The people of Iraq believe they are better off now than before the war...

Yes, I'm sure the people of Iraq believe that. . .

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-23531834

Their nation was destroyed; water, electricity, health care networks rendered useless, oil contracts privatized, an upsurge in ethnic and religious violence. And now Islamist terrorists are being funded and armed by Qatar with the purpose of destabilizing Iraq even further, all with the purpose of stopping the construction of a pipeline linking Syria to Iran via. Iraq.

Geopolitical maneuvering and pipeline politics has a lot to do with the recent upsurge in violence, and Iraq, already weakened by years of war, is caught in between. The country of Qatar (backed by British and French money and a supporter of Wahhabi causes) wants exclusive access to new natural gas fields in the Persian Gulf; their goal is to sell that fuel to energy-starved Western European markets. Iran, which has access to their own new energy finds, also wants to sell fuel to those markets; accordingly, they want to build a pipeline through Iraq & Syria to the Mediterranean. The Qatari's figure that destabilizing Syria and Iraq (with NATO's help) will yield a more acquiescent government that will block the pipeline from being built, thus allowing Qatar to become a major regional power.

The US and Western European nations are allied with Sunni Qatar, while Russia and China are backing the Iranian/Iraqi/Syrian Shi'ite governments. Money makes for interesting bedfellows.

Some do, some don't. Depends where you live in Iraq. Some area had several hours of power before the war, while other had none. Now, the areas that had 12plus hours have 7, other areas with 4 never had power. Sure, Saddam is gone and that IS a good thing. Unfortunately, there will always be conflict in the Middle East. They DO NOT believe in democracy, it's just not their way of life.

Yes I think this is true, but not the whole population appreciates it. But some who didn't in the past are probably now used to the American presence so they don't cars so much.

From what I hear from those involved in the military the people of Iraq do believe they are better off now than before the war. The media does not show the gratitude of a country changed for the better by the Iraqi people. I guess happy news produces low ratings.

I checked some polls. The last survey I saw (from June 2004), a little under half of the Iraqi people surveyed said that they were better off than before the Iraq war. About 1/3 said that life was pretty much the same. Maybe there is more current data outh there somewhere.