NOTE: The battle for Baghdad is won, but have we won the war? Have we evengained ground? To answer this question, we have to step back and look at the big picture, both at home and abroad. In this first of a two-part series, I examine the impact and implications of the war abroad. Next week: The War at Home.

Why did we fight?

The Bush administration is claiming victory in Iraq, but has the government achieved its stated goals? The list of war goals has mysteriously disappeared from the White House Web site on Iraq, but a short list would certainly include these aims:

1. to capture or kill Saddam Hussein and his closest aides and family members

2. to secure Iraq's allegedly large quantities of weapons of mass destruction

3. to secure the natural, cultural and economic assets of Iraq for its people

4. to democratize Iraq

5. to stabilize the region and

6. to reduce the threat of terrorism

How are we doing on these goals? On our first objective, not well. Saddam Hussein, like one of our other enemies, Osama bin Laden, has disappeared with his family. The closest associate in U.S. custody is a half-brother. Only 11 of 55 identified top officials are in custody.

On the second goal, a White House spokesman had this to say:

QUESTION: You just mentioned before that the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq are no longer in control -- or no longer being controlled by the Saddam Hussein regime, since that regime has ended. In whose control are those weaponss currently?

MS. BUCHAN: Well, Saddam Hussein is clearly not in control of Iraq. We continue, as you know, as part of -- one of the goals of the operations in Iraq is to seek to find the weapons of mass destruction.

QUESTION: So it's not under anyone's control at this point?

MS. BUCHAN: We are seeking to find them. But Saddam Hussein is not in control of Iraq.

So the large cache of WMD either does not exist (and therefore a major predicate of the grounds for war was false) or it exists and is not currently under U.S. control, and so is, at this moment, actually at greater risk of falling into the wrong hands.

On the third aim of the war, we may have failed most abjectly. The massive, incomprehensibly expensive bombing campaign has destroyed large portions of the nation's urban architecture. Water and electricity supplies not already interrupted by the first war and more than a decade of severe economic sanctions have been interrupted.

Electricity in Baghdad, out since April 5, has been restored to one percent of the city. U.S. officials hope to restore 10 percent this week, but it may be months before services are restored to the remaining 90 percent.

Although on notice that major looting of cultural and economic institutions occurred in Baghdad during the first Gulf War, the U.S. appeared unprepared for looting and allowed thousands of priceless artifacts to be stolen from Iraq's national museum. The oil ministry and oilfields were secured, but the national library lies in ashes and ruins.

While Iraqis begged the U.S troops to help, professional looters stole nearly 70 percent of the national museum's valuable artifacts. The U.S. has pledged to assist in recovery, but of the tens of thousands of artifacts taken in the first war, only a handful have been recovered.

The national museum was at the top of the list of more than 4,000 crucial Iraqi museums, monuments and archaeological digs provided to the Pentagon by an international group of scholars, conservators and collectors. One scholar equated the loss to America losing "the whole Mall, the Library of Congress, and the National Archives."

The fourth U.S. goal is under deep threat now, with millions of surprisingly organized Shi'ite Muslims freed from decades of Saddam Hussein's repression (the central reason al-Qaeda despised Saddam). In a country where Shi'ite Muslims make up nearly two-thirds of the population, a theocracy in the image of Iran is a real possibility.

Supporters of a young fundamentalist Shi'ite leader murdered a key moderate U.S.-allied Shi'ite cleric last week. Rather than fostering democracy, Bush's war may have unleashed religious fundamentalism on the region.

Coupled with Kurdish reprisals and desires for an independent Kurdistan in northern Iraq, the threat of a fundamentalist regime in Baghdad actually works to destabilize the region, the opposite of the American goal to stabilize it politically and militarily.

The end of widespread fighting has also been marked by an increase in Bush administration threats against Iraq's neighbors. Experts warn that this will further destabilize the Middle East.

And what of the fifth goal, the one that started the whole mess: fighting global terrorism? As was argued before hostilities commenced, a unilateral invasion by the U.S. can only help al-Qaeda and its ilk recruit alienated Arabs worldwide, while further degrading the international institutions needed to combat the threat.

The "post-war" plan for Iraq (I'm already in this deep, so I might as well point out that fighting continues), with a likely long-term U.S presence and a minimized role for the International community, does little to allay fears in the Arab world.

Are these just the ramblings of another incoherent angry liberal? Apparently not.

Although most media accounts make it appear that anti-Bush and anti-war sentiment emanates only from a tiny lefty fringe, polling indicates an America deeply divided over the handling of Iraq. According to the latest Harris poll, the American public is worried that:

- Rebuilding Iraq will cost American taxpayers a great deal of money (77%).

- The people of Iraq do not seem to be welcoming our troops as liberators (54%).

- The war is causing a big increase in anti-American feeling around the world (66%).

- Most of the rest of the world do not support us because they do not believe that this is a just war (61%).

- U.S. troops have not found any weapons of mass destruction (57%).

- We do not have a United Nations' resolution supporting the war and that most members of the Security Council were opposed to it (55%).

- When the Iraq war is finished, the administration will want to attack other countries (55%).

Let's hope this time that the majority is wrong.

Suzanne Blanchard (zan@phillyburbs.com) is the editor of phillyBurbs.com

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