From left to right: Marines of the U.S. 1st Marine Regiment escort Iraqi prisoners of war; a convoy of U.S. military vehicles in a sandstorm; U.S. soldiers watch an enemy building in Baghdad burn; Iraqi civilians cheer as a statue of Saddam Hussein is toppled.
Date
20 March – 1 May 2003 (1 month, 1 week and 4 days)
The 2003 invasion of Iraq (March 20, 2003 - May 1, 2003) was the war fought by the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Poland and some other countries against Iraq, to end the rule of Saddam Hussein.[24] The main reason that the war started was said to be because the British and American Governments believed that Iraq had dangerous weapons of mass destruction (such as chemical or nuclear weapons) that could be used against other countries.[25][26][27] This turned out after the invasion to not be true.
Another reason for the start of the war was that many people thought that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, one of the leaders of al-Qaeda, was hiding in Iraq after the September 11, 2001 attacks.[28] Though Saddam Hussein was not involved in the planning of the September 11 attacks, many people accused him of giving al-Qaeda a safe place to hide from the United States. The war was extremely controversial. Many British and American people blamed British Prime Minister Tony Blair and the American President, George W. Bush.
Paratroopers landed in the far north of Iraq and a few soldiers attacked from the sea, but most invaded from Kuwait in the south. 4,734 NATO soldiers were killed in Iraq war including 4,600 U.S. servicemen,[29][30] 179 UK servicemen and 139 Other NATO soldiers with a total of 4900 casualties. 31,882 U.S. servicemen and over 3,600 UK servicemen were wounded in Iraq.[31][32][33] More than 180,000 Iraqi civilians who were not soldiers were also killed.[34]
↑Katzman, Kenneth (5 February 2009). "Iraq: Post-Saddam Governance and Security"(PDF). fpc.state.gov/. Congressional Research Service. Archived(PDF) from the original on 3 March 2016. Retrieved 23 September 2014. In the war, Iraq's conventional military forces were overwhelmed by the approximately 380,000-person U.S. and British-led 30-country18 "coalition of the willing" force, a substantial proportion of which were in supporting roles.