BAGHDAD, May 12 (IslamOnline.net) - As feelings against the U.S. are running high in war-scarred Iraq for failing to live up to its promises of welfare and prosperity, Iraqi youth try to ride out the storm of unemployment by eking out a living of selling fuel, ice sheets and parts of the bronze statues of toppled Iraqi president Saddam Hussein.

Iraqi youth assemble before overcrowded fuel stations with each one of them carrying a small tank that can barely allow for 20 liters of fuel. One can await 24 hours in a long queue to take his "ration" but it is worthwhile for them, given the boom in oil sale in postwar Iraq.

"I actually work as a taxi driver, but I had to quit in view of the deplorable economic conditions. Everyday, I await with my car from 10 p.m. to 8 a.m. to fill my car's tank fuel and then funnel it into small tanks to sell it later," Zohier Saddi told IslamOnline.net correspondent, declining to reveal his daily income.

"We did not mark up fuel that much, but the U.S. troops denied us access to oil stations to fill up our tanks to ease the overcrowdedness there," Motaaz Adel, a 13-year-old, told IOL.

"My colleagues and I have to buy the fuel from full-tank cars with a high price and that is why we mark up our fuel," he added.

Other youth and even children resorted to the selling of the much sought-after and high-priced ice sheets because of the frequent power outage in Baghdad.

"I begin selling ice sheets to provide for my family, given that my father lost his job in the ministry of education, which burnt down during the U.S.-led attack and his brother's smithery shop became out of kilter due to the power outage," Muhannad al-Karkhi, a university student, said.

"I work as a grocer and cannot afford to provide for my family consisting of six girls…My 11-year-old daughter agreed to work as a housemaid for a meager sum of money," the 71-year-old Rabei Abdulla al-Bardan said.

Other Iraqis sell the U.S. deck of cards of most wanted former Iraqi leaders, and there is much demand for them in Baghdad.

Some junk traders also collected the fired cannonballs and missiles dropped on the country during the U.S.-led war and melt them into copper to sell it as a raw material.