BAGHDAD, March 19, 2006 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – Three years after the US-led invasion, Iraqis' still dream of a bright future in a country mired in chaos, stricken by towering poverty rates and teetering on the edge of a devastating civil war.

"Years have passed since the end of the war, and the situation in Iraq has gone from bad to worse, especially security, with people killing each other in public," Karar Hassan, a young Shiite, told Agence France-Presse (AFP) on Sunday, March 19.

"There is terrorism, but no electricity, no water or fuel and the hospitals are empty of medicines," he added.

Kidnapping and murder flourished under the US occupation. Sabotage kept vast oil reserves, the world's third biggest, below ground.

"It was a great thing to be saved from Saddam, but we need better living conditions now," said Riad Hamid.

Tens of thousands of people took to the streets in Europe, Asia and Australia Saturday, March 18, to mark the third anniversary of the invasion, demanding the withdrawal of foreign troops from the oil-rich and war-ravaged country.

US President George W. Bush invaded Iraq three years ago on the pretext that ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.

A recent US presidential report revealed that the US was "dead wrong" on Iraq’s alleged WMD and its officials made the case for invading the oil-rich country despite intelligence doubts and strong voices of dissent.

Iraq Body Count organization, which tracks figures through media reports, estimates that more than 33,600 civilians have been killed in Iraq over the past three years.

A file photo of Iraqis protesting the occupation in a Baghdad rally. (Reuters).

Haider Khaleel, who tied the knot when the first bombs fell on his city on March 20 three years ago, thought his degree in mathematics might finally land him a well-paid job thanks to the US "Iraq Freedom Operation."

"I dreamt of being the local agent for an international company. I would be able to travel and make a fortune," he told Reuters as he labored in the small grocery store he now runs.

"But the bombings and shootings have killed all my dreams."

His wife Hawra Mohammad, who had believed the opening of Iraq's sanctions-bound oil wells would make grey Baghdad bloom like Dubai and other wealthy cities on the Gulf, was equally bitter.

"After the war, I thought the situation would be better than in Saddam's time," she said, sitting in the kitchen at their modest home.

"I wanted to travel freely with my husband abroad ... to live as other people all over the world do. I imagined Baghdad would be like Dubai or even better. But that was just a dream."

The arrival of two children has brought happiness, but also more worry about what fate holds for them.

"I can't say what our future is," she said. "Our dreams have vanished."

A recent study by Iraq's Health Ministry in tandem with Norway's Institute for Applied International Studies and the UN Development Program (UNDP) said children are paying the silent cost of the US-led occupation with malnutrition rates exceeding by far those in the world’s poorest and disease-plagued countries.

The Iraqi Labor Ministry said in a January report that more Iraqis are falling prey to grinding poverty and countless others are terrified in the insecurity-marred country.

It said that one fifth of the onetime rich Iraqis are living below the poverty line since the US invasion.

Clean water has become something of a luxury in Iraq.

Shiite imam Mussa al-Kadhim said the US occupation has alarmingly divided Iraq.

"The only thing we got from the invasion was the division of Iraq into Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds," he told AFP.

Haider echoed a similar viewpoint, fearing that the country was sliding towards a civil war, a scenario that gained force after Sunnis and Shiites engaged in bloody tit-for-tat attacks in the wake of last month's bombing of a celebrated Shiite shrine in the Sunni city of Samarra.

"I live in Saydiya. I am a Shiite and I might be targeted as many others have been. So I can't move around and expand my business," said Haider.

"I hope everything will be fine and a new government can settle everything," he added.

In the past month, the victims of the "dirty war" have been becoming more numerous and more visible. Dozens of bodies are dumped in Baghdad every day, many showing signs of torture.

Former interim prime minister Iyad Allawi said Sunday that Iraq was in the grip of a civil war, warning Europe and the United States will not be spared its consequences.

Over the past weeks, Sunni and Shiite leaders held marathon talks on simmering sectarian tensions.