A year on from 'Mission Accomplished'......

[T_i_B]

An army in disgrace, a policy in tatters and the real prospect of defeat. Against the odds, America has earned the hatred of ordinary Iraqis. Looks like the battle for hearts and minds is being comprehensively lost

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=517306

dam should not have been a hard act to follow. Iraqis knew that he had ruined their lives through his disastrous wars against Iran and Kuwait, and were glad to be rid of him. Even the supposed beneficiaries of his rule, the Sunni Arabs of cities such as Tikrit and Fallujah, could not see why they were so much poorer than the people of other oil states such as Kuwait and Abu Dhabi.

Iraqis make very plain what they think about the occupation in private conversation, but Paul Bremer, the US viceroy in Iraq, and the US military command, shut away in their headquarters in Saddam's old Republican Palace, had no idea of the growing hostility towards them until April. Then, when they started the sieges of Fallujah and Najaf, they discovered that aside from the Kurdish minority, Iraqis had turned decisively against the occupation.

Another simple reason for disillusionment with the US is simply the Americans' failure to restore normal life. Iraqis in Baghdad continually say that Iraq recovered more quickly from the damage inflicted by the first Gulf War under Saddam in 1991 than it did after the second war in 2003.

Baghdad is a city on edge. Shopkeepers keep their stock at home in case there is another outbreak of looting. The police are back on the streets and there is less casual crime than last year, but it is still more dangerous than it was under the old regime.