Baghdad ? Whoever was responsible at top levels in the Pentagon for postwar planning should be fired.

But then no one would be fired. Three weeks in Iraq makes very clear that no one in the Bush administration made serious postwar plans before the start of the Iraq war.

That lack of foresight is largely responsible for the huge occupation problems the Bush team now faces as Iraqi anger mounts over lack of security, electricity, water, sewage and jobs. Unless the Bush administration invests many more resources into its Iraq venture, soon, it could lose the peace.

Why was the Pentagon so unprepared for the Day After? Because top officials convinced themselves that the aftermath would be easy and cost-free.

Back in November, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz told me he believed that the London-based Iraqi opposition (headed by Ahmad Chalabi) would return to Baghdad and assume the reins of power, just as Gen. Charles DeGaulle and the Free French returned triumphantly to postwar France.

Top White House and Pentagon officials refused to listen to warnings that Chalabi and other Iraqi exiles did not command sufficient support inside Iraq. Nor did they heed warnings that Saddam’s highly centralized government structure would collapse once he was ousted.

“The expectations at the Pentagon were that (government) ministries would emerge unscathed” and take over the running of the country, one senior U.S. official told me when I was in Baghdad. No one foresaw the virtual collapse of many ministries, nor their physical destruction by looters.

“We failed in our duty on the looting,” the official continued, a reference to the fact that the military failed to secure ministries, key infrastructure and suspected weapons sites. “I didn’t think (the administration) would let it get so out of hand.”

The civilian team that was sent by the Pentagon to oversee Iraq was organized only a few weeks before the war, and headed by an ex-general, Jay Garner, who wasn’t up to the job. Garner’s team lacked “intelligence (information) and had zero organization,” an occupation source told me.

Garner planned to be running Iraq for only about three months so his team was unprepared for the much longer occupation that the administration now wants. There was little interchange between people “who knew something about Iraq and the people who were doing Iraq,” one U.S. official told me.

Worst of all, the Pentagon provided no communications system for the civilian occupation team even though U.S. bombs had destroyed Baghdad’s phone network. Only now are they getting a limited cell-phone network.

Why the delay? In part, due to political machinations back in Washington over the phone contract. Guess who got the $45 million no-bid deal? MCI/WorldCom, the company that bilked its shareholders out of $11 billion and has very little experience in building wireless networks.

What does this tell you about how serious the Pentagon is about rebuilding Iraq?

Things have improved somewhat since the White House replaced Garner with former diplomat L. Paul Bremer III, a man capable of making hard decisions. But most of the experienced officials on his team are already leaving, their three-month contracts expiring. Bremer can’t succeed unless the Bush administration comes up with a coherent strategy for postwar Iraq.

No wonder a very senior British official in Baghdad told the London Daily Telegraph last week that the American-led reconstruction effort in Iraq was “in chaos” and suffering from “a complete absence of strategic direction.”

Perhaps the Pentagon is still expecting a De Gaulle, but there is none, so the Bush team better come up with another plan.

First off, the White House needs to clarify its Iraq aims. U.S. officials won’t permit early Iraq elections because they now fear that fundamentalists or authoritarians might win an early ballot. So they plan a lengthy occupation. But so far they refuse to take on the financial burden that is required of an occupying power.

Contrary to Pentagon dreams, big Iraqi oil income is months or years down the line, and won’t pay for reconstruction that is needed now. If Iraq’s jobless aren’t put back to work soon, the number of attacks on U.S. soldiers will mount.

Iraq needs a massive public works project. Yet administration officials say they have no plans to spend more than the $2.5 billion already allotted for occupation this year. Either the occupying power should be ready to pay the freight, or it should get out of Iraq.

The time for self-delusion is past.

Trudy Rubin is a columnist and editorial-board member for the Philadelphia Inquirer. Her e-mail address is trubin@phillynews.com.