The biggest regret of all his presidency, George W. Bush told a TV interviewer during his waning months in office, "has to have been the intelligence failure in Iraq." A lot of people put their reputations on the line, he noted, when they said "the weapons of mass destruction is a reason to remove Saddam Hussein."

While a few politicians' reputations were on that line, so were the lives of American soldiers; 4,400 have been lost, and 35,000 have been injured. As for the civilian population of the cobbled-together country we invaded and have occupied for more than seven years, at least 100,000 of them died.

The weapons in question turned out to be fictional — but we did, indeed, remove the Iraqi dictator — from power and from this Earth. And as long as we're there, went the thinking of the administration of the time, let's engage in, uh, "nation-building."

That dangerous process is still going on this week while, amid President Barack Obama's proclamations of a "new dawn" on the Tigris and Euphrates, 100,000 of our troops redeploy — to Afghanistan, Somalia and other places where we can keep looking for the villains of Sept. 11, 2001.

An effective coalition for ruling Iraq is still beyond reach half a year after national elections. Meanwhile, 50,000 of our troops, and several thousand mercenaries under security-company contracts, are sticking around another year or more. The White House hopes this will be a time of smooth handoff from control by America and its allies to the Iraqi military we dismantled long ago and haven't yet rebuilt.

In his televised address to the nation Tuesday evening, Obama proved gentlemanly toward his predecessor, focusing on the sacrifices of our men and women rather than the lie-loaded campaign that conned Congress into sending them off as terrorist-targeted occupation forces.

Unlike Bush's declaration of victory two months after the invasion, Obama's Oval Office address steered clear of the V-word. And, to his credit, the president pivoted to the domestic crisis: The most urgent task he faces, he said, is "to restore our economy and put the millions of Americans who have lost their jobs back to work." There, too, scant mention of those to whom the blame could properly be laid; well into the second year of his presidency, he figures, the wars are now his — and the recession as well.

The Iraq venture has cost the country three-quarters of a trillion dollars — vast amounts more than the $50 billion Bush estimate. Obama could have called on the party that put us in the economic hole with wars and tax cuts to help him dig us out — but he'd already done that during this week's plea for small-business support.

So instead, an intramural olive branch: He declared it time to put domestic disagreements over Iraq behind us — even as danger there lies ahead; he didn't rule out more casualties among our remaining troops. The families of those men and women can only hope our generals and admirals have plans for getting them out of Iraq as quickly as they went in.