IT'S BEEN ALMOST two years since the invasion of Iraq and a year and seven months since President George W. Bush announced that "major combat operations in Iraq have ended." In less than a week, Iraq is scheduled to hold elections for a new civilian government. Let's look at the score:

At press time, 1,383 U.S. soldiers were dead and 10,372 wounded. Post-traumatic stress disorder is rampant among returning troops, and the military and civilian health care systems are unequipped to handle it.

More than 15,000 Iraqi civilians are dead, and the body count keeps rising.

Car bombs and mortar attacks are a daily event in Baghdad, and in much of the rest of the country security is so poor that it's not safe for candidates to campaign or voters to go to the polls.

In fact, as Christian Parenti and Dahr Jamail report on pages 15 and 18, respectively, in most of Iraq, there's nobody in charge at all – the so-called government is too weak to function, the police force is decimated by desertions, the basic infrastructure (like water and sewer and electrical service) is utterly in tatters.

Meanwhile, Iraqis keep dying, victims of insurgent bombings and U.S. troops, whose presence is helping fundamentalists recruit new terrorists and undermining any hope that Americans can play a productive role in rebuilding Iraq.

The entire idea of holding meaningful elections under these conditions is a farce.

We've been hesitant to call for an immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces from a country in chaos, but it's becoming increasingly clear: the United States is doing no good in Iraq and is only making a horrible situation worse. It's time to talk seriously about ending the occupation before the place implodes into civil war on the United States' watch.