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Logos from communication of the IRI in Baghdad.

An earnest young man from Washington is giving a lecture on what a political party is. "I'll give you some technical ways to think of political parties a political party exists to channel political power."

It does seem a little unusual to have to define political power for people who lived under the Ba'ath party, a party which truly knew how to channel political power. He carries on, "Because once you have political power than you can create, you can do what you want with government, and you can create peace and prosperity."

The Bush administration's focus may be on the June 30th sovereignty handover, but for Iraqi leaders like the Governing Council's Muwaffiq al-Rubaei, the priority is preparing the country for free elections. "Number one is the election. We need to start setting up the election law now. Otherwise we will miss the deadline of the 31st of January next year."

Another priority: the United Nations has to return to Iraq. "We need the U.N. like yesterday."

Finally, a new bureaucracy needs to be put in place before June 30th. "Who's going to sign the checks?" he asks. "Who's going to do Jerry Bremer's job?"

Since al-Rubaei spoke those words in March, none of those concerns has been addressed. With planning so far behind, the handover date of June 30th seems rushed. The rushed timetable is due in part to a critical dynamic in America's occupation of Iraq, the Bush administration's re-election timetable, according to IGC member Mahmoud Othman. Despite the hurried timetable, Othman is happy that Iraqis will finally get a chance to run their own affairs, but he adds the task will be more difficult now.

It is encouraging to talk with Muwaffiq al-Rubaei and Mahmoud Othman. Both are intelligent, diligent professional men. al-Rubaei is an eminent neurologist who spent more than three decades in exile from Iraq. Othman is a dentist by training and one of the original Kurdish Freedom Fighters. He stayed in Iraq throughout the long years of Saddam and earned respect as an honest independent in the factional world of Kurdish politics. Both seem perfectly capable of being leaders in a new Iraq, if their countrymen are willing to forgive their participation in the Governing Council, which has been tarnished badly in Iraqi eyes by the fact that it was appointed by the CPA.

Al-Rubaei is considering forming a political party. Othman isn't so sure.

Talking to members of Iraq's Governing Council and other local leaders, you can glimpse the possibility of a nation with a multi-party democracy. But traveling through Iraq you simply don't get the impression that this will happen any time soon. Democracy and the rule of law is a favorite phrase of American politicians, but the rule of law is nowhere near established in Iraq. If anything, the security situation is actually worse than it was after the collapse of Saddam Hussein's regime.

A little over a year ago, in Mosul, on the day that regime collapsed, the citizens looted their city. At that time, I was taken to Diwassa Square, a big open space in the heart of the city, by my translator Ahmad Shawkat. Ahmad had fled Mosul seven years previously after being released from one of Saddam's dungeons. We watched a fierce gun battle between looters cleaning out the National Bank and Kurdish Peshmerga fighters who were acting as self-appointed law enforcement officers.

After the regime collapsed, Ahmad set up a weekly political journal. In October, Ahmad Shawkat was murdered by his political enemies.

On the last day of my trip to Iraq, I went with his daughter Roaa, who is also a journalist to Mosul's Diwassa Square. The National Bank is still being repaired from the damage done by the looters. Across the street is Mosul's city hall. The previous day it had been attacked with rocket propelled grenades.

We stood on the very spot where I had stood with her father. I wanted to know what she thought of the situation in Iraq today. We had hardly got started before a crowd grew around the microphone.

Roaa tried to shoo them away. It was to no avail. The men wanted to tell me the story of the attack. I asked one of them, "If you knew who did this, would you tell the police?" He answered no, because someone would kill him if he did.

That fear permeates Iraqi society. In Mosul in particular, the northernmost point of the Sunni Triangle, few people now will help the Coalition arrest insurgents for fear that someone will come and kill them.

We went inside the city hall compound to find out more about the previous day's attack, and when we came out we heard the unmistakable whoosh of a rocket propelled grenade go overhead, but there was no explosion. We followed the crowds to look for it. But no one knew where it had landed.

The three of us walked back toward Diwassa Square. It felt like it did a year ago. There was an atmosphere of something violent impending like an electrical charge in the atmosphere just before a springtime thunderstorm: cop cars racing by, sirens blaring, American helicopters darting overhead, and a general sullenness in the crowd and among the police trying to control traffic in Diwassa Square.

Suddenly a scuffle breaks out between a young man in loose fitting clothes and a couple of cops. The youth reaches into his trouser pocket and out comes a hand grenade. We fall to the ground as the young man flings the grenade at the feet of the police and tries to run away. The police empty their guns into him.

We stay flat on the ground as the cop spray fire up at rooftops and at anything moving in the streets.

When the shooting was over we darted into a little teashop as two policemen carried a severely wounded comrade past us.

The gunfire continued sporadically. Then like water after a spigot opens, normalcy flowed through the streets. It was as if nothing happened.

We drove to a hotel near the university, and Roaa filed a few quick paragraphs on the incident to one of the papers she worked for. Finally, I got around to asking her the question I tried to ask her in Diwassa: Given all that has happened in the last year, and the great loss she suffered, did she think the overthrow of Saddam was worth it?

"Of course," she answered.

By all measures, Iraqis still think removing Saddam was a good thing. As Sovereignty Day approaches, it is probably the only thing they see eye to eye on with their American occupiers.

It looks as if America will hand sovereignty to the Iraqis in dire circumstances. But in Iraqi eyes, the circumstances don't matter. The hope and sacrifice of the last year have been replaced by fear and anger. They just want America to go.