According to UN statistics, years of violence has displaced about 4.2 million Iraqis.

"They (politicians) make promises, but there is no action. Even if there will be reconciliation between the conflicted sides of Sunnis and Shiites, it will be only ink on papers," Mohammed said.

Um Riadh, 49, moved out of her house in a Baghdad Sunni district a year and half ago after her son was killed by militants.

"I am a Sunni but the unjust armed groups in my neighborhood killed my son because his deceased father was a Shiite," Um Riadh said in a voice trembled with anger.

She now lives in a predominately Shiite neighborhood with her eldest sister Um Sabah, whose three sons fled last year to Europe for fear of sectarian killing.

"I will not go back to my house even if reconciliation is achieved," she said, fearing that she could be killed at any time there.

Plagued by the dual tribulations of chaos and poverty for five years since the war, most Iraqis now have a common sense of being deceived.

"After five years of (US) occupation I can say that Iraq is lost. At the beginning of the invasion, all of us were deceived that we will live a good and democratic life, not this horrible one," said Ali Abbas, a 27-year-old English teacher with Shiite background.

"Anyone who says that America is serious in bringing us democracy is wrong and like an ostrich with its head underground since it has none of it," Abbas continued.

Five years after the Iraq war, which, America said, would bring democracy to the Iraqis, apparently missed its goal so far.

Then what the Iraqis attained during the past five years, Abbas put it clearly, "All we have got from the US occupation is destruction, chaos, and despair."

(Xinhua News Agency March 21, 2008)