Author David McCullough said recently that if the media had covered the Revolutionary War the way they have covered the Iraq war, America would have never won its freedom. In the vernacular this would mean the following: Valley Forge would have been a "quagmire", "the battle of Brooklyn Heights", "another Vietnam" and the ragtag colonists would have "fallen short of their recruiting goals." A recent case in point is Ellen Goodman's column calling President Bush's reference to the connection between Iraq and 9/11 "shameless." In fact, President Bush has it right and Ellen Goodman has it wrong, for two reasons.

 First, while the administration has never connected the attacks of 9/11 with Iraq, the president has rightly connected the Iraq War with the war on terror. Ideologies like communism and Islamofascist terrorism are never defeated in a few years, but must be confronted over a generation. We must fight terrorists in Iraq the way we fought the Japanese in the Philippines. Different front-same war. The defeat of terrorism and the planting of freedom and democracy is a generational struggle. There is no alternative to victory in Iraq. Leading Democrats know this. They are left with nothing more than nitpicking Iraq policy for shallow political gain.

 Secondly, the connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda has a long history going back more than ten years. This was documented in Stephen Hayes definitive book, "The Connection" and was recently recapitulated by Andrew McCarthy in his National Review Online article "It's All About 9/11." Many unanswered questions remain but the link is unmistakable. The mainstream media has little interest in chasing down tidbits like Mohammed Atta's trip to Prague in April 2001 and the meeting of Ahmed Hikmat Shakir, an Iraqi intelligence office, with two of the 9/11 hijackers at the Kuala Lampur airport in January 2000. It does not help that Senators like West Virginia's Jay Rockefeller give speeches saying there was a "substantial connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda" one month before the Iraq War and then criticize the president for doing so now.

 President Bush is putting the war on terror in the right perspective and attempting to rally legitimate support. Ellen Goodman has nothing to offer but a misinformation campaign leading to retreat and defeat. Remember, if we are hit again by terrorists, liberal columnists will blame the President for "not doing enough to protect us," all the while engaging in counsel today that will insure that he doesn't.

  John Pendleton