We Broke It. We Bought It.

They expect us to fix it.

A call for President George W. Bush to reduce US support to Iraq if Baghdad fails to improve security drew a sour response from Iraqi politicians, who said Washington had an obligation to back their government.

"The US calls itself an occupying force in Iraq and, according to the Geneva Conventions, if you are an occupier then you are responsible for the country," said parliamentarian Mahmud Othman, a Kurd.

"They have no right to to do this. This is unfair."

Bassim Ridha, a top advisor to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, said the White House has to support Baghdad "all the way".

"If they do not support the government then it will look as if they do not do what they preach," Ridha said. "We need their support to go forward."

A high-level, bipartisan panel urged Bush Wednesday to act to halt a "grave and deteriorating" crisis in Iraq by holding talks with Iran and Syria and starting to withdraw US combat forces.

The report said Washington must step up action -- including the threatened reduction of political, military and economic support -- to make the Iraqi government improve security.

Haidar al-Abadi, a member of Maliki's Dawa party and close associate to the prime minister, said most of the panel's recommendations, including a dialogue with Iran and Syria and increased training for Iraqi security forces, had been expected.

But the threat to reduce support was new.

"We were told there would not be pressure as such," said Abadi. "In our dialogue with the US administration, we said that we would work together."

While recognized US concerns over where its money goes, he emphasized that this was everyone's fight.

"We are all in the same boat; we are not fighting only internal criminals but we are fighting international terrorism," Abadi said. "We need support for that."

Like I've said before, it's not like they begged us to invade them and save them from Saddam. Anything that happened in that country after we invaded is our fault. We can't just say "you better clean up the mess we made." At least not if we ever want to know anything close to peace on earth again.