Two Years After Fall Of Baghdad

The first full day of a freely elected government in Iraq fell almost exactly on the day that Saddam Hussein fell.

Two years ago, these images were beamed around the world. Hope, it seemed, had no bounds.

Cosmetically, the square has changed very little since the day Saddam's statue fell. There is a replacement for Saddam on the pedestal, called the Immortality Statue. It's dedicated to a lofty principle, not a person.

But, CBS News Correspondent Lee Cowan reports, nearly every family you ask here sees the lack of a dictator, differently.

"This country is cursed," says Seif Neimi.

Neimi so feared Saddam he fled Baghdad two years before the war.

The promise of freedom brought him back. He started an English school but was forced to shut it down after insurgents threatened to kill him for teaching the language of the enemy.

"They stole the hope, and now there is no hope," he says.

Behnam Abu Al-Soof, once a confidante of Saddam Hussein, is more frustrated than fearful.

"Two years pass and the people are not back to their normal way of life, my friend," says al-Soof.

Power failures are common.

It happens a lot, the people say.

"Three hours on, three hours off," says al-Soof.

It's not just electricity. Water and telephone service are intermittent at best.

More than a third of Iraqis are still out of work. Just getting around requires negotiating a labyrinth of concrete barricades, checkpoints and roadside bombs.

Still, most persevere. Neimi says he'll "never, never" again leave Iraq.

And few will go so far as to say the war never should have happened.

Asked if he's grateful, al-Soof says: "When my country is well and prosperous, and the people are at peace, I will be grateful."

But that day, he says, has yet to arrive.

"I am sorry to say, not yet," he says.

It's a mood the new government has to change if it is to revive the optimism of that historic day two long years ago.