Bob Kerrey offers his thoughts in the Sunday New York Times.

Anyone who was in Congress, as I was during the critical years leading up to Sept. 11, 2001, must accept some of the blame for the catastrophe. It was a collective failure.

It has been difficult for all of us to understand and accept the idea that a non-state actor like Osama bin Laden, in conjunction with Al Qaeda, could be a more serious strategic threat to us than the nation-states we grew up fearing.

Time is not on our side in Iraq. We do not need a little more of the same thing. We need a lot more of something completely different.