U.S.-Iraq War

U.S.-Iraq War, military action begun in 2003 with a United States invasion of Iraq, then ruled by the authoritarian regime of Saddam Hussein. The invasion led to a protracted U.S. occupation of Iraq and the birth of a nationalist war of resistance against the occupation. The resulting destabilization of Iraq also created conditions for a civil war to break out between Iraq’s majority Shia Muslim population and its minority Sunni Muslim population. In addition to attempting to quell the resistance, U.S. forces also found themselves trying to police the civil war. In 2007 the U.S. war in Iraq had lasted longer than U.S. involvement in World War II.

U.S. president George W. Bush had openly threatened war for months prior to the U.S. invasion. Bush argued that Saddam Hussein’s regime posed a grave threat to U.S. security and peace in the region because of its alleged pursuit of weapons of mass destruction and links to international terrorism. Subsequent disclosures by former high-level officials within the Bush administration, however, revealed that Bush had been preparing for the use of military force against Iraq almost as soon as he took office in January 2001. Bush launched the war with a massive bombardment of Baghdad, the capital of Iraq, on March 20, 2003.

The day after the bombardment, U.S. and British forces (and smaller numbers of Australian and Polish soldiers) invaded Iraq from Kuwait. They faced an Iraqi military of less than 400,000 troops, the backbone of which was ten armored and mechanized divisions, which were quickly devastated by U.S. air attacks. Major combat engagements ended about three weeks later, after U.S. troops entered Baghdad and toppled the Hussein regime. The military campaign was short and one-sided, but hard fought.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_invasion_of_Iraq