And the country is a living hell for most of the population. Don’t try to find this story by navigating to USA Today’s web page, it’s buried (at the same time it’s the top story in today’s print edition). According to this survey 61% of Iraqis say life is going badly for them. You can safely remove a conservative 15% (Kurds) from the group who said it was not, and what remains is a realistic figure of 71% of Iraqis saying things are going badly in their life. There is no doubt this is a higher number even than it would have been under Saddam Hussein and 12 years of sanctions before the invasion.
Now, said Zaid Hisham, “You worry about everything.” The 29-year-old Shiite engineer has postponed plans for his wedding until he can find a job. He and other Baghdad residents were interviewed by USA TODAY to supplement the poll findings. “When I go out, my family calls me every five minutes or whenever there is an explosion  there are many  to see if I am still alive. It’s worry, worry all the time. You can’t see your future, and you can’t even try to put an outline for your future.”
“We are in hell,” said Solaf Mohamed Ali, 38, a Shiite woman who works in a bank.
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