2003 invasion of Iraq 2003 invasion of Iraq The 2003 invasion of Iraq was the first stage of the Iraq War (also called "Operation Iraqi Freedom"). The invasion phase began on 20 March 2003 and lasted just over one month, including 21 days of major combat operations, in which a combined force of troops from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Poland invaded Iraq. This early stage of the war formally ended on 1 May 2003 when U.S. President George W. Bush declared the "End of Major Combat Operations", after which the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) was established as the first of
Rationale for the Iraq War troops remained in the country until all American troops were withdrawn from Iraq by December 2011; meanwhile American troops also engaged in combat with Iraqi insurgents. In June 2014, however, U.S. forces were reinstated in Iraq due to the escalation of instability in the region and as of June 2015, the number of American ground troops totaled to 3,550. Between December 2011 and June 2014, Department of Defense officials estimated that there were 200 to 300 personnel based at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. The 1991 Gulf War never fully ended because no armistice formally ended it. As a result,