2003 invasion of Iraq

The 2003 invasion of Iraq (20 March, 2003 – 1 May, 2003) was the invasion committed by the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Poland and some other countries against Iraq, to end the rule of Saddam Hussein. The main reason that the invasion 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. This turned out after the invasion to not be true.

Another reason for the start of the invasion 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. 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 invasion was extremely controversial. Many British and American people blamed British Prime Minister Tony Blair and the American President, George W. Bush.

American and British paratroopers landed in the far north of Iraq and a few soldiers attacked from the sea, but most invaded from Kuwait in the south. The combined forces proceeded to advance and capture Baghdad. 4,734 NATO soldiers were killed in Iraq war including 4,600 U.S. servicemen, 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. More than 180,000 Iraqi civilians who were not soldiers were also killed.

Aftermath
The United Nations Secretary-General said that "[F]rom our point of view and from the Charter point of view [the war] was illegal."

 Related pages 

 Saddam Hussein
 Execution of Saddam Hussein
 Uday Hussein
 Qusay Hussein

References

 Other websites 
 Encyclopedia Britannica's Article on 2003 War
 War Report. More than 5,000 articles, documents and analyses of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, updated four times a week—Project on Defense Alternatives.
 CIA’s final report 
 Occupation of Iraq  Timeline at the History Commons
 Morgues so full, bodies turned away 
 The War In Context News aggregator
 ProCon's examination of Iraq Invasion 
 by Professor Dr. Sedat Laciner, "Ten Impasses of the Resistance in Iraq" 
 Amnesty International Report on Iraq 

Category:2003 in Asia
Category:Iraq War
Category:Arab–Israeli conflict
Category:George W. Bush
Category:2000s in military history