What does it feel like to be responsible for the deaths of half a million people? Throughout history, there have been plenty of rulers (Hitler, Napoleon, Genghis Khan, for example) who found out. Now there is Bush.

Do you feel powerful, having had ultimate control over the fates of so many? Guilty, because perhaps your intent was never that such large numbers of people would perish.

Or ashamed, because you finally realize that it was a series of unnecessary and mistaken judgments that led to such carnage.

Nobody knows how Bush really feels about what's occurred in Iraq. We do know that he is refusing to acknowledge that lies were told and errors were made, and is insisting that our nation stick with its deadly course of action indefinitely.

A study, "Mortality after the 2003 Invasion of Iraq: A Cross-Sectional Cluster Sample Survey," published last week in The Lancet, a British medical journal, estimated there have been between about 400,000 and 950,000 deaths in the 3½ years since the war began.

Even if you assume the actual count is on the low end of the range, that's a lot of dead people, most of whom likely would be alive today if Bush had not launched an invasion. Their blood is on his hands.

So it is no surprise that he would try to brush the figures aside as ``not credible." The president does not want to take the responsibility for such a death count _ any more than he wants to take the blame for the 3,000 Americans who have died, though he said this week's troop fatalities broke his heart.

If you think back to some of Bush's remarks after the invasion, you'll recall that he referred to communication with a divine being and that he was told to launch a war against Iraq. Come on, George, you can be more original than that. Most leaders in history, including many American ones, have declared God to be on their side.

So what does he do now, blame God for all those deaths? At least the president hasn't resorted to that, publicly anyway.

Meanwhile, it is interesting how so many lawmakers and citizens have jumped the Bush ship, finally realizing that the Iraq war was a tragic mistake. But life goes on each day, and a man whose lies and errors have led to half a million deaths remains in the White House.

The situation in Iraq continues to deteriorate, three and a half years after Bush declared major combat ended and victory at hand.

According to The Wall Street Journal this week:

`` The ethnic bloodletting that has haunted Iraq for months roared to a murderous new pitch in recent days, as Shiites conducted a violent purge of Sunnis in a city north of Baghdad and bombing attacks continued to plague the capital.

``The effort to stanch sectarian bloodshed has exacted a high price in U.S. lives. Two more U.S. soldiers were killed in fighting north of Baghdad, bringing the total of U.S. troops lost since Friday (Oct. 13) to 12. So far in October, more than 50 U.S. soldiers have been killed." As of Wednesday, make that 68.

It didn't take an expert to predict that civil war would be a by-product of our invasion, though numerous experts did predict it. Unfortunately, the Bush-Cheney gang either didn't listen to the warnings or refused to believe them.

How much longer are we going to hear the president say we are defending our freedom or fighting a war on terror in Iraq? Probably for another two years, but I think most people have stopped believing that rhetoric.

Even members of his own party have had enough and are calling for a new strategy. But what new war plan could there be, other than withdrawal, while Bush won't even admit his err and insists we have to maintain the status quo.

This week, the president assured a worried Iraqi prime minister we have no intention of withdrawing and that there's no deadline for the Iraqi government to run the country on its own.

As the president continues his obsession with Iraq and terrorism, see if you can name just one of our major domestic issues that has been addressed since the invasion. I can't think of any.

Health-care costs, fuel prices, poverty, crime, violence in schools and the environment are being ignored as Congress, without a White House leadership that cares about anything but Iraq and terror, spends all its time talking about flags and page boys.

But Americans are not rallying around flags or page-boy scandals. That's why their approval rating for Congress has plummeted to less than 20 percent. Many senators and representatives are facing re-election battles, so the tide could change.

In the White House, that's not the case. All we can do is wonder what, if anything, is going on inside the president's head, and how it must feel to be responsible for so much death and destruction.

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Cary Brunswick, managing editor of The Daily Star, can be reached at (607) 432-1000, ext. 217, or cary@thedailystar.com.