The Iraq War began when a United States-led coalition, including forces from the United Kingdom, Australia and Poland, invaded Iraq. The US government argued that Saddam Hussein's regime possessed weapons of mass destruction and supported terrorism, but no stockpiles were found. Baghdad fell within weeks and Saddam was later captured and executed. The invasion was followed by a long insurgency and sectarian violence that killed very large numbers of Iraqi civilians, with a US troop surge in 2007 reducing the fighting. US forces withdrew at the end of 2011. The war remains controversial, and the instability it left helped the rise of the Islamic State group in the following years.
Before and after
- 6 March 2003Air Algérie Flight 6289
- 8 March 2003Release of Galician Wikipedia
- from 20 March 2003 to 1 May 20032003 invasion of Iraq
- from 20 March 2003 to 24 March 2003Battle of Al Faw
- from 20 March 2003 to 15 December 2011Iraq War
- from 21 March 2003 to 25 March 2003Battle of Umm Qasr
- April 2003Publication of The Da Vinci Code
- 14 April 2003The Human Genome Project is declared complete
- 24 April 2003Creation of Windows Server 2003
More in Wars, politics & history
- from 12 March 1947 to 25 December 1991Cold War
- 10 December 1948Universal Declaration of Human Rights
- 26 July 1953Cuban Revolution
- from 1 November 1955 to 30 April 1975Vietnam War
- 26 December 1991Dissolution of the Soviet Union
- 24 February 2022Full-scale Russo-Ukrainian war
The era
This moment belongs to the Contemporary world (1945 CE to today), the world since 1945. You can also browse everything in the 21st century.