The sad tale of the war in Iraq could be retold in a simpler form.

A man's brother is murdered and _ in his desire for revenge and to protect his family from future aggression _ he decides to attack the person he imagines is his brother's killer. The problem is that he doesn't take enough time to identify the real aggressor and assaults the wrong man. So, he ends up with two enemies: the one who killed his brother and the one he mistakenly attacked.

The same thing has happened to the United States.
America had and still has every right in the world to search and prosecute the people who planned the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Almost 3,000 people died that day in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania. However, Iraq and its then leader, Saddam Hussein, had nothing to do with those events.

Yes, Hussein was a loathsome tyrant, responsible for atrocious massacres. However, he did not possess weapons of mass destruction at the time of the American invasion in March 2003, nor did he assist Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaida terrorist network.

Gustavo Sierra, an intrepid Argentinean war correspondent, states in his latest book, "Kabul, Baghdad, Teheran. Tales from the Battlefield," that the arms inspectors in Iraq didn't have enough time to finish their job.

"We didn't find anything, and based on what we saw there is no evidence that they would have had the capacity for massive production of chemicals or enriched uranium," said Argentinean Col. Gustavo Juarez, who led a unit of U.N. inspectors. "The only way to prove it scientifically (was) for us to stay a few more months and finish our job. They didn't let do that." The war in Iraq was already in motion.

We are talking here about two completely distinct wars. One is the war on terrorism and the other, a very different one, is the war the United States is waging in Iraq.

For years, many Americans believed the official explanation that the two wars were closely linked. But that bureaucratic myth has shattered.
Most Americans (51 percent) believe that the link between the war in Iraq and the fight against terrorists doesn't exist, according to the latest New York Times/CBS survey. And 53 percent believe starting a war in Iraq was a mistake.

This means that Americans, slowly but surely, are coming to this conclusion after watching, night after night, TV reports on the deaths of U.S. troops and Iraqi civilians. The number has reached more than 30,000. How do we justify so many deaths there when the war that really matters is outside Iraq?

It is true that in the last five years there hasn't been another terror attack on the scale of 9/11. But insecurity and uncertainty are constant. Bin Laden is still at large. Madrid and London have been cruelly attacked by terrorists with impunity. And just a few weeks ago, a horrifying plot was uncovered that would have destroyed 10 airliners flying over the Atlantic Ocean. We have no reason to feel more secure.

The Los Angeles Times recently calculated that $100,000 are spent per minute on the Iraq war. Per minute! We would surely be safer if that money were used to find bin Laden and disband his international terror network. But we're not.

Despite all of the above, there will be no changing course. At least not until there is a new president in the United States, come January 2009.

The U.S. Defense Department has just reported that 2,500 Marines will be added to the 138,000 troops already serving in Iraq.

The question is whether that minimal troop increase will change the outcome of this war. And the short answer is a definite no.

The war we cannot afford to lose, the war that we and our children depend on, the war that is defining how we will live in the next two decades, is the war on terrorism. That is the right war. But the problem _ the big problem _ is the United States is fighting that war in the wrong place.