IT IS a year since those first bombs fell. A year which began in blood and the relentless fury of a war called Operation Iraqi Freedom.

And now we are standing once more in the 3rd floor ward of Al Sadr General Hospital where 12-year-old Ali Ismaeel Abbas, horrifically burned, both arms blown off by an American missile, had asked me to buy him a new pair of hands.

There is another patient now in Ali's bed. He shivers constantly. His right leg is amputated below the knee. His body, like Ali's, is covered in burns, protected by the same green metal cage.

Amir Abdul Hakim is a victim of the terrorist bombing which killed more than 170 people in the holy city of Karbala, south of the capital. It was March 2, Ashoura, the holiest day of the Shia Muslims' calendar, and the bloodiest since the Americans took over Iraq.

Amir, a housepainter, was a pilgrim. He had left his wife Soraya and his two young children at home in Baghdad to take part in the first public procession allowed to Shias in 25 years.

Then it was part of the new freedom. Now it is the reality.

His brother Fadil sits in the corridor: "We had hoped for a new life when the Americans and British came. A year has past and the suffering goes on. Where is freedom? Where is peace?"

Amir will spend another month in that bed before his convalescence begins. It will be grim for him - but what of Iraq's own future? What of a country in which 30 people died in a hotel bomb blast only three days ago?

The hospital's chief surgeon Mowafak Gabrielle repeats that word "convalescence" and applies it to his homeland.

"After Saddam was defeated I thought it might take a year. Then I thought five years. Now? Maybe 10 years. The West wants us to have democracy but this nation is like a baby. In order to walk it must be taught slowly, gently. It will take a long time."

A year ago, his hospital was the only one able to treat patients throughout the war. Local armed Shias protected the place - then called Saddam General - from looters who ransacked the city.

Now the hospital has a fully-stocked pharmacy. Walls are freshly painted, but security is as tight as before. Armed guards search every visitor, their suspicion as deep as that which now stalks the streets. It is everywhere.

But then, counterpoint to the depression, a baby cries for the first time. His mother smiles that first exhausted smile of parenthood. And Jassin Mohammed Ali arrives into the world.

Half-an-hour later Halima Salman talks of the hopes for her son and the Iraq in which he will grow up.

"Life must get better in the end," the 26-year-old woman says. "Saddam is gone. The hand he pressed down on us has been cut off. But I pray to God that my boy's future will be Iraq's future - successful, happy and, most of all, secure."

The midwife Najat Khudair cradles the baby, showing him off to the nurses. I remember her a year ago, working furiously in those last days before the bombs dropped, when many expectant mothers demanded caesarians rather than risk delivering their babies in the midst of war.

"Life is more normal now," she says. "Thirty babies delivered each day - 10,000 a year. We still need equipment, but we are back to being a baby factory again." She looks down at Jassan.

"My job's done. I wish him good luck when he leaves here. He will need it."

IT IS no understatement in a city wretched with fear. The bomb. The bullet. More deaths daily. Dead police. Dead foreigners. No one is exempt.

Under the old regime they feared the secret police and the informers but they were still ready with greetings and handshakes. Now foreigners present a risk. Translators and drivers - "collaborators" - are special targets, and at least 40 have been killed.

Our return begins with a tortuous 12-hour drive from Amman in Jordan; we leave at 2am to make the border by dawn where the usual corruption takes over. Passport formalities are straightforward enough, but $10 apiece for the guards is expected "with appreciation." No change, then, from Saddam's day.

At the first petrol station we join two other 4-WDs, travelling by armed convoy is the only way to go. Flat out, 110mph past the bombed road bridge which has been repaired - even though the owner of the building company was murdered six weeks ago.

Eventually we enter the Sunni Triangle, 60 miles west of Baghdad and the main area for carjackers. We are twice flagged  down by armed police, comforting perhaps to know they are there - until you remember that eight people have been shot dead at three false police checkpoints this month.

Baghdad looms, now choked by traffic since import restrictions on cars have been lifted. Drivers tack through the snarl as vehicles are forced into a three-mile jam by sunglassed US troops in their Humvees.

It takes two hours instead of the customary 20 minutes to reach the Palestine Hotel where room 918, the pit which had served as my base during those shocking, awful weeks is slightly cleaner, but no more welcoming.

And that view again across the River Tigris, conjuring memories of dogs baying before the first of those 9,000 bombs began to fall at 5.35am exactly a year ago. Six floors above me is Room 1501 where two journalists were killed by an American tank shell. More senseless deaths.

In the coffee bar, young girls have replaced the waiters but they still charge, furtively, $1 a cup for service. And there, across the road, is Firduz Square where Saddam's statue fell to cheers and laughter and anger at his memory.

The fountain is bone dry and filled with litter, but above the plinth is a copper sculpture of a man, woman and child, embracing beneath a crescent moon. It is supposed to symbolise unity, a monument hastily assembled by 15 teenagers. It is no great work of art, but does at least reflect the wider reality.

And all around, atop their sandbagged bunkers, GIs man machineguns. They do not smile or wave; more than 660 of them have now gone home in body bags. Hearts and minds blown apart.

We travel across town, where Zubeida is standing by her front door, her head shrouded by a black veil. She is still in mourning.

Salah, her 58-year-old husband, was my driver and a friend to all the British journalists. He died at 8.30am on April 7. It took his widow five days to find his body.

It was still in his car which had 13 bullet holes in the windscreen and was being used by the Americans as a roadblock. "We though that he had been caught in a crossfire, but since then we found witnesses," Zubeida says.

THEY had seen him heading to the underpass which leads to our hotel. "Just before the underpass he saw cars swerving and did the same. The American tanks and Humvees stationed there opened fire.

There was a family of 13 people in a coach. They all died... "All the bodies - Salah's, the family's - were just left in the vehicles which the Americans bulldozed into that road block."

Later, in the car with her dead husband, she found a shirt belonging to Sunday Mirror journalist Steve Martin. Salah had been bringing it to him after insisting on washing and ironing it. Salah's children, Nowar, 25, Abir 22, Ali, 17, and 12-year-old Hassouni sit with their mother in the spotless front room.

Everything in the house is impeccable, like Salah himself. He had been Chief Steward of Iraqi Airways before sanctions. He wanted to be a pilot - but you had to be a member of the Baathist Party and he could never bring himself to join Saddam's henchmen.

His sister Fawzia is a doctor in Britain. "Life is difficult but what can we do?" Zubeida asks.

"All I can say is that not one official came here to ask about us or explain Salah's death.

"We survive on my eldest daughter's $200 monthly wages from the Industry Ministry, but we cannot go out at night. Last week thieves tried to break in. They knew we do not have a man in the house, but thank God we were able to phone neighbours to chase them away.

"We thought the Americans would bring safety, but it is more dangerous now. Under Saddam, at least thestreets were safe and it was the criminals, not us, who lived in fear.

"Now we have chaos which will last who knows how long? 20, 30 years... when my children are old?"

They talk of the top jobs and how so many of the same people, Saddam appointees, still hold them. Zubeida lowers her head. "Now I think the Americans came to kill my Salah, not Saddam. The monster is still alive, but my husband and more than 10,000 other innocent people are dead."

There is a small shrine on the sideboard; a photograph of Salah, his watch - its face smashed - and his neatly folded, still sparkling spectacles.

An hour earlier, a bomb had exploded at a primary school two blocks from the house. One child was badly injured, but no one knows who was responsible. Ask why anyone would attack six to 11- year-olds and the people shrug. Why not, when they attack everyone else?

This is a land of nightmares, a nation of bad dreams... Now our translator gets a phone call. The 12-year-old son of his friend has been kidnapped as he arrived at his schoolgates two hours ago.

His father is a rich man and is waiting for a ransom demand. It is becoming common - the kidnappers have not killed a child yet, but they beat them so that the parents can hear the cries on the phone.

The demands begin impossibly high and may reduce to around $20,000 but money is always eventually paid. Victims are usually boys - girls are worth less. Those who can, send their children to Jordan, beyond the reach of the kidnappers.

English teacher Allia Khalef is sitting at her computer preparingfor tomorrow's lecture. Her father Najem, 70, and mother Fawzia, 64, sit in the adjoining room of the tiny flat. Their younger daughter Nadia died on April 4.

She had just received her PhD in psychology and was about to start teaching. An Iraqi anti-aircraft shell smashed through the bedroom, ricocheted off the side wall and into her chest. I had seen her an hour later, lying in the mortuary, her heart torn open.

She was buried within the hour. It was, I wrote, the saddest story I had written in my 25 years at this newspaper. Her father was a lorry driver who weeps now at Nadia's memory. He points to Allia. "We depend on her $110 a month wages. The rent is $30 because we have lived here so long. The rest goes on food.

"But I am so happy that Saddam has gone. It was my dream. I thought he would remain forever and that, in 100 years, his grandchild would be ruling Iraq.

"Now there are people wanting the Americans to go. They say Bush only wants oil. Let him have it! All my life I never had a share of this country, very few ever tasted its wealth. Give us ordinary people just one per cent of it and we would be richer... " But I hope the Americans stay for security's sake".

He worries for the sectarianism festering between Sunnis, Shiites and Christians. Such rivalry would create a greater hell, he says. Allia nods. She notices how her students now seem to be splitting into religious groups.

Three days ago a hoax bomb was left in the university with a note: "Let this be a warning. We can strike anywhere. Signed: Foreign Arabs."

Across town in the marketplace of Al Shahab, furniture-maker Younis Salman mimes taking a cigarette lighter from his trouser pocket. "I would never try to reach for my lighter if the Americans are around," he says. "They are all trigger-happy."

He recalls the day two US missiles landed here killing 27 people. Together, we remember a man's dismembered hand lying in a doorway, the blood-orange sandstorm, the freezing rain, the woman screaming in a pool of her husband's blood. "And for what?" he asks.

"People with government jobs are doing well. Their salaries have increased at least ten times. Mine, making armchairs, has gone downfive-fold. I make about $1.50 a week. How can I go on for long?

"Some Iraqis say that the only winners from the war were the ones who died. Of course, it's not true, but you can understand why it is said."

And the Americans? They don't listen. They think they know best. Their word is final. They are the conquerors."

SIMILAR sentiments come from Amina Al Kabani.Last year I had phoned her sister Esraa in Edinburgh to tell her the family were safe despite a huge bomb shattering the telephone exchange and house next door.

Amina still has trouble with her back after being hurled to the floor by the blast. The main walls of her home are a jigsaw of cracks. She later wrote to the US Occupying Army seeking compensation.

The reply, from Capt. R Matthew Newell, says: "The evidence does not support your claim that the loss was caused by negligence or wrongful act of a US military member or by non- combatant activities of the US Army.

"The damage was the result of Combat Operations and therefore not compensatible. Accordingly this claim is denied."

Her husband, a car mechanic, has lost hisjob because people are buying newer cars and there is no call for maintaining the old jalopies which he once fixed.

Amina, who had worked at the Ministry of Health is also unemployed. The place is now populated by Shias, she says. "They said if I joined the Shia party, I could have my old job back. But I am Sunni. Do they really want me to betray myself?"

It is a constant complaint. Members of the new Governing Council ensuring jobs for their favoured boys and girls. Shias in Health, Kurds in the Oil Ministry. Tribal allegiances. The early green shoots of corruption.

And then the BBC World Service announces the results of a new poll claiming 80 per cent of Iraqis say things are better now than in Saddam's time and that nearly as many think things will continue to improve.

If that poll is correct, and the view of people in the street is equally correct, you must conclude that many Iraqis are living in some parallel universe.

A radio pipes up. It is Freedom Radio, the American forces media gift to Iraq which plays middle-of- the-road pop, interspersing it with the usual propaganda pulp.

"Freedom Radio," it brags to Iraq, one of the oldest cultures on Earth. "The station with the most heavily armed staff on the air."

And as I listen to this pap, I think of the words of another American, Samuel P Huntington: "The West won the world, not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion, but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence.

"Westerners often forget this fact, non-Westerners never do."

Copyright 2004 mirror.co.uk

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