A self-rule test at Iraq ministry

At the March handover, CPA and ministry officials said they had delivered 30,000 tons of drugs and medical supplies, 30 million doses of children's vaccines, and achieved "at least prewar" levels at 240 hospitals and 1,200 primary health centers. Officials also say they are on track with plans to halve high infant mortality rates by 2005.

But cash alone can't overcome another problem: rampant insecurity. "Huge amounts" of pharmacy goods loaded onto trucks at Baghdad warehouses several weeks ago never made it to hospitals, says the health ministry's Amily. Unconfirmed estimates stretch as high as 50 percent of the stockpile, though most say the figure is far less.

"We are taking precautions, but with all that, some things happen," says Amily. "We can't forget that this security situation isn't good enough, not just for this ministry but for all the country."

"There are reforms and safeguards being put in place, to make sure that doesn't happen anymore," says Tarantino.

More challenging has been a surge in the past month in kidnappings of doctors and surgeons for ransom that is fueling fear about the future, and pressuring some simply to leave Iraq.

"All of us share the same experience of hating to be kidnapped," says one doctor who asked not to be named, speaking in his Baghdad clinic. Several colleagues have been kidnapped, terrorized, and squeezed for upward of $20,000. All paid; most have left - an option this doctor never considered till now. "We are very soft targets," he says. "A patient enters your exam room, and while you examine them, their partner puts a gun to your head."

Attackers have become increasingly sophisticated. One neurosurgeon - the doctor's close friend - was driving with three other professionals when a black BMW blocked their way. Gunmen asked by name for the surgeon, who was driven off. Four days of negotiations were full of threats before he was released.

"There is no remedy," says the doctor. "The police are weak; the Americans are not stopping it - they only protect themselves."

Three weeks ago, the young son of a surgeon was kidnapped from the car that had picked him up from school. The father was shocked when the head of the gang met him openly to count ransom money. Satisfied, the man promised he and his sons would not be kidnapped again.

"The obvious thing is money," says the anonymous doctor, who adds that his surgeon friend took his terrified son abroad.

"In the past 40 years, I have never been this concerned," he says. "Probably things will improve, but in the next year they will go from bad to worse. People think: If the Americans are here, and things are so weak, what will happen when they leave?"

That is a question that will dog Iraqis until July 1. "It's true there is occupation, but ... we feel that better is coming," says Hamid al-Amiri, deputy director at Al Kadhimiya hospital. "It's the term 'occupation' we want to disappear. But we prefer occupation to Saddam Hussein."

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