Opinion (Joseph Galloway): Double Down in Iraq -- Or Back Away from the Table?

Will Rogers said that the first thing you do when you find yourself in a hole is quit digging. All the signs out of the nation’s capital indicate that President George W. Bush -- who's in a very deep hole of his own making in Iraq -- is about to ask for a bigger shovel.

The word is that Bush is tilting toward the most dangerous option of all the recommended moves he has on his desk: A temporary "surge" of an additional 20,000 to 30,000 American troops thrown into the bloody agony that's Iraq today.

If he chooses this option, it will be against the best advice of the American military commanders on the ground, the unanimous opposition of the service chiefs in the Pentagon and the most thoughtful military analysts in and out of uniform.

It's clear that the surge option will break the Army and Marine Corps, already stretched so thin that they're barely able to meet the current requirements for maintaining a force of 140,000 troops in Iraq and some 20,000 in Afghanistan, leaving few if any in reserve for emergencies elsewhere.

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