BBC: From hope to despair in Baghdad

From hope to despair in Baghdad

By John Simpson
BBC World Affairs Editor


In Baghdad, the most common sound you hear in the streets today is the insistent racket of small private generators.

The most common sight, apart from police and army roadblocks, are the black banners on walls and fences announcing people's deaths.


Iraqi commandos and US military advisors now patrol Haifa Street
And the most common feeling you come across is a kind of slow-burning, gloomy anger.


These things represent a major failure of the hopes and expectations which many Iraqis entertained four years ago.

The generators are there because the Americans and successive Iraqi governments have failed to sort out the power situation. And the deaths happen because they have not established peace here.


more:http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6464629.stm