Better and worse: a progress report on Iraq

That leaves Iraq's future as it turns towards elections incredibly murky. In the Oxford poll, the member of the governing council who received the most support as the "Iraqi leader that you trust the most,'' was Ibrahim Jaaferi, leader of the Shiite Dawa Party that was illegal under Hussein.

But he received just 7.7 percent support, with other leaders doing far worse. Ahmed Chalabi, the Governing Council member seen as closest to the US, was seen as "most trusted" by 0.2 percent of respondents.

"The US has been far too slow on reconstruction - they've barely put up a single building,'' charges Yassim al-Musawi, director of Dawa's Baghdad branch. "The key thing now is elections. It's our turn now to decide."

CPA officials like Mr. Bearpark acknowledge job creation to be their toughest task, and one they estimate will take the longest time with both foreign and domestic investment on hold because of the security situation.

Across town at Yarmuk hospital, guarded by a contingent of Iraqi guards with Ak-47s, a more nuanced view of the coalition's half-full, half-empty bind is on offer. Amer Hasan Salman, the hospital's deputy director, says his hospital is providing better care to patients today, on average, than it was a year ago.

"You'd be better off coming to us here with a major medical problem now than 12 months ago,'' he says. "There were hospitals for the Baathists that had equipment that we could only dream about, but for average people, the state of healthcare was very poor."

Salaries have also tripled, though still paltry by Western standards, averaging about $150 a month. Dr. Salman also describes the benefits of working in a freer system, without the fear of spying or arbitrary government behavior that he and his colleagues labored under in the old days. "Before, when I did my job, sometimes I was afraid. We knew we weren't free. Now we come to work just focused on being doctors."

But he also describes a system strained by new demands. Healthcare at Yarmuk is now free for the poor, leading to a surge in patients. There are chronic and unpredictable shortages of medicines, dressings, and oxygen. His surgeons have quickly developed an expertise in treating gun-shot and stab wounds, created mostly by the surge of postwar crime.

Emergency-room surgeon Samir Ali says they're treating about six gunshot or stab-wounds a night, up from about three a month before the war. "I've done 100 surgeries in the past 11 months - that's as many as I might have expected to do in my entire career,'' says Dr. Salman.

Since the end of the war, he's had two patients shot dead in the operating room. After one man died on his table, about 20 family members of the man who shot him surrounded the doctor and forced him to sign a death certificate saying the man had died of natural causes. "I have hope for the future and I'm glad Saddam is out,'' he says. "But I think this shows the sorts of new pressures we're working under."

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