WELL SAID, INDEED.

Still more is needed to bring about peace and stability, and more is in fact happening. Real progress is now being made to meet material needs and establish civic institutions. Polls show a majority of the Iraqi people approves both the ouster of Saddam Hussein and the U.S. presence while looking forward to democratic independence.

The insurgents clearly want to stop that progress. They have to hate it that increasing numbers of Iraqis are being trained as policemen and are having some success at reestablishing order, and so the insurgents hit the police stations. The attack on the Red Cross building seems unfathomable until you recognize that the insurgents gain nothing and lose much when the Iraqi people have health needs met by medical practitioners from around the world.

The Bush administration must listen to its critics when they make sense, and some do, but the critics should likewise grant that the prospects over time are hopeful as long as the administration is open to policy correction, as it mostly seems to be, and sticks to those programs that are now proving successful.

This country must not dodge what's unmistakably required at the moment, and that brings us to the Democratic presidential candidates. Of those, only Sen. Joseph Lieberman and Rep. Richard Gephardt favor giving the Bush administration the money it has requested to support U.S. troops and rebuild Iraq. The position of the others is nothing short of irresponsible.