President Bush addressed the nation Monday on the fourth anniversary of the Iraq war. It was his basic We have to keep fighting, Give me more money without strings attached message.

It isn't clear what he hopes to gain, as president, as head of the Republican Party or for his chapter in history by continuing to pretend that this war is still worth fighting.

It isn't. It has lasted four years. It has cost the country so far 3,200 soldiers' lives and money that is badly needed at home. His argument now seems to be, how does the United States get out without leaving a mess that threatens us? His answer Monday was, stay with it, get battered some more, throw more money at it and, by the way, let me spend that money without conditions.

Here is how the United States could get out of this misbegotten war in one piece and how a responsible president might announce it to the nation.

"In 2003 I had a dream. It was of a United States that would be made manifestly safer in the wake of the 9/11 attacks by the elimination of the threat represented by Iraq under President Saddam Hussein. It was our belief then that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction and had links to al-Qaida.

"I also believed that a liberated and reconstructed Iraq could serve as a beacon to other countries of the Middle East whose people were looking to democratize. I also believed that Israel would be safer in a democratized Middle East and that Israel then would be more prone to agree to a two-state solution. I believed that America's allies, who had fought with us in ejecting Iraq from Kuwait in 1991, would support us in this new effort.

"I turned out to be wrong. The intelligence was faulty, including its assessment of the likely response in Iraq and in the Middle East, including Israel, to an American invasion of Iraq. It is now time to make what I consider to be a wise change of course. It is not an acceptance of defeat. It is, instead, a recognition that the United States has now put as much into this effort as our interests would justify. Any further sacrifice of American blood and resources would not be justified.

"I am therefore taking this occasion to announce that no further increases and no new deployments of U.S. forces in Iraq will occur. The 140,000 troops now in Iraq will begin withdrawal starting May 1 with an initial contingent of 20,000. I would anticipate that the process will have been completed by Jan. 1, 2008. I am also withdrawing my request to Congress for $100 billion in supplemental funds to pursue the war.

"Concurrently, I am calling a summit of Iraq's neighbors, including Iran, Israel and Syria and the relevant international bodies including the League of Arab States, to be held in Washington on May 1. The subject will be what happens in Iraq after the U.S. withdrawal. After all, those primarily concerned with that subject are Iraq and Iraq's neighbors, not the United States.

"You may be wondering how the timing of this change, of course, will bear on the 2008 electoral campaign. In my view it would be good for America to remove the Iraq war as a campaign issue for either party -- to enable the candidates and the American people to concentrate on issues of greater importance to us than what is happening in a small, faraway Middle Eastern country. Thank you and may God bless America."