"After all that's been done there, after all the time people have spent away from their families and for all the soldiers who aren't coming home," said Pelkey, the first sergeant of the Delaware Army National Guard's 160th Engineer Company, "I really hope the Iraqis can have a country of their own."

Today marks the third anniversary of the start of the war in Iraq, and the situation there is anything but clear. While some experts believe that Iraq is on the verge of civil war, the Bush administration says the country, while troubled, is moving steadily toward democracy.

Anti-war critics say too many U.S. soldiers and Iraqi citizens have died in the war and that almost nothing good has been accomplished. They say the United States, stuck in an unwinnable war, has become an international pariah.

Many soldiers who have served there disagree. The good that's been done there, they say, hasn't been told. They argue that the Iraqis are glad the United States is there.

"The fundamental question has always been, 'Are we more secure as a result of having done this?' I would argue that we are not," said Charles Pena, a senior fellow at George Washington University's Homeland Security Policy Institute and author of "Winning the Un-War: A New Strategy for the War on Terrorism."

There seems to be a general feeling across the United States that American troops should leave Iraq sooner rather than later. President Bush acknowledged that Monday, saying he wants Iraqi troops to shoulder most of the burden for the country's defense by year's end.

"We're coming to the time when the Iraqis will literally have to do a gut check and decide if they really want their own country," said Carper, who visited Iraq and neighboring countries and recently met with Bush to discuss his findings. "If they can put together a balanced coalition government, that will stabilize the country and enable us to pull out."

"It is essential that all of Iraq's ethnic and religious groups participate as fair and equal partners -- regardless of whether they are Shiites, Sunnis or Kurds," he said.

A significant number in the U.S. think the Iraqis will do that if our troops leave. They also believe that other predominantly Muslim nations will help rebuild when American soldiers pull out.

"Once we withdraw we will find many nations willing to cooperate with the United Nations and the Arab League to put together a peace force to guarantee security in Iraq and assist in the reconstruction of the country," said Sally Milbury-Steen, executive director of Pacem in Terris, a Wilmington-based peace organization.

"The other countries in the region need a stable Iraq and slowly, but surely, they have come to the realization that they have a dog in this fight. They need to help rebuild Iraq. Unfortunately," he said, "in the past they have talked a good game but haven't always delivered."

Many troops who have served in Iraq bristle at the suggestion that they haven't had a positive impact. The mistreatment of prisoners at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison grabbed headlines, they said, but it was an isolated incident.

Pelkey, for example, spent a tour in Iraq with the Guard's 249th Engineer Detachment rebuilding the country, not just from the ravages of war but also from neglect by Saddam Hussein's government.

"We worked on irrigation projects, fixed pumps so the Iraqis could have clean water in their villages, and did a lot of what's called 'engineer assessments' where we gathered information so other units could fix roads and make other infrastructure repairs," he said.

"I'm glad I served my country. I'm very proud of that," said Pelkey, who lives in Bellefonte. "I met a lot of good people and I hope we were able to help in a small way."

"The thing that I really want people to know, the thing that they don't get to see in the press, is how many good things we're doing for the country and the way the people there appreciate our presence," he said.

The Iraqis he saw and worked with "are grateful we are helping them and very optimistic about the future of their country. Before we got there they had nothing, no power, no water. Now they do."

"Therefore, it is also extremely important that we intensify our efforts to restore electricity, rebuild schools, and assemble a modern and sustainable economy for the benefit of all Iraq's citizens," he said.

The third anniversary of the war comes on the heels of a tumultuous week that began when Bush, for the first time, set a troop withdrawal timetable.

That was followed by the announcement that a bipartisan group including former Secretary of State James Baker will study U.S. strategies in Iraq at the request of Congress.

The newly elected Iraqi parliament sat in its first session Thursday, which lasted only 30 minutes and was marred by arguments over, among other issues, whether delegates had sworn the proper oath to serve. The meeting was adjourned indefinitely because delegates were unable to decide on who would serve as speaker.

Later Thursday U.S. and Iraqi troops opened a major offensive aimed at breaking the back of the insurgency that has plagued Iraq since American troops first stormed into Baghdad. That prompted one angry New York congressman to liken the administration's strategy to an arcade game.

"The ... strategy to eliminate insurgents is like a large-scale game of 'whack-a-mole,' forgetting that in 'whack-a-mole' when you hit one target, another pops up elsewhere," said Rep. Steve Israel, D-N.Y.

He said previous administration statements promising easy victories proved incorrect and he fears the news of the new offensive will not ring true either.

"No one is saying take everybody out tomorrow morning," Milbury-Steen said. "A withdrawal is going to have to take place over time, but it must start immediately."

Carper also said this is the wrong time to yank American troops from Iraq. A Navy airman who served in Vietnam, Carper likened the task facing the Iraqis to changing an aircraft engine in flight.

"In the past few months they've held elections, counted the votes and seated the new parliament. Now they have to elect the leadership within the parliament, begin to operate it, and put together a coalition government," he said.

"Once they put together a government that includes ministers for oil, education, health and all the other departments they have to hire people to work in them," he said.

"They also need to rewrite their constitution," he said. "Any one of those things is tough enough, but we're asking them to do it in the middle of an insurgency. It's going to take time for them to do all this."

"We went into Iraq and some people might think we had the wrong reasons. Nonetheless, we took a very dangerous man and a very evil man out of power. We can't just pack up and leave right now. We've got to fix things and help them. They need our help."

"If we had known that Saddam Hussein didn't have any nuclear weapons I seriously doubt that we would have gone to war," said Donna Freeland, 43, a housekeeper and home design specialist from Claymont.

"The war has been a total waste of lives. We were misinformed and we didn't investigate enough. We just jumped into the war," she said. "It sickens me that all these people are being killed because of a lie."

She said American troops should be focusing their efforts on capturing Osama bin Laden, who masterminded the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.

"We may have tipped the war on terrorism in the wrong direction because of Iraq, making it a battleground when it was not a battleground," he said.

"I think we have taken our eye off the ball and that Iraq has become more than just a dangerous distraction that is sapping resources, lives and the American political will," he said.

"Iraq," he added, "has become an incubator for terrorists. It's a place where people can train how to be terrorists in urban environments under very hostile conditions. This is a perfect training ground for them, regardless of whether they are affiliated with al-Qaida or not."

Some, like Ed Mulready, of Newark, see the administration's invasion of Iraq as evidence that America is no longer truly a democratic republic.

"I'm 60 now, and when I was growing up we were told we are a democracy, but I'm increasingly afraid that we're becoming an empire," said Mulready, a longtime anti-war activist. "Empires have utter contempt for people, they lie to them, they use them, and they throw them away when they're done with them. I think what we're seeing now is just that."

But Kathy Kosior of Dover, whose husband, Rich, spent a year commanding a Delaware Army National Guard company in Southwest Asia, doesn't agree.

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