The only thing working very well in Iraq these days is the full-blown American propaganda, namely, that democracy is on a roll there, proving the sagacity of the illegal invasion and colonial occupation, as also the genius of George W. Bush in killing tens of thousands of Iraqis and bombing Iraqi infrastructure to smithereens.

This fiction requires:

* The endless repetition of such presidential lies as that Iraq is "a central front in the war on terror."

* An amnesia about the stated reasons for the war, primarily, weapons of mass destruction, vouchsafed, it turns out, by a lying drunkard, whose unreliability was conveyed to the CIA by German intelligence.

* A belief in the need for imperial presence to teach the natives how to vote, form an assembly and elect an executive.

* A willingness to ignore facts.

Two years after the invasion, Iraqis still do not have enough food or drinking water. Children under 5 are under a malnutrition rate that is double what it was during Saddam Hussein's reign, according to the latest United Nations figures.

But Halliburton continues to rake in high profits, even as the Pentagon questions the over-billing by the former employer of Vice-President Dick Cheney.

There is little reconstruction. Falluja, levelled five months ago, remains in ruins, as also the holy city of Najaf, destroyed last August. The insurgency is down, but only compared to the mayhem before the Jan. 30 election. Terrorist attacks remain at the same level as last year. Foreigners are still being taken hostage.

Hardcore insurgents are still estimated at between 12,000 and 20,000 and said to be well- armed and well-financed.

Al Qaeda's Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is at large despite a $25 million bounty on his head, just as Osama bin Laden is, despite the $50 million reward on his.

Iraqis are, indeed, turning against the insurgents, not because they have fallen in love with the occupiers but because they have been the greater victims of terrorism, having been provided with little protection.

Despite all the talk of freedom, the prospect of Iraq being independent in the foreseeable future is about zero. All the signs point to it being an American protectorate, à la Afghanistan.

About 700 American pilotless drones, flying at treetop levels or as high as 60,000 feet, are spying on every patch of Iraq.

American troops are not about to leave anytime soon, despite widespread Iraqi opposition, as measured by opinion polls or anti-American rallies led by Muqtada al-Sadr, the young radical Shiite leader ostensibly beaten back twice by U.S. troops.

Lest we get sucked in by the hype, American commanders are only talking about reducing their deployment from 142,000 to 105,000 — next year.

The majority Shiites are, of course, not pressing for a timetable for withdrawal. That's pragmatism, not affection. They want the Americans to tackle the terrorists spawned by the Americans. Despite talk of multilateralism in his second term, Bush has picked unilateralist bullies Condoleezza Rice, Paul Wolfowitz and John Bolton for the institutions that deal with the world: State Department, the World Bank and the United Nations.

Bush and the European leaders have pretended to patch up relations but their policies remain as far apart as ever. Italy and Poland are withdrawing from Iraq, following a dozen others, including Spain and Norway.

Nothing Bush says is even remotely believable, except by the 50 per cent of American voters who re-elected him and by the pro-war pundits who are slowly resurfacing from their long silence.

-- Haroon Siddiqui is the Toronto Star's editorial page editor emeritus.