As the actual Iraq war rages on, certain politicians back home are having a war of their own. It's more of a war of words, and it has really heated up this week. It all started with President Bush's remarks on Veteran's Day at a ceremony in Tobyhanna, Penn. He said, "The stakes in the global war on terror are too high and the national interest is too important for politicians to throw out false charges."

He was of course talking about how democrats have been challenging the argument that we went to war on false pretenses. They have been making this charge since the Bush administration admitted last year that they had found no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. It took him this long to respond to the arguments. He also cited that more than 100 Democrats in Congress gave him the vote to go to war.

Bush's arguments were followed by very strong claims by Vice President Dick Cheney at the Frontiers of Freedom's 2005 Ronald Reagan Gala on Wednesday. "What we're hearing now is some politicians contradicting their own statements and making a play for political advantage in the middle of a war," he said. Cheney went on to call Democrats "politically ambitious hypocrites."

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid put his own two cents in on the Senate floor, saying that Cheney "has come out of his bunker," and that he "is playing politics like he's in the middle of a presidential campaign."

If you thought all this was bad, on Thursday, House Rep. John Murtha (D-Penn.) called for an immediate withdrawal of troops from Iraq, saying, "The war in Iraq is not going as advertised. It is a flawed policy wrapped in illusion. …We cannot continue on the present course."

As Republicans and Democrats continue to fire at each other, which I'm sure they will, it all just seems irrelevant to me. Yes, President Bush did go to war on false pretenses. Yes, many Democrats did vote to give him the authority to go to war. Yes, the war in Iraq hasn't gone as planned. But complaining about it now isn't going to accomplish anything except getting your name in the news, which I'm sure is something a lot of politicians wanted.

The Republicans are clearly not going to back down or even consider pulling troops out of Iraq, much less even planning a timetable for an exit. I was one who was most vehemently opposed to the war from the start. But pulling out now is simply not an option. And having a war of words back home doesn't do anything except detract our attention from the actual war, which is something that we should be focused on.

Even if democrats had all the intelligence that the Bush administration did, which they claim they didn't, it doesn't matter. The intelligence was false, which says something about our intelligence community and is not a rip on the Democrats or Republicans; it is a rip against the entire American government.

It seems that a lot of people have lost focus. While I understand where the Republicans are coming from, it is the wrong time to fire back at Democrats.

But there seems to be no stopping it now. The stubborn politicians involved will stop at nothing to prove their point. I wonder how long it will take all of them to realize that they are running around in circles.