“All the elements of society have been dismantled,” said Fawsia Abdul al-Attiya, a sociologist and a professor at Baghdad University. “You are afraid because you are a woman, a man, a Sunni, a Shia, a Kurd.

“All these things start to change society.”Comparing their life to that under Saddam, Iraqis long for the relative tranquility and safety they enjoyed during the era of their toppled leader Saddam Hussein.

Three years have passed since the U.S. invaders entered the country to “liberate” it, and none of the U.S. “promises” have been fulfilled. All development in the country point to the U.S. failure in Iraq.

Last week, Hans Blix, the former United Nations chief weapons inspector who headed the UN weapons inspection team in the run-up to Iraq war three years ago, described the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq as a "pure failure" that made conditions in the country worse off than under the rule of Saddam Hussein.

Speaking to the Danish newspaper Politiken, Blix attacked the Bush administration saying it ended up in a situation in which neither staying nor leaving Iraq were good options.

"Iraq is a pure failure," The Associated Press quoted Blix as saying. "If the Americans pull out, there is a risk that they will leave a country in civil war. At the same time, it doesn't seem that the United States can help to stabilise the situation by staying there."

According to Blix, the situation would have been better if the U.S. didn’t launch the war in the first place.

"Saddam would still have been sitting in office. Okay, that is negative and it would not have been joyful for the Iraqi people. But what we have gotten is undoubtedly worse," he added.

War-related violence in Iraq is on the rise, claiming scores of innocent lives everyday. Also casualties among the U.S. military personnel are increasing, with at least 95 American soldiers killed in October only.

Before the war broke out, Blix was faced harsh criticism and pressure from the U.S. government after he demanded the American President George W. Bush allow the weapons inspectors and the International Atomic Energy Agency to continue their work as a way to stave off a war.

The U.S. army invaded Iraq but no such weapons were ever found.

Last year, President Bush said he would accept nothing less than “complete victory in Iraq”, but over a year has passed and the situation continues to deteriorate.What we’re witnessing and have been witnessing in Iraq since the war began indicate that victory for the U.S., whatever that might mean, is just an exaggerated dream.