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President Bush announces the start of a war against Iraq. Allied forces begin the campaign with strikes on military targets, including an attempt to kill Saddam Hussein.
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Saddam Hussein's rule collapses in a matter of hours as much of Baghdad comes under American control. Across much of the capital, Iraqis take to the streets to topple statues of Mr. Hussein, loot government ministries and interrogation centers, and give a cheering, often tearful welcome to advancing American troops.
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A suicide bomber drives a cement mixer full of explosives into the side of the United Nations compound in Baghdad and blows it up, killing 17 people
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Saddam Hussein, once the all-powerful leader of Iraq, is arrested without a fight by American soldiers who find him crouching in an eight-foot hole at an isolated farm near Tikrit
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The C.I.A.'s former chief weapons inspector, David A. Kay, says American intelligence agencies failed to detect that Iraq's unconventional weapons programs were in a state of disarray in recent years under the increasingly erratic leadership of Saddam Hussein.
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President Bush says he is deeply disgusted by photographs that show American soldiers smiling, laughing and holding their thumbs up as naked Iraqi detainees are forced into sexually abusive and humiliating positions
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American military deaths in Iraq operations surpass the 1,000 mark
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The nation pays grim tribute to the 2,000 service members killed in Iraq since the 2003 invasion.
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A powerful bomb shatters the golden dome at the Askariya Shrine in Samarra,
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Saddam Hussein is hanged just before dawn at an execution chamber in Baghdad during the morning call to prayer
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The list of American military deaths in Iraq reaches the somber milestone of at least 3,000 since the March 2003 invasion.
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The Iraqi parliament ratifies a security agreement with the United States that says U.S. combat forces will be completely out of Iraq by December 31, 2011.
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President Obama said that the last American soldier would leave Iraq by the end of the year
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The U.S. mission formally ends with a flag casing ceremony in Baghdad.
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In a final tactical road march, the last U.S. troops in Iraq cross the border into Kuwait.
