KERRY O'BRIEN: In Iraq itself, what's left of the search for weapons of mass destruction by coalition forces, is now very much a secondary exercise.
The main preoccupation of allied forces, in trying to restore a semblance of law and order, is the suicide bombers who just keep coming, as they did again overnight.
This time, two suicide bombers walked into the offices of the main Kurdish political parties in the northern town of Arbil, killing more than 60 people including senior politicians, and injuring at least 200.
And while the US administration says things are getting better through reconstruction, Iraqis are still dealing daily with death and decay.
Baghdad's central children's teaching hospital is a classic case in point, as the ABC's Middle East correspondent, Jane Hutcheon, reports.
JANE HUTCHEON: Fragile Amna is just 20 days old.
She was born nearly three months premature.
Home is a 10-year-old incubator.
Nearby, used needles litter the filthy corridors.
But of more concern to Amna's mother is the rotting garbage and an open cesspool two stories below.
"I'm afraid the smell and diseases coming from that pool will make her even more sick", says Amna's mother.
"I tried to go to another hospital but they were all full."
This is the top teaching hospital for pediatric medicine.
In the throes of Iraq's painful reconstruction, the hospital languishes.
When the former regime wanted the world to see suffering Iraqi children, this is where the television cameras were pointed.
During Saddam's time, the bodies of children who died in this hospital were withheld from their families for the purpose of holding a regular mass funeral.
These were televised to the Iraqi people to show the wickedness of the West's sanctions.
Now, thankfully, those practices don't happen any more, but the suffering of the children continues.
They've come from all over the country.
Under Saddam, medical facilities were virtually non-existent outside the capital.
Desperate families are too poor to pay for treatment.
Only three out of six wards are operating because there are not enough staff or functioning equipment.
Adnan Jassim comes from the city of Najaf two hours south of Baghdad by bus.
He spends five days a week here, sleeping on the cold floors at night so that his 5-year-old son can get treatment for leukaemia.
Adnan's son Mohammed shares his bed with another child, chemotherapy delivered through tangled tubes.
Vital elements of the cocktail are absent.
They haven't been available in Iraq for years.
Doctors say his condition is acute, but they're doing everything for him.
His father disagrees.
"Yes, they have the best doctors in Iraq", he says, "but there are only four specialists, and they're gone by midday".
"Then there's a lack of basic medicine so we have to buy it outside.
"There's no clean drinking water and some children are sleeping on the floors."
In another questionable practise, the hospital distributes Mohammed's weekly medication allowance at the start of each week and, to ensure supply, it's given directly to the family.
During the war, the hospital miraculously escaped bombs and looting but, 10 months on, while much of the country is being cleaned up and being rebuilt, this facility is awash with decay.
Today, the biggest threat to children here is the risk of cross-infection due to unsanitary conditions and overcrowding.
At times, up to three or four patients share one bed.
So who is to blame?
ALI EGAB, DOCTOR: The manager of the hospital is responsible for the situation.
We don't have the proper man to manage the hospital and I think we have to change this manager.
JANE HUTCHEON: Is that what the other doctors say too?
ALI EGAB: Yeah.
JANE HUTCHEON: There's a problem with the management?
ALI EGAB: There's a problem with the management.
Because in the previous, in the former regime, there were only, there were good managers to manage the hospitals.
But now they are less efficient.
JANE HUTCHEON: The hospital's deputy manager admits cross-infection rates are high because not a single child is turned away.
DR NAWFUL DAWOOD, HOSPITAL DEPUTY MANAGER: It is not designed for such capacity, it's not designed for such numbers, it's only designed as a hospital for receiving referral cases.
JANE HUTCHEON: You say money has been given, for example, to repair pipes and elevators.
DR NAWFUL DAWOOD: Yes.
JANE HUTCHEON: But there's only one lift or elevator working and I understand that none of the toilets in the hospital work.
So where does the money go?
DR NAWFUL DAWOOD: No, no.
There's many things happening to the hospital.
I give you an example, but if ... I'll take it to you.
If you saw the hospital after war and you saw it now, you can have a good imagination, there are a lot of things done for this hospital.
JANE HUTCHEON: Iraq's Ministry of Health says it's begun a new strategy to overhaul the country's decrepit health sector with $1.2 billion to be spend on state-of-the-art-hospitals, medicine, new ambulances, equipment and training.
DR ABDUL ALTALIBI, IRAQI HEALTH MINISTRY: It's our duty to change the situation which we inherited from the old regime.
Some of these hospitals has been built in 1950 without modernisation, without changing and some of them, they are not in a good state to be used as a hospital.
JANE HUTCHEON: Mohammed's father prays for his son to get treatment outside Iraq, but the departure of international agencies due to the bombs and shootings has halted humanitarian evacuations.
"The Americans said they would build hospitals, treat children, bring freedom and democracy", he says.
"But now all you find is killing, illness and death."
DR ABDUL ALTALIBI: The gap is big.
We are doing our best and probably you will see a couple of people dying, but hopefully that everything will change as soon as possible.
Adnan Jassim lingers helplessly in the corridors of Saddam's former showpiece.
Mohammed, innocently caught in the gap between past and future, may not live long enough to see the promise of a new Iraq.
The main preoccupation of allied forces, in trying to restore a semblance of law and order, is the suicide bombers who just keep coming, as they did again overnight.
This time, two suicide bombers walked into the offices of the main Kurdish political parties in the northern town of Arbil, killing more than 60 people including senior politicians, and injuring at least 200.
And while the US administration says things are getting better through reconstruction, Iraqis are still dealing daily with death and decay.
Baghdad's central children's teaching hospital is a classic case in point, as the ABC's Middle East correspondent, Jane Hutcheon, reports.
JANE HUTCHEON: Fragile Amna is just 20 days old.
She was born nearly three months premature.
Home is a 10-year-old incubator.
Nearby, used needles litter the filthy corridors.
But of more concern to Amna's mother is the rotting garbage and an open cesspool two stories below.
"I'm afraid the smell and diseases coming from that pool will make her even more sick", says Amna's mother.
"I tried to go to another hospital but they were all full."
This is the top teaching hospital for pediatric medicine.
In the throes of Iraq's painful reconstruction, the hospital languishes.
When the former regime wanted the world to see suffering Iraqi children, this is where the television cameras were pointed.
During Saddam's time, the bodies of children who died in this hospital were withheld from their families for the purpose of holding a regular mass funeral.
These were televised to the Iraqi people to show the wickedness of the West's sanctions.
Now, thankfully, those practices don't happen any more, but the suffering of the children continues.
They've come from all over the country.
Under Saddam, medical facilities were virtually non-existent outside the capital.
Desperate families are too poor to pay for treatment.
Only three out of six wards are operating because there are not enough staff or functioning equipment.
Adnan Jassim comes from the city of Najaf two hours south of Baghdad by bus.
He spends five days a week here, sleeping on the cold floors at night so that his 5-year-old son can get treatment for leukaemia.
Adnan's son Mohammed shares his bed with another child, chemotherapy delivered through tangled tubes.
Vital elements of the cocktail are absent.
They haven't been available in Iraq for years.
Doctors say his condition is acute, but they're doing everything for him.
His father disagrees.
"Yes, they have the best doctors in Iraq", he says, "but there are only four specialists, and they're gone by midday".
"Then there's a lack of basic medicine so we have to buy it outside.
"There's no clean drinking water and some children are sleeping on the floors."
In another questionable practise, the hospital distributes Mohammed's weekly medication allowance at the start of each week and, to ensure supply, it's given directly to the family.
During the war, the hospital miraculously escaped bombs and looting but, 10 months on, while much of the country is being cleaned up and being rebuilt, this facility is awash with decay.
Today, the biggest threat to children here is the risk of cross-infection due to unsanitary conditions and overcrowding.
At times, up to three or four patients share one bed.
So who is to blame?
ALI EGAB, DOCTOR: The manager of the hospital is responsible for the situation.
We don't have the proper man to manage the hospital and I think we have to change this manager.
JANE HUTCHEON: Is that what the other doctors say too?
ALI EGAB: Yeah.
JANE HUTCHEON: There's a problem with the management?
ALI EGAB: There's a problem with the management.
Because in the previous, in the former regime, there were only, there were good managers to manage the hospitals.
But now they are less efficient.
JANE HUTCHEON: The hospital's deputy manager admits cross-infection rates are high because not a single child is turned away.
DR NAWFUL DAWOOD, HOSPITAL DEPUTY MANAGER: It is not designed for such capacity, it's not designed for such numbers, it's only designed as a hospital for receiving referral cases.
JANE HUTCHEON: You say money has been given, for example, to repair pipes and elevators.
DR NAWFUL DAWOOD: Yes.
JANE HUTCHEON: But there's only one lift or elevator working and I understand that none of the toilets in the hospital work.
So where does the money go?
DR NAWFUL DAWOOD: No, no.
There's many things happening to the hospital.
I give you an example, but if ... I'll take it to you.
If you saw the hospital after war and you saw it now, you can have a good imagination, there are a lot of things done for this hospital.
JANE HUTCHEON: Iraq's Ministry of Health says it's begun a new strategy to overhaul the country's decrepit health sector with $1.2 billion to be spend on state-of-the-art-hospitals, medicine, new ambulances, equipment and training.
DR ABDUL ALTALIBI, IRAQI HEALTH MINISTRY: It's our duty to change the situation which we inherited from the old regime.
Some of these hospitals has been built in 1950 without modernisation, without changing and some of them, they are not in a good state to be used as a hospital.
JANE HUTCHEON: Mohammed's father prays for his son to get treatment outside Iraq, but the departure of international agencies due to the bombs and shootings has halted humanitarian evacuations.
"The Americans said they would build hospitals, treat children, bring freedom and democracy", he says.
"But now all you find is killing, illness and death."
DR ABDUL ALTALIBI: The gap is big.
We are doing our best and probably you will see a couple of people dying, but hopefully that everything will change as soon as possible.
Adnan Jassim lingers helplessly in the corridors of Saddam's former showpiece.
Mohammed, innocently caught in the gap between past and future, may not live long enough to see the promise of a new Iraq.