Everywhere I turn, I hear another person speak about the success of this war. Since we witnessed the falling of a Saddam Hussein statue, it seems that my conservative little town of Grosse Pointe has unanimously decided that victory belongs to the United States of America.

These people, however, have forgotten why our government waged war. If I'm not mistaken, our government embarked on this viciously inhumane mission in an attempt to rid Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction. So far, we have not accomplished such a task. We have also failed to stabilize the country. Rather, we made Iraq a less stable place. We've barely begun to bring democracy to the people. So, other than taking Hussein out of power, we've basically done, well, nothing.

Forgive me, I forgot. We have indeed done something. We've efficiently injured or killed thousands of Iraqi civilians and troops, and given the lives of more than 100 American soldiers. And all this has been done with the opposition of the United Nations and some key allies, giving millions of people worldwide good reason to despise our nation.

If you consider the colonization of an obviously defenseless nation "success," then we have undoubtedly succeeded. Still, it seems that any halfway-decent human being would have the sense to realize that what we have done in the past month and a half is anything but victorious.

We also do not have much to look forward to. For instance, Jay Garner, a friend of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, was recently appointed to be in charge of the rebuilding of Iraq. Perhaps this name rings a bell. Garner is a retired Army lieutenant general who became president of SY Technology, now the SY Coleman division of L-3 Communications, a leading contractor for missile-defense systems. Currently, he is on leave.

A man whose company gives technical support to the missiles being used in Iraq has been given the assignment of rebuilding it.

And so, we continue to cause turmoil in Iraq. We continue our sanctions. We continue to worry about our friends and family members in the military, who continue to risk their lives. We continue to consider a potential 10,000 civilian deaths "success."

We continue to hand out million- and billion-dollar contracts to giant corporations, such as Halliburton (a company of which, by the way, Vice President Dick Cheney was chief executive officer).

We continue to spread the hate. We continue to chisel away at our country's reputation.

Are we victorious? I think not.

Paul Manganello, 14, of Grosse Pointe Park, Michigan is an 8th-grader at Pierce Middle School.

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