The Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), which ran the country under Paul Bremer, was almost ludicrously incompetent, wasting or misusing tens of millions of dollars.
Unknown amounts were stolen. In 2004 the CPA could not account for $9bn in Iraqi oil revenue.
Despite the investment that has undoubtedly taken place, virtually all basic services are in a worse state now than they were before the invasion. There is less clean water, less sewage control, less gas, less petrol, less power. Baghdad now has an average of only 5.8 hours of electricity a day. At present Iraq is producing 1.8 million barrels of oil a day; just before the invasion the figure was 2.5 million barrels a day.
Things are expensive and inflation is high. So is unemployment: perhaps above 50%.
If you see a US patrol, you should brake sharply and keep away from it. The gunners on the vehicles kill people every day for getting too close to them. Every Iraqi has a horror story about a friend or relative who misunderstood an instruction, often in English, and was shot at.
Few Iraqis will even think about the anniversary of the invasion. Many are still glad that Saddam Hussein was taken off their backs.
But there is a real, abiding anger that the richest nation on Earth should have taken over their country and made them even worse off in so many ways than they were before.
Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4825200.stm
