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President George W. Bush announces that U.S. Soldiers have begun a military operation in Iraq. The President then states that the initial air strike to decapitate Iraq's leadership failed but cleared a way for U.S. Troops -
U.S., U.K. and coalition forces overwhelm the Iraqi forces. Though they miss the people that will form insurgencies afterwards. Three weeks after the invasion, U.S. Soldiers pull down a statue of Saddam in Baghdad. -
In may of 2003 President George W. Bush declared an end of Combat Operations in Iraq. But this did not mean it was over -
For only being two weeks on the job L. Paul Bremer III, Head of the coalition provisional authority in Iraq, signs an order disbanding the Iraqi army. -
In June 22nd 2003, A raid took place in the northern city of Mosul and U.S. Troops shot and killed Saddam's Sons, Uday and Qusay. -
On August 19th 2003 A suicide bomber driving a concrete mixer filled with explosives rushes to the UN building and explodes, destroying everything in the process as well as killing top UN officials. -
On The 14th of December U.S. Soldiers found Saddam hiding in a hole near his childhood home in Tikrit. They take him in hopes that violence with stop. -
Al-Qaeda mounts waves of suicide bombings against Shiite Muslim Holy Sites in Baghdad and Karbala. -
Iraq's national election is coming up and fifteen thousand U.S. and Iraqi service members join to meet insurgents in their stronghold in central Iraq. With that 38 U.S. Troops die and 6 Iraqi's die with at least 800 civilian casualties while 1,200 insurgents died as well. -
Once the elections were done the Shiite United Iraqi Alliance came into power and later it brings Nouri al-Maliki to the position of prime minister. -
On December 30th 2006 Saddam, A former dictator ruling for a quarter of a century is brought to trial and hanged to death while clutching a Quran. -
On February 10th 2007 A General by the name of David H. Petraeus just got out of leading the rewriting of the U.S. Counterinsurgency strategy, assumes command of U.S. Forces. He then proceeds to put a heavy security situation in Iraq following Iran being accused of supplying Shiite Muslims with bombs -
In 2007 alone around 900 U.S. Servicemembers died while in Iraq, making it the deadliest yet for the U.S. Soldiers. -
Baghdad and the Port city Basra erupt in violence as loyalists to Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr attack U.S. and Iraqi security forces. In Response Prime Minister Maliki launches a crackdown on those militants. -
Barack Obama, campaigning on a vow to withdraw combat troops in Iraq within sixteen months of taking office, is elected the forty-fourth President of the United States on November 4th. -
Making good on a campaign pledge, President Obama announces plans to remove combat brigades from Iraq by August 2010. -
U.S. combat troops withdraw from Baghdad and other Iraqi cities in accordance with a status of Forces agreement. More than 150 U.S. bases and outposts were shut down. -
After seven more years of war, 4,400 U.S. Casualties, and tens of thousands of Iraqis killed, The United States finally ends its combat mission in Iraq. -
In accordance with prior security agreements, Obama announces that the remaining thirty-nine thousand U.S. Troops will return from Iraq by the end of 2011. -
The last U.S. Troops leave Iraq, ending a nearly nine year military-mission. Since 2003, more than one million airmen, soldiers, sailors, and Marines served in the country. The costs of the conflict were high: 800 billion from the U.S. Department of Treasury, with nearly 4,500 and well over 100,000 Iraqis killed. U.S. Troops brought the mission to an official close with a ceremony in Baghdad.