Deepening losses.

Byline: The Register-Guard

Combat operations in Iraq began three years ago today, their early success only briefly masking a miscalculation of epic proportions. The initial justifications for the war have long since crumbled, and the current rationale of bringing democracy to Iraq is proving hollow. The war has brought blood, bitterness and betrayal, damaging the United States' military, its economy, its politics and, above all, its moral standing.

Americans were told that this war would be quick and easy. But such early mistakes as disbanding the Iraqi army, failing to prevent looting and sending too few U.S. troops gave the new Iraq a chaotic start. A grinding insurgency took root. Each in a succession of supposed turning points - the capture of Saddam Hussein, the ratification of a constitution, the election of a parliament - has soon been followed by fresh disappointments, and now sectarian violence is becoming indistinguishable from civil war.

Americans were told this war would pay for itself. Instead, congressionally approved spending for the war in Iraq totals nearly a quarter of a trillion dollars, with no end in sight. Despite this expenditure, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee heard last week that Iraq's electrical generating capacity, oil and heating oil production and percentage of people with access to drinking water and sewage service remain at pre-war levels.

Americans were told that Iraq threatened the world with weapons of mass destruction; these weapons have never been found. The example of Iraq has taught North Korea and Iran that they should push forward with their nuclear weapons programs before they're prevented from acquiring the ultimate deterrent.

Americans were told that U.S. and coalition soldiers would be greeted as liberators. Within a year of the invasion, most Iraqis had come to see American and other coalition forces as occupiers. An immediate military withdrawal has stronger public support in Iraq than in the United States, and nearly half of Iraqis outside the Kurdish zones condone attacks on American soldiers.

In the most cynical of many manipulations, Americans were encouraged to believe that Iraq and Saddam bore responsibility for the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001; this confusion is a continuing distraction from the effort to neutralize al-Qaeda. Indeed, the war has nourished al-Qaeda worldwide - nowhere more so than in Iraq, where Islamic jihadists who were suppressed under Saddam have become the spearpoint of the insurgency.

All this has come at the expense of more than 2,300 American soldiers' lives. These men and women responded to their country's call, but a strong nation needs such people in places other than battlefields. They're needed in classrooms, in businesses, in communities, in families. The immediate pain of these deaths is acute, and the ache of unrealized potential will persist for generations.

Those who have doubted the justifications for the war, challenged its conduct or questioned its results have been accused of undermining the troops in Iraq and hindering the effort to combat global terrorism. No meaningful opposition to the war has emerged within the nation's political system, partly because both the executive and legislative branches of government are under the control of an ideologically disciplined Republican Party and partly because Democrats have either supported the war or been cowed into silence. A majority of Americans now believe the war should end; seldom has such a large group been so poorly represented.

Even if the war in Iraq had not gone badly wrong, it would still represent a tragic and self-defeating wrong turn. The beginning of the war marked the moment at which the United States lost confidence in the power of its ideals, and instead fell back upon the force of its arms. President Bush speaks of spreading democracy to Iraq and beyond - in his second inaugural address, he said "the policy of the United States would be to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world." Such a policy can't flow from the barrel of a gun, but must arise from the United States' founding principles.

The Sept. 11 attacks made it clear that the United States is engaged in a war of ideas, a war that will be won or lost in the minds of people throughout the Middle East and the Islamic world. In such a contest, the United States' most powerful assets are not military. The United States' advantage stems from being regarded as standing for the dignity of the individual, for human rights, and for the self-evident truths of equality and liberty.

The United States has squandered that advantage. The invasion of Iraq, undertaken without a consensus among allies or neighboring nations, was perceived from the start as a reckless war of choice, resulting in widespread human suffering and unpredictable regional consequences. The abuses of prisoners at Abu Ghraib, the acceptance of torture and the refusal to accord minimal rights to people held in custody invite the United States to be seen as differing from its adversaries only in matters of degree, if at all.

There was a time when the world was with the Bush administration. It had just led a coalition to pursue al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and remove the protective Taliban regime. At that moment the United States could have resolved to finish the job in Afghanistan, inaugurated a policy of regional democratization and dedicated itself as never before to the notion that all people are entitled to unalienable rights. By going to war in Iraq three years ago, a historic opportunity was blown away, like dandelion fluff.

CAPTION(S):

Valona Willett, 3, salutes at a March 16 memorial service in Sparks, Nev., for her uncle, Army Sgt. Gordon Misner, who was killed in Iraq on Feb. 22.