Hundreds of soldiers have died trying to take Hill 459. And our generals have a new plan to win the war without it.

But we are going to take that hill tonight, so those soldiers won't have died in vain!

''Didn't Bush use this reasoning to justify staying in Iraq longer?''

''Decisions should based primarily on current and forward costs-versus-benefits, not prior ones.''

Does this include "well, we've sunk this much into the project and our budget is strained to breaking. We could kill it off now and wear the cost or push on and hope the payoff is eventually worth it."?