With regard to Iraq, this is what really matters to the Bush White House:

* Focusing on the preferred propaganda line rather than the reality (even if the people in-country don't always deliver the message correcetly):

Mr. Bremer and Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, the top American commander in Iraq, contended that the threats and attacks against occupying forces were being carried out by "elements of Saddam Hussein's forces," as Mr. Bremer put it, and by foreign fighters who have slipped into the country. "There is a flow of foreign fighters, but I don't want to overstate it," he said.

The White House has argued that foreign terrorists are active in Iraq, and is trying to demonstrate that, officials said, to support the notion that the American forces are engaged in the global campaign against terrorism.

But Mr. Bremer said, "It's not a large number." He said fighters from Egypt, Yemen, Syria and Sudan had been captured or killed.

* Using the country as a Petri dish for experiments inspired by too much reading of Ayn Rand:

The flat tax, long a dream of economic conservatives, is finally getting its day -- not in the United States, but in Iraq.

..."The highest individual and corporate income tax rates for 2004 and subsequent years shall not exceed 15 percent," Bremer wrote in Coalition Provisional Authority Order Number 37, "Tax Strategy for 2003," issued last month.

...Iraq's new finance minister, Kamil Mubdir Gailani, is considered a follower of Ahmed Chalabi, the Western-oriented banker who has closely adhered to the Bush administration's economic policies, according to one expert on the Iraqi economy. Gailani presented the new Iraq finance program, including the flat tax, at a recent international meeting.

"A piece of social engineering is being done on Iraq, but it has almost no support from other members of the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council," said a Middle East expert who heard Gailani's presentation....

Lovely.