Not much to celebrate

Life became worse for large numbers of Iraqis in 2004. Suicide car bombings, gun battles, kidnappings, beheadings and assassinations killed thousands of people, sometimes more than a hundred on a single day....

Karim Wamidh, 54, an employee at the Ministry of Agriculture in Tikrit, about 90 miles north of Baghdad and the home town of deposed president Saddam Hussein, said he had high hopes for the country when 2004 began.

"We thought with the coming of the new year, we could have a new life, freedom, justice and security," he said. "But what happened during the year was very disappointing. A high level of unemployment, terrorism increased and poverty spread."

Wamidh said he would hope for better days in 2005.

"Maybe the situation will change after we get the elected government," he said, referring to elections scheduled for Jan. 30, "although I don't think anything would change with the existence of occupation in the country."

Speaks for itself.