Jan. 11 (Bloomberg) -- Presidents are different from you and me and should be.

They never stand in a line, open a bill or take out the trash. They jet wherever they want and throw big dinners that someone else cleans up after. In America, executive power has approached the royal. Because a president can do anything he wants, he has to be careful not to.

In ordering some 21,000 more men and women to Iraq, President George W. Bush is doing what he wants because he can. He refused to send more troops when it might have done some good, since that might have been an admission of a mistake. In a tragic piece of perverse timing, he now wants to send more when most experts, including his own generals and Joint Chiefs of Staff, say it's too late to do much good.

Not long ago, Bush made a point of ``listening'' to his generals. General John Abizaid told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Nov. 15: ``I've met with every divisional commander. General (George) Casey, the corps commander, (Lieutenant) General (Martin) Dempsey -- we all talked together. And I said, `In your professional opinion, if we were to bring in more American troops now, does it add considerably to our ability to achieve success in Iraq?' And they all said, `No.'''

Abizaid didn't realize that the party line was about to change. Just as General Eric Shinseki once got the heave-ho for saying we did need more troops, Abizaid would soon be gone for saying we didn't. As soon as a general says something Bush doesn't want to listen to, they disappear.

End of Abizaid

That was the end of Abizaid. Bush went general-shopping to come up with one who would agree with him and found Lieutenant General David Petraeus.

Yet by Petraeus's own calculations, 20,000 is a ludicrously low number of reinforcements to send. Before getting this assignment, when he could still afford to be candid, Petraeus co- wrote a field manual on counterinsurgency in which he called for at least 20 combat troops for every 1,000 people. The U.S. has about 70,000 combat troops (and 60,000 support troops) in Iraq now. Baghdad has about 7 million people (or did). That means well over 100,000 combat soldiers are needed there.

And that shortfall doesn't begin to calculate what is needed in the other troubled spot Bush is targeting, the Sunni stronghold of Anbar Province. At best, troops at this level might be able to clear some of these mean streets, but it's hard to see how they hold and build them.

`Not Large Enough'

General Peter Schoomaker warned the White House last month that the Army is ``not large enough for the kinds of missions they're being asked to perform.'' I wonder how long he'll last in his job.

There's nothing to justify upping America's commitment to Iraq now. Bush didn't suggest it until after the November congressional elections. If he had so much as whispered the word ``surge,'' the Republicans would have lost twice as many seats in Congress as they did.

Nothing has changed to warrant more troops now. There's the same government, the same American team, the same grandiose vision, even the same language. The new political to-do list for Nuri al-Maliki is the same as the old list. The only change is that, like an exasperated parent of a teenager who keeps dinging the car, Bush has added: ``This time, I really mean it.''

But if he meant it, he would take away the keys. Instead, Bush is giving Maliki a shiny new vehicle. We've been down this road before. Last June, Bush redeployed troops to Baghdad in Operation Together Forward, putting 70,000 security forces on the streets of Baghdad with new checkpoints, confiscation of weapons and a 9 p.m. curfew.

Change Course

In September, with some fanfare, Bush dropped ``stay the course'' from his lexicon to mollify those who thought he was overstaying the course. In October, unable to ignore the growing violence, General William Caldwell admitted that the operation ``has not met our overall expectation.''

To show that the president wasn't clueless about the grave and deteriorating situation, on Oct. 23 -- just before the elections -- the White House announced a review of Iraq policy.

Even National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley has no faith in Maliki, pronouncing him not up to the job of crushing the murderous militias, back in a November memo that leaked to the press.

Before Bush's speech last night, White House Communications Director Dan Bartlett said the prime minister has ``matured,'' without giving evidence that he has. Maliki still hasn't given the U.S. a free hand to go after the Shiite militias. If anything, he has even less control over those armed gangs, with whom he's generally aligned, than when he took office, having let them torture, kidnap and murder with near impunity for so long.

An Occupation?

Most observers say at this point the more responsibility turned over to Iraqis, the more responsibility they will be forced to take. America's presence looks like an occupation. We may think we're leaving but Iraqis don't, and with some reason.

We've built Balad Airbase, now the world's second-busiest airport after Heathrow, four super bases and by far the world's biggest embassy with 21 buildings on 104 acres, bigger than Vatican City. Life in the American enclave comes with all the modern conveniences. For normal Iraqis, there are few. The possibility of being blown up by a bomb or murdered in bed hangs over everything.

Democrats don't know what to do about a president who will ignore them anyway. Senator Edward Kennedy proposes cutting Bush off at the pass -- denying funds for sending troops before they are sent. That forestalls the usual accusation from Bush every time anyone challenges him that they don't support the troops.

Bush has to be more worried about Republicans. Moderates up for re-election in 2008 such Senators Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine, John Sununu of New Hampshire and Norm Coleman of Minnesota, are far more cautious. By one estimate, Bush has Senator John McCain of Arizona and about 12 other Republicans in the Senate he can count on for support.

Even the troops have turned pessimistic, with only 35 percent approving of the way Bush has handled the war, according to a recent Military Times poll.

Recent history might be repeating itself. Once again, Bush is sending too few soldiers -- enough to put off admitting he's failed, but not enough to change things for the better. Not the Congress, not the generals, not the troops can stop him.

(Margaret Carlson, author of ``Anyone Can Grow Up: How George Bush and I Made It to the White House'' and former White House correspondent for Time magazine, is a Bloomberg News columnist. The opinions expressed are her own.)

To contact the writer of this column: Margaret Carlson in Washington at mcarlson3@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: January 11, 2007 00:13 EST