When asked about that assessment and about recent polls that show
two thirds of Americans say the fight in Iraq is
not worth it, Cheney replied, "So?"

So?

Five years after the start of the war in Iraq, Vice President Dick Cheney offered a very positive assessment and called last year's troop surge a "major success."

"On the security front, I think there's a general consensus that we've made major progress, that the surge has worked. That's been a major success," Cheney told ABC News' Martha Raddatz during an exclusive interview in Oman.

When asked about that assessment and about recent polls that show two thirds of Americans say the fight in Iraq is not worth it, Cheney replied, "So?"

"You don't care what the American people think?" Raddatz asked the Vice President of the United States. "You can't be blown off course by polls," responded Cheney, who was on a tour of the Middle East. "This president is very courageous and determined to go the course. There has been a huge fundamental change and transformation for the better. That's a huge accomplishment."

So.

So now we have at least 4,000 dead on our side, and who knows how many dead on the other side of this war I do not understand. Today there were several pages of photographs of the war dead. I prayed for them as I looked at their serious young faces. They are almost all so very, very young. There are so many things they didn't get to do.

I look at them and wonder about the lives they might have had. I wonder about the relatives and friends who mourn the loss of those dead service men and women.

President Bush said Monday that none of the 4,000 deaths were in vain. How can he know that?

Vice President Cheney said President Bush is "determined to go the course." Is that like "stay the course?" I thought it was decided a while back that "staying the course" was not a good idea.

I can't stop looking at those faces and I want to know when this will end.

Four thousand dead. Whoever they were, wherever they were from, whatever they believed, whatever their politics and whatever my politics, they died serving on our behalf and died on our behalf. It is an insult to their sacrifice for us not to notice.

So much sorrow.

How cruel to respond to our questions, and our sorrow and our outrage with a dismissive "So?"