From Hope To Despair

"There is no life at all. We are eating, drinking and sleeping like animals, but animals are lucky because they are not scared all the time like we are. They don't think that they might be killed at any moment, so I think even the animals are much happier than us," said one Baghdad resident in a poll of more than 2000 Iraqis, four years after the invasion.

By a ratio of more than 4-to-1, the Iraqis said they have little confidence in British and American troops and two-thirds said that they've seen little progress on reconstruction despite the billions spent on aid.

As top military commanders have been saying publicly for some months, we desperately need a new and different approach if we are to advance the cause of peace in the Middle East.

UPDATE: The BBC has analysis of the full results here