The kidnapping of CARE's director in Iraq, Margaret Hassan, is arguably no different in kind from the now-routine takings committed for cash or for political profit, but somehow it seems especially to confirm the unholy mess the United States has made of its invasion.

That invasion was undertaken with a high moral purpose, after its fashion: we would save Iraqis from their tormenter, quash a potential ally of terrorism and dazzle the Arab and Muslim Middle East - tempted to Islamic radicalism - with a demonstration of can-do democracy.

Those were fine goals but they were mirages shimmering above the desert sands in the mind of an American administration that, through hubris and miscalculation, ignoring contrary intelligence and contemptuous of cautionary counsel, went forward more on conviction than on calculation.

To the roadside bombings, rocket-propelled grenade attacks, exploding cars, kidnappings, street warfare, beheadings and sabotage that are the daily humdrum of our "Mission Accomplished," Bush offers reassurances that all is going along, if not exactly well, then well enough. He is like one of those ring-pull talking dolls, with a half-dozen programmed utterances that repeat no matter where it is set down.

When you think about it, Bush's most brazen act may not have been his decision to rush into Iraq when the U.N. inspections were working and even the wiser heads of his own father's administration were saying hold up. His most brazen act may be that he is daring the nation to re-elect him precisely for all that and, what is more, appears about as likely as not to get away with it.

Somehow, and no matter who is elected, we have to find a way to bring decent order out of the Iraqi chaos. The Bush administration is keeping the number to itself, but independent assessors figure we have killed between 10,000 and 15,000 Iraqis in order to free them from Saddam Hussein and install who-knows-what in his place. We owe that now twice-abused population a pacific and generous outcome.

Margaret Hassan all but embodies the best intentions in Bush's mixed bag of reasons for this war. She is a syncretic figure - a Briton by birth, an Iraqi citizen married to a native Iraqi, 30 years in the country and, apolitical, devoted to the welfare of the Iraqi peoples. In short, the best of the West and the Middle East all in one - just what Bush's war-planners say they had in mind and what, given the chance, they were sure the Iraqis would cheer for.

Yet when they felt like getting around to it, the bad guys took her out of the game almost casually. She is a star hostage in her country of choice, by which she had meant only the best. George W. Bush, if he were really thinking about it, would understand.

Tom Teepen is a columnist for Cox Newspapers.