The War in Iraq Begins

On this day in US history, the United States, along with a coalition of forces mainly from the UK, initiated the war in Iraq on March 19, 2003. President Bush and his advisors worried that dictator Saddam Hussein, leader of Iraq, possessed or was in the process of possessing weapons of mass destruction. Despite the swift military victory by the US, insurgency continued in the following years, which led to thousands of coalition and civilian deaths. No weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq, and the US declared an end to the war ten years later on December 15, 2011.