By David Mac Dougall

Do you remember what you were doing on April 9th 2003? Most Iraqis do. It was a day filled with iconic images of American tanks in the center of Baghdad - and Saddam Hussein’s statue being pulled to the ground. After just a few weeks of war - and that “shock and awe” campaign - Baghdad had fallen.

Five years ago I watched Saddam’s statue being toppled live on television from the control room of a morning news show I worked on in Boise Idaho. There was no need for local news that day - all eyes were fixed on the scenes from Baghdad. At that time, I had no way of knowing that just a few months later I’d be in the heart of the Iraqi capital myself… or that five years on I’d still be here.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF AP

Today, there are no celebrations marking April 9th. In theory, it’s a national holiday - but at the same time there’s a curfew keeping cars, minibuses and motorcycles off Baghdad’s streets.

Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr had called for a “million man march” to mark the continued presence of American forces in Iraq - but at the 11th hour he was forced to call off the march, citing the potential for it to provoke yet more violence.

Some of al-Sadr’s followers seem to have been prevented from reaching Baghdad by Iraqi security forces, but it’s doubtful anyway, whether a million people would have shown up to take part in the demonstration.

You’d think that today would be the ideal time for Iraqis to come together to mark the end of Saddam Hussein’s oppressive regime. But a majority of people in the country have little to celebrate five years on from liberation. In fact, many Iraqis now view April 9th not as the start of “liberation” but as the start of “occupation”. The years since the statue fell have been filled with extreme poverty, near-constant fighting, political bickering, a rise in disease and a drop in basic standards of living. Millions of people have been displaced from their own homes - becoming refugees in their own country, or fleeing to an uncertain safety abroad. Most of all, the last five years have been filled with death.

This week, General Patraeus and Ambassador Crocker are giving another update to Congress about the situation in Iraq. The bottom line of their testimony is that there have been slow but tangible improvements here recently (especially over the past year since the troop surge and security plan were announced). Patraeus and Crocker are also stressing that those improvements are fragile and could be lost without perseverance and continued commitment.

What can Iraqis look forward to in the next five years? Even the most optimistic Iraqi would be looking through rose-tinted glasses if they said there will be peace, stability, a strong honest government and no horrific violence. But ask any Iraqi, and they’ll tell you that’s what they want for themselves, their families and their country. I guess only time will tell if the next five years will be better than the last.

FOX FLASHBACK: APRIL 6- APRIL 12: Check out the video below to see Saddam’s statue topple (about 40 seconds into the video), as well as other influential moments that occurred this week in history.