Midge Decter in the New York Post: Panic Attack.

Now comes the latest scandal, over the behavior of a few prison guards in Iraq. This new scandal is no more than an election-season opportunity seized by certain serious opponents of the war, along with many more unserious opponents of the Bush administration.

No one doubts that the behavior of that handful of prison guards is impermissible and must be punished. Virtually everyone in the Bush administration, from the president and his Cabinet on down to the janitors in the White House, has by now declared it an outrage, demanding that the miscreants be brought to justice and the prison in which they performed their nefarious tricks be cleaned out and reorganized.

The president, indeed, has apologized to the Arab world for the incident. Keep in mind that this is, after all, a war, and that American troops have been almost unbelievably civilized - especially in light of the unspeakable things Iraqis have done and are doing to one another.

Given the speed of all the apologies, what are those hoping to re-create the kind of public outcry that once greeted the revelations about the My Lai massacre - and hardened whatever hearts were left to harden against the war in Vietnam - now to do? The answer seems simple: Call for the head of Donald Rumsfeld.

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Aside from the part this ersatz scandal no doubt will be made to play in the Democratic presidential campaign, this tempest in a teapot about the brutal behavior of a small group of young thugs in wartime says something disturbing about us as a people.

This country was assaulted and went to war and may be at war for a long time, for the terrorists who are out to get us have found support and will be provided with ever more dangerous weapons in and by countries beyond Iraq.

Should we achieve it, success in Iraq will have a serious effect on them. Should a desire to cut and run - which is the message logically contained in the continual light-minded assault on one of the most intelligent and steady-nerved public servants this country has seen in many a year - come to pass, the consequences will be felt for who knows how many generations.