Opinion (Steve Chapman): Holding ourselves hostage in Iraq

When police found Shawn Hornbeck living with his alleged abductor four years after he was kidnapped, the question arose: Why didn't the 15-year-old simply run away? But trapped and isolated, a hostage can be scared into thinking that the consequences of leaving--for himself or his loved ones--would be far worse than the consequences of staying. So he passes up opportunities to escape.

That's roughly our plight in Iraq. Even one of President Bush's key allies, U.S. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), says "the situation in Iraq can now best be described as dire and deteriorating" and "our window of opportunity to reverse momentum may be closing." Hard-core supporters of the war, no longer able to pretend that we are making progress toward a stable, democratic Iraq, have fallen back to their last line of defense--insisting that no matter how bad things are with us in Iraq, things would be far worse with us out.

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