At last there is joy on the streets of Baghdad and, although it is impossible to know what proportion of the Iraqi population unreservedly welcome the invaders, nobody should for a moment regret the demise of Saddam Hussein. But nor should we forget the enormity of what has happened: an unprovoked invasion of a sovereign foreign country, in which thousands of its inhabitants died. No doubt, there will be the usual postwar arguments about the statistics, but we should note that if the death rate among international journalists and among the invaders' own troops is any guide, the toll among Iraqi civilians must be high indeed. To shift the blame to Saddam Hussein - he placed rocket launchers in civilian areas, he made every vehicle a target by calling for suicide attacks, his soldiers used human shields, and so on - is neither here nor there. It was part of the British and US case that Saddam was a ruthless savage; it was their decision to provoke him. Nor should we accept the implication that military deaths somehow don't count, that a man becomes wicked and dispensable as soon as he puts on an Iraqi uniform. Again, it was the invaders themselves who proposed that resistance came more from fear of Saddam than from loyalty to him. Many of the dead soldiers must have been reluctant conscripts they too had hopes and dreams, wives, sisters, parents and children

"We were not lying," a Bush administration official told ABC News. "But it was just a matter of emphasis." The official was referring to the way the administration hyped the threat that Saddam Hussein posed to the United States. According to the ABC report, the real reason for the war was that the administration "wanted to make a statement." And why Iraq? "Officials acknowledge that Saddam had all the requirements to make him, from their standpoint, the perfect target."

A British newspaper, The Independent, reports that "intelligence agencies on both sides of the Atlantic were furious that briefings they gave political leaders were distorted in the rush to war." One "high-level source" told the paper that "they ignored intelligence assessments which said Iraq was not a threat."

Sure enough, we have yet to find any weapons of mass destruction. It's hard to believe that we won't eventually find some poison gas or crude biological weapons. But those aren't true W.M.D.'s, the sort of weapons that can make a small, poor country a threat to the greatest power the world has ever known. Remember that President Bush made his case for war by warning of a "mushroom cloud." Clearly, Iraq didn't have anything like that — and Mr. Bush must have known that it didn't.

Does it matter that we were misled into war? Some people say that it doesn't: we won, and the Iraqi people have been freed. But we ought to ask some hard questions — not just about Iraq, but about ourselves.

First, why is our compassion so selective? In 2001 the World Health Organization — the same organization we now count on to protect us from SARS — called for a program to fight infectious diseases in poor countries, arguing that it would save the lives of millions of people every year. The U.S. share of the expenses would have been about $10 billion per year — a small fraction of what we will spend on war and occupation. Yet the Bush administration contemptuously dismissed the proposal.

Or consider one of America's first major postwar acts of diplomacy: blocking a plan to send U.N. peacekeepers to Ivory Coast (a former French colony) to enforce a truce in a vicious civil war. The U.S. complains that it will cost too much. And that must be true — we wouldn't let innocent people die just to spite the French, would we?

So it seems that our deep concern for the Iraqi people doesn't extend to suffering people elsewhere. I guess it's just a matter of emphasis. A cynic might point out, however, that saving lives peacefully doesn't offer any occasion to stage a victory parade.

Meanwhile, aren't the leaders of a democratic nation supposed to tell their citizens the truth?

One wonders whether most of the public will ever learn that the original case for war has turned out to be false. In fact, my guess is that most Americans believe that we have found W.M.D.'s. Each potential find gets blaring coverage on TV; how many people catch the later announcement — if it is ever announced — that it was a false alarm? It's a pattern of misinformation that recapitulates the way the war was sold in the first place. Each administration charge against Iraq received prominent coverage; the subsequent debunking did not.

Did the news media feel that it was unpatriotic to question the administration's credibility? Some strange things certainly happened. For example, in September Mr. Bush cited an International Atomic Energy Agency report that he said showed that Saddam was only months from having nuclear weapons. "I don't know what more evidence we need," he said. In fact, the report said no such thing — and for a few hours the lead story on MSNBC's Web site bore the headline "White House: Bush Misstated Report on Iraq." Then the story vanished — not just from the top of the page, but from the site.

Thanks to this pattern of loud assertions and muted or suppressed retractions, the American public probably believes that we went to war to avert an immediate threat — just as it believes that Saddam had something to do with Sept. 11.

Now it's true that the war removed an evil tyrant. But a democracy's decisions, right or wrong, are supposed to take place with the informed consent of its citizens. That didn't happen this time. And we are a democracy — aren't we?

* U.S. hails capture of Palestinian guerrilla Abu Abbas in
Iraq as proof of a link between Saddam and terrorism
* Italy says will seek extradition of Abbas; Palestinian
Authority demands his release but U.S. says he has no immunity
under 1995 Middle East peace deal
* U.S. says Marines raid Baghdad home of scientist wanted
for work on Saddam's banned weapons programme
* Syria says will cooperate with U.S. but not close offices
of radical Palestinian groups; Iran tells U.S. to stop
threatening Syria; says hopes "occupiers" will leave Iraq soon
* EU nations pledge to work with the U.S. to rebuild Iraq
* Bush calls on U.N. to lift economic sanctions against
Iraq; White house says U.S. intends to propose U.N. resolution
lifting sanctions "in the near future"

QUOTES
U.S. military spokesman Thorp on capture of Abbas: "When we
came into this the Secretary of Defense (Donald Rumsfeld) said
one big concern was the nexus between this regime and terrorism.
This proves the nexus was there."
Bush: "Now that Iraq is liberated the United Nations should
lift economic sanctions on that country."
Iran's Khatami, asked if the U.S. could attack Syria: "It is
unlikely that the United States will be able to do it, and it is
unlikely that the world would allow a repetition of what
happened in Iraq."

EVENTS (TIMES IN GMT)
Thursday
* European leaders and Annan to discuss post-war Iraq at EU
summit
Friday
* Middle Eastern foreign ministers provisionally scheduled
to meet in Riyadh

CASUALTIES
* U.S. - 123 killed, 4 missing
* Britain - 30 killed
* Iraqi military - at least 2,320 in Baghdad, according to
U.S. military. Iraq has given no figures for its military losses
* Iraqi civilians (Iraqi estimates up to April 3) - 1,254
killed, 5,112 wounded

RECONSTRUCTION
EU to fly wounded Iraqis, especially children, to Europe for
urgent hospital treatment in next few days, Chirac says.
Up to seven European countries may send peacekeeping troops
to Iraq, EU officials say; Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh
Rasmussen says Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Denmark
interested; EU diplomats say Italy and Spain also interested
West's energy watchdog, International Energy Agency, says it
does not expect Iraqi oil exports to resume within next few
weeks. U.S. says can get Iraqi oilfields pumping at two-thirds
of pre-war levels within weeks, although resuming exports
depends on creation of political authority.
Turkey says U.N. to buy $200 million worth of foodstuffs
from Turkish suppliers as part of Iraq aid package.
U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation says farmers in Iraq
urgently need spare parts and fuel for upcoming spring harvest.
U.N. World Food Programme to send dozens of trucks loaded
with food aid into northern Iraq, raising volume of daily
shipments towards 2,000-tonne target.
Iraqis are unlikely to get a new currency until well after a
new Iraqi authority is formed; U.S. plans to give emergency
one-off $20 payments to civil servants will grease the economy
with dollars in the meantime.

In the months leading up to the war in Iraq, US scholars repeatedly urged the Defence Department to protect Iraq's priceless archaeological heritage from looters, and warned specifically that the National Museum of Antiquities was the single most important site in the country.

Late in January, a mix of scholars, museum directors, art collectors and antiquities dealers asked for and were granted a meeting at the Pentagon to discuss their misgivings.

McGuire Gibson, an Iraq specialist at the University of Chicago's Oriental Institute, said on Sunday that he went back twice more, and he and colleagues peppered Defence Department officials with email reminders in the weeks before the war began.

"I thought I was given assurances that sites and museums would be protected," Dr Gibson said. Instead, even with US forces firmly in control of Baghdad last week, looters breached the museum, trashed its galleries, burnt its records, invaded its vaults and smashed or carried off thousands of artefacts dating from the founding of ancient Sumer around 3500 BC to the end of Islam's Abbasid Caliphate in 1258AD.

Asked on Sunday about the looting of the museum, US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld blamed the chaos that ensues "when you go from a dictatorship" to a new order.

Iraq also has 13 regional museums at risk, including another world-renowned facility in the northern city of Mosul, as well as thousands of archaeological sites, ranging from the fabled ancient cities of Ur, Nineveh, Nimrud and Babylon to medieval Muslim villages abandoned in the country's vast western reaches.

"To the extent possible, and as soon as though it were yesterday, someone needs to post border guards to intercept antiquities as they try to leave the country," said archaeologist and art historian John Russell, of the Massachusetts College of Art.

In January, a statement from the Archaeological Institute of America called on "all governments" to protect cultural sites during an expected conflict and in its aftermath. Dr Gibson and others said they were especially concerned because of the example of the 1991 Gulf War.

Allied forces scrupulously avoided targeting Iraqi cultural sites during the bombing of Baghdad 12 years ago.

But the end of that war kicked off a looting rampage, and eventually allowed systematic smuggling to develop. Artefacts from inadequately guarded sites were dug up and hauled away during the 12 years between the wars. "We wanted to make sure this didn't happen again," Dr Gibson said.

"They said they would be very aware and would try to protect the artefacts," Dr Gibson said, recalling January meetings with Pentagon officials charged with target selection and the protection of cultural sites.

Pentagon officials knowledgeable about those meetings referred questions to the public affairs office, which said the military had tried to protect the sites.

Since the 1920s, Iraq has required that anyone digging within its borders file a report with the museum. More recently, expeditions had to submit excavated material to the museum for cataloguing after each year's digging season.

Looters apparently burnt or otherwise destroyed most of those records last week, but Dr Gibson suggested scholars worldwide could duplicate the archive by copying their files and reports and resubmitting them to Iraqi authorities.

The museum's artefacts are another matter. Although the damage done is almost certainly catastrophic, Dr Russell said: "It's going to be a matter of weeks or months before we're going to be able to identify any particular thing". The cultural heritage of Iraq, the home of ancient Mesopotamia, encompasses the Sumerians, Akkadians, Babylonians, Assyrians, Chaldeans, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Parthians, Sassanids and Muslims, to name only the best-known civilisations.

* U.S. Marines backed by tanks seize Tikrit, effectively
sealing U.S., British victory in the Iraq war
* Rumsfeld says Syria carried out chemical weapons tests in
last 12-15 months, let Iraqis enter its territory; Powell says
U.S. will examine possible diplomatic, economic or other
measures against Syria; White House calls Syria "a rogue nation"
* Syria denies it has chemical weapons, says it never
cooperated with Saddam's administration
* Iraq's main Shi'ite opposition group says will boycott
U.S.-sponsored meeting Tuesday to map country's political future
* Saudi Arabia plans first regional emergency meeting on
Iraq since war began

QUOTES
Rumsfeld: "I would say that we have seen chemical weapons
tests in Syria over the past 12, 15 months."
Powell: "With respect to Syria, of course we will examine
possible measures of a diplomatic, economic or other nature as
we move forward."
Syrian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman: "Syria has no chemical
weapons and that the only chemical, biological and nuclear
weapons in the region are in Israel, which is threatening its
neighbours and occupying their land."

EVENTS (TIMES IN GMT)
Tuesday -
* Straw visits Qatar, Saudi Arabia
* U.S. convenes meeting of Iraqis in Nassiriya to discuss a
postwar administration in Iraq
* Schroeder, Blair meet in Hanover

Wednesday/Thursday -
* Annan attends EU leaders' meeting in Athens, to meet
Blair, Chirac, Schroeder

CASUALTIES
* U.S. - 119 killed, 4 missing
* Britain - 30 killed
* Iraqi military - more than 2,320, according to U.S.
military. Iraq has given no figures for its military losses
* Iraqi civilians (Iraqi estimates up to April 3) - 1,254
killed, 5,112 wounded

MILITARY ACTION
NORTHERN IRAQ - U.S. Marines backed by tanks and helicopters
enter Saddam's final stronghold, seizing control of his home
town Tikrit.
BAGHDAD - U.S. Marines exchange fire with snipers near the
Palestine Hotel for several minutes, capture three men. U.S.
troops set up round-the-clock patrols in some quarters; More
than 2,000 Iraqi policemen report back to work.
CENTRAL IRAQ - Aides to Iraq's top Shi'ite Muslim cleric,
Ayatollah Sistani, say armed siege of his home has ended and
tribal leaders in control of the city.
SOUTHERN IRAQ - British military has moved to policy of zero
tolerance on looting in Basra. U.S. spokesman says British
forces have taken over from U.S. 1st Marine Division at Amarah,
extending area of British control from Basra.
GULF - U.S. carriers USS Kitty Hawk, USS Constellation have
received orders to leave the Gulf in coming days, Navy officials
say. That will leave three carriers in waters near Iraq.