By David Shapiro

It was difficult to tell whether Gov. Linda Lingle was being politically disingenuous or just naive when she returned from Iraq spouting the absurd proposition that the war isn't a fit topic for debate in this year's presidential election.

"There are simply too many American lives at stake, too many American resources put into this effort to allow it to degrade into political fighting in an election year," Lingle said after she and five other governors briefed President Bush following their two-day trip to Baghdad.

While claiming to want to de-politicize the war, the Republican Lingle appeared more to be carrying political water for Bush.

The president would love to see Iraq disappear as an election issue as his approval rating sinks in polls showing that a majority of Americans no longer feel the war was worth fighting.

A slight majority also told pollsters that they believe the president either lied or exaggerated evidence of nonexistent Iraqi weapon stockpiles to justify the war.

This issue will, and should, be front and center in the election campaign. That's what elections are for, to allow us to pass judgment on policy decisions of our leaders.

Bush, who describes himself as a "war president," can't reasonably expect his Democratic opponents and voters to give him a free pass on a questionable conflict that defines his first term and will have foreign and domestic implications for generations.

Fair questions about the president's actions demand accountability, notwithstanding Lingle's attempts to sweep them under the rug:

• Did Bush exercise sound judgment by rushing into war based on specious intelligence and against the opposition of some of our strongest allies, who wanted more time to verify whether Saddam Hussein possessed dangerous weapons?

• Was the war worth record federal budget deficits that will burden Americans for generations and limit our ability to respond to future emergencies at home and abroad? Can we justify spending millions of dollars to rebuild Iraqi schools when our own commitment at home to No Child Left Behind is woefully underfunded?

• Has the president's preoccupation with Iraq distracted him from more pressing threats to U.S. security, such as North Korea's nuclear weapons and continuing operations of the al-Qaida network responsible for the 9/11 terrorism?

• With Iraq's Sunni, Shiite and Kurd factions possibly headed for civil war, and outside terrorists pouring into Iraq to exploit the chaos, has this war left America safer or even more vulnerable to terrorism?

• How many more American troops have to die (there have been 541 so far) before Iraq is secure enough that visiting dignitaries such as Lingle's group can sleep safely there instead of jetting in on day trips from Jordan?

• What kind of victory is it when the governors and Bush himself have to sneak into Baghdad under cloak-and-dagger security like thieves in the night instead of marching in like the liberators they claim to be?

It displays no lack of respect for our troops to conduct a fair-minded debate of the policies that put them in harm's way.

If this war is righteous, Bush and his supporters should stand up and own it instead of shamelessly using the troops as political human shields to evade scrutiny.

If the president's actions were reasonable, convince us why instead of suggesting we're somehow unpatriotic if we want to talk about it.

If Lingle and other lockstep supporters of the president don't believe in fair accountability, they'll just have to excuse the rest of us who do.

David Shapiro can be reached at dave@volcanicash.net.