The challenges ahead: the American-led occupation has officially ended, but the road to a peaceful, stable, and democratic Iraq is lined with many obstacles.

• Author: Eckholm, Erik
• Position: International

The four big smokestacks at the Doura power plant in Baghdad have always served as subversive truth-tellers. No matter what Saddam Hussein's propagandists said about electricity supplies, people knew they could get a better idea of the coming day's power by counting how many stacks at Doura were spewing smoke.

Saddam is vanquished and an interim Iraqi government formally gained sovereignty in June, but for residents of Baghdad, those smokestacks remain potent markers of electricity service that remains sporadic a year and a half after the U.S. led invasion of Iraq.

Elsewhere in Baghdad, for the first time in 15 years, a sewage-treatment plant repaired by U.S. contractors is treating waste that pours into the Tigris River. But its operation was kept secret as long as possible so insurgents would not try to sabotage it, as they have many other projects, including oil facilities that are critical to Iraq's economic future.

The reconstruction situation, both good and bad, is emblematic of how things have gone in Iraq: There has been progress--though sometimes agonizingly slow--and more obstacles than were expected, including resistance from some Iraqis.

AMERICA'S ROLE

Rebuilding Iraq's infrastructure is just one of the challenges that lie ahead for the Iraqi people, their new interim government, and the U.S. Among the most critical are: forming a stable and democratic government, defeating the resistance so that law and order can be re-established, holding Iraq's three major groups--Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds--together as one nation, and determining what role the U.S. will play in Iraq's future.

There is also the question of how Americans will feel about their continued involvement in a situation that has proven more deadly and costly than expected, and how the war will figure into the U.S. presidential election, especially if American casualties continue to mount. Polls vary widely, but most indicate that Americans are evenly divided about whether the war was the right thing to do, says Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center.

For now, Iraq's interim government is focusing on defeating the insurgency and preparing for the country's first nationwide elections, scheduled for no later than Jan. 31, 2005.

It remains unclear how much control the new government will exercise, particularly over the 160,000 foreign troops that will remain in Iraq, or even over Iraq's own army and police.

"There is going to be skepticism among Iraqis," says Francis J. Ricciardone, who has led the planning at the State Department for the new American embassy in Iraq. "Some will surely see the new government as stooges. I hope they will see we are changing the way we deal with them. There will no longer be Americans telling them what the daily agenda is."

Repairing Iraq's infrastructure is critical. As of late June, fewer than 140 of 2,300 promised construction projects were under wag Decades of neglect, sanctions, and war left Iraq's...