Iraq War II ( 2003 )

March 20, 2003

The Iraq War, also known as the Second Gulf War or the Occupation of Iraq, is an ongoing military campaign which began on March 20, 2003 with the invasion of Iraq by a multinational force now led by and composed almost entirely of troops from the United States and United Kingdom.

Prior to the war, the governments of the U.S., U.K, and Spain claimed that Iraq’s alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) posed a serious and imminent threat to their security and that of their coalition allies. United Nations weapons inspectors found no evidence of WMD, giving support to earlier criticism of poor intelligence on the subject.

After the invasion, the U.S.-led Iraq Survey Group concluded that Iraq had ended its WMD programs in 1991 and had no active programs at the time of the invasion, but that they intended to resume production if the Iraq sanctions were lifted. Although some degraded remnants of misplaced or abandoned chemical weapons from before 1991 were found, they were not the weapons for which the coalition invaded.

Some U.S. officials also accused Saddam Hussein of harboring and supporting Al-Qaeda, but no evidence of any collaborative relationship was ever found. U.S. President Bush told Palestinian officials either that God inspired him to end the tyranny in Iraq, or to hit Saddam.

Other reasons for the invasion stated by U.S. officials included Iraq’s financial support for the families of Palestinian suicide bombers, Iraqi government human rights abuses, and spreading democracy. Some officials said Iraq’s oil reserves were a factor in the decision to invade, but other officials denied this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_War