The Iraq War began on 20 March 2003 when a coalition led by the United States and the United Kingdom, joined by Australia and Poland, launched Operation Iraqi Freedom. The stated rationale was that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in violation of UN Security Council resolutions, and allegations of links between Saddam Hussein's regime and terrorist networks. No stockpiles of WMD were subsequently found, a conclusion confirmed by the Iraq Survey Group in its 2004 Duelfer Report.
Major combat operations were brief. Baghdad fell on 9 April 2003, and on 1 May 2003 US President George W. Bush declared the end of major combat operations aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln. The Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), led by L. Paul Bremer, governed Iraq until sovereignty was transferred to an Iraqi interim government on 28 June 2004. Saddam Hussein was captured in December 2003 and executed in 2006 after trial by an Iraqi tribunal.
The legal basis for the war remains contested. The US and UK argued that existing resolutions, especially UNSC Resolution 1441 (2002), authorised force. France, Russia, China, and UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan (who in 2004 called the war "illegal") disagreed, arguing a second explicit authorisation was required.
Consequences were far-reaching:
- A protracted insurgency and sectarian civil war, particularly intense in 2006–2007.
- The 2007 US "surge" of roughly 30,000 additional troops under General David Petraeus.
- Estimated Iraqi civilian deaths in the hundreds of thousands (figures vary widely between Iraq Body Count, the Lancet studies, and others).
- US withdrawal completed in December 2011 under the 2008 Status of Forces Agreement.
- Regional power shifts strengthening Iran's influence and contributing to conditions that enabled the rise of ISIS by 2014.
The UK's Chilcot Inquiry, published in 2016, concluded that the decision to invade was taken before peaceful options were exhausted.
Example
In February 2003, US Secretary of State Colin Powell presented intelligence on alleged Iraqi WMD programmes to the UN Security Council, a presentation he later described as a "blot" on his record after the claims proved unfounded.
Frequently asked questions
No resolution explicitly authorised force in 2003. The US and UK argued Resolution 1441 (2002) and earlier resolutions provided sufficient authority; most other Council members disagreed.
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