets anyone in the Bush administration off the hook for culpability in selling Congress, the American people and the world an illegal war.

Yet, many people, including some very vocal critics of this nation's march to war, would give President Bush and his neoconservative advisers a pass. Their argument goes: Because elections have been held in Iraq, because Syria is pulling out of Lebanon and because Egypt has agreed to multiparty selections, perhaps Bush was right in stirring things up by attacking Iraq.

Two things matter here: How the Bush administration misled this nation into attacking Iraq and what our responsibility as a nation is now after ending Saddam Hussein's regime.

We went to war. War creates destruction and uncertain times. Our duty now is to bring all the best traits in America to bar in helping Iraq stabilize and in helping create the conditions that will let Iraqis determine their own destiny. We were the aggressor nation; we must be the peacebuilder now.

Simply because we now hope a democratic society of some sort might emerge in Iraq and might have some influence on neighboring nations does not exonerate anyone in government of blame if they conspired to present "dead wrong" intelligence to advance egotistical notions of world dominance.

A good example (used in my June 29, 2004, essay, "One small step forward") is that of someone who robs a bank and used the money to help the homeless. It doesn't matter that the robber might have done good after the crime, he is still guilty and must face punishment.

Likewise, even as we extend a helping hand to Iraq, we must hold accountable and punish if necessary those who might have committed crimes for political gain — whether that is Abram Shulsky, who directed the Office of Special Plans in the Defense Department, or John Bolton, who was undersecretary of state for arms control, or Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, or Vice President Dick Cheney or even Bush.