By Steven R. Hurst / Associated Press

CAIRO, Egypt -- The military outcome of a U.S. blitz to oust Saddam Hussein may prove overwhelming and relatively quick, but the true measure of Washington's long-term success likely will depend on how it copes with the delicate task of stitching Iraq back together.

As American-led forces take control of Iraqi cities and towns, soldiers could immediately encounter people begging for water, food, medical care and shelter -- all of which will likely be scarce after battles and air raids.

Perhaps more challenging would be the retribution killings expected to sweep the country, settling scores after Saddam's brutal 33-year rule.

"The system of law and order will break down. . . . There will be no police force, no justice system, no civil service and no accountability. In this confusion, people will be inclined to take justice into their own hands," Rend Rahim Francke, the Iraqi-born executive director of the Washington-based Iraqi Foundation, said in congressional testimony.

A retired U.S. Army colonel who is an expert at cleaning up after wars echoed those fears.

"This is a society that has been brutalized. . . . Keeping it on track is going to be very, very difficult," said Scott Feil, who directs a study of the military's role in post-conflict reconstruction for the Association of the United States Army.

Saddam's rule has been responsible for countless political killings -- leaving aside the gassing murders of whole Kurdish communities. Saddam's cohorts in the ruling Baath Party, who have controlled daily life down to the neighborhood level in Iraq's cities, would be the first targets for revenge.

Francke also expects the humanitarian apparatus to break down, and Feil predicted that once the war is over it could cost the United States $100 billion and take as long as seven years to ensure Iraq's security and reconstruction.

"It will be extraordinarily difficult and will dwarf what we did in the Balkans," Feil told The Associated Press, referring to the major U.S. role in peacekeeping missions in the former Yugoslavia and the bombing campaigns to halt aggression by former leader Slobodan Milosevic.

"And we have got to have, as No. 1 priority, control over weapons of mass destruction," he said.

He figured it would cost the United States $16 billion for the first year's postwar security operation and $1 billion for reconstruction.

"Some people think my numbers are low," he said in a telephone interview, adding that he believed the U.S. military would need 75,000 soldiers on the ground in Iraq after a war, for the first year at least.

"This commitment will put a significant strain on the U.S. military's ability to fight elsewhere at the same time," Feil said.

Former two-star Army Gen. William Nash concurred, saying in an interview with AP that it partly explained why the military is "less than fully enthusiastic" about taking on the job.

The U.S. military would in the short run have to take on the role of government and public works department -- keeping the sewers working, the water flowing, the schools open, and the Iraqi military in their barracks except to do public works and police chores.

Protecting the country's oil fields will be a top priority. With Iraq's oil reserves second only to Saudi Arabia's, the Bush administration views revenue from oil exports essential to rebuilding the country once the fighting stops.

Pentagon planners have spent long hours on a strategy for protecting the oil fields, fearing that Saddam might torch many of the 1,500 wells -- as he did to Kuwaiti oil fields in 1991.

Ellen Laipson, president and chief executive officer of the Washington-based Henry L. Stimson Center, cautioned that production may be slow to increase since the Iraqi oil industry is held together with "bailing wire" because of the U.N. sanctions. Even though sanctions are leaky, the country has had difficulty finding spare parts for the oil industry -- let alone importing the latest technology. Further, other oil producing nations will pressure a post-Saddam Iraq to limit production to keep prices high.

"Some people say all you have to do is open the spigots in the oil fields and there's your reconstruction money. But it's not that simple. At best the technology in the oil industry is 20 years old," Feil said.

Nash, who is on the Council on Foreign Relations, said the hardest task would be policing the country.

"You go from being very smart to near blindness," said Nash. He explained the military would operate with superlative intelligence on the battlefield, then find itself with virtually none when dealing with political and criminal elements inside the country.

Nash said the military also was concerned about becoming bogged down in Iraq, leaving fewer resources for the larger U.S.-led war on terrorism. Therefore he expected the military to try to hand the post-Saddam administration over to the United Nations as quickly as possible.

Costly as postwar security and reconstruction might be, the fight itself will be a budget-breaker as well. The Gulf War cost about $61 billion by some estimates, but the United States was mostly reimbursed by allies such as Saudi Arabia and Japan. The coalition going into this fight would be thinner.