Photos: Looking Back at the War in Iraq, 15 Years After the U.S. Invaded (2024)

Smoke covers government buildings in Baghdad on March 21, 2003, during a massive U.S.-led airstrike on the Iraqi capital, part of what was billed as a "shock and awe" campaign. Smoke billowed from a number of targeted sites, including one of President Saddam Hussein's palaces, an AFP correspondent said. #

Ramzi Haidar / AFP / Getty

U.S. President George W. Bush addresses the nation from the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C., on March 19, 2003. Bush announced that the U.S. military had struck at "targets of opportunity" in Iraq, signaling the beginning of a war that would last nearly nine years. #

Alex Wong / Getty

U.S. Army Staff Sergeant Robert Dominguez, of Mathis, Texas, stands guard next to a burning oil well at the Rumayla oil fields on March 27, 2003, in Rumayla, Iraq. Several oil wells were set ablaze by retreating Iraqi troops in the Ramayla area, the second largest offshore oilfield in the country, near the Kuwaiti border. #

Mario Tama / Getty

U.S. Navy Hospital Corpsman HM1 Richard Barnett, assigned to the 1st Marine Division, holds an Iraqi child in central Iraq in this March 29, 2003, photo. Confused front-line crossfire ripped apart an Iraqi family after local soldiers appeared to force civilians towards positions held by U.S. Marines. #

Damir Sagolj / Reuters

A fire burns outside the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad on August 19, 2003. A car-bomb explosion tore through the UN headquarters, destroying part of the building, and witnesses said at least three people were killed and dozens were wounded. #

Suhaib Salem / Reuters

A U.S. soldier watches as a statue of Iraq's President Saddam Hussein falls in central Baghdad on April 9, 2003. U.S. troops pulled down the 20-foot-tall statue of Hussein and Iraqis danced on it in contempt for the man who ruled them with an iron grip for 24 years. #

Goran Tomasevic / Reuters

Captain Christopher Fallon from Orlando, Florida, of the 1st battalion of the 22nd regiment of the fourth division of the U.S. Army, plays baseball in one of the palaces of the ousted Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein at a U.S. army base in Tikrit on September 16, 2003. #

Arko Datta / Reuters

A detained Iraqi man with a plastic bag covering his head sits in the garden of a house searched by U.S. soldiers during a night raid in Tikrit on October 30, 2003. Soldiers of U.S. Army's 4th Infantry Division (Task Force Ironhorse) raided several houses in Tikrit looking for members of a suspected terrorist cell planning attacks on coalition forces in Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit. #

Damir Sagolj

This is an image obtained by The Associated Press which shows naked detainees with bags placed over their heads placed into a human pyramid as Spc. Sabrina Harman, (middle) and Cpl. Charles Graner Jr. (above) pose behind them in late 2003 at the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad, Iraq. Photographs depicting the humiliation, torture, and sexual abuse of Iraqi detainees by their U.S. captors in Abu Ghraib in 2003 were broadcast by 60 Minutes II in 2004. Military investigations led to 11 U.S. service members at Abu Ghraib being convicted of various crimes, receiving punishments ranging from simple reprimands up to 10 years in prison. #

AP

Terrified Iraqi children protect themselves from the cold after they're taken outside their house during a pre-dawn raid in a suburb of Baquba on November 16, 2003. Looking for members of a suspected terrorist cell who attacked coalition forces, troops of the U.S. Army's 4th Infantry Division detained several Iraqi men after shots were fired at an assault team during an early-morning operation. #

Damir Sagolj / Reuters

This unsourced picture alleges to show Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein in an unknown location in Iraq after his capture by U.S. troops on December 13, 2003. He was captured from an underground hole on a farm in the village of ad-Dawr, near his hometown of Tikrit in northern Iraq. #

Getty

British army troops are covered in flames from a petrol bomb thrown during a violent protest by job seekers, who say they were promised employment in the security services, in the southern Iraq city of Basra on March 22, 2004. As the protest evolved into violence, demonstrators were heard to chant, "Yes yes to Yassin; no no to America, Britain, and Israel" in response to the killing in Gaza of Hamas founder and spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. #

Atef Hassan / Reuters

Coffins of U.S. military personnel are prepared to be offloaded at Dover Air Force Base in Dover, Delaware in this undated photo. The U.S. Air Force, in response to a Freedom of Information Act request, released on April 14, 2004, more than 300 photographs showing the remains of U.S. service members returning home. The Pentagon tightly restricted publication of photographs of coffins with the remains of U.S. troops, and had forbidden journalists from taking pictures at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, the first stop for the bodies of troops being sent home. #

Reuters

U.S. Marine platoon Gunnery Sergeant, Ryan P. Shane (center), from the 1st Battalion of the 8th Marine Regiment, and another member of 1/8 pull a fatally wounded comrade to safety while under fire during a military operation in the Iraqi western city of Fallujah, in this photograph released on December 17, 2004. Seconds later, Sgt. Shane was also injured by nearby enemy fire, a U.S. Marine officer said. #

Cpl. Joel A. Chaverri / USMC / Reuters

Mays, a young Iraqi Shi'ite girl, cries after a mortar shell which landed outside the family's home in a Najaf residential area injured her uncle on August 18, 2004. The leader of a Shi'ite uprising in Iraq agreed to leave a holy shrine encircled by U.S. Marines hours after the interim government threatened to storm it and drive out his fighters. But even after the announcement, explosions and gunfire echoed through the streets as U.S. forces battled Sadr's Mehdi Army militiamen, whose two-week-old uprising posed the biggest challenge yet to Iraq's interim government. #

Ali Jasim / Reuters

Iraqi workers clean debris near a large pool of blood at the scene of a suicide attack in the city of Hilla, 100 kilometers (62 miles) south of Baghdad, on February 28, 2005. A suicide bomber detonated a car near police recruits and a crowded market, killing 115 people and wounding 148 in the single bloodiest attack in Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein. #

Ali Abu Shish / Reuters

An Iraqi man is held against a Humvee by a U.S. Marine after being searched during snap vehicle checks on February 8, 2006, in Ramadi, Iraq. Marines of the 3rd Battalion, 7th Regiment frequently take to Ramadi's tense streets in Humvee convoys, randomly stopping vehicles to search for weapons and insurgents. Sniper attacks are common, so the Marines usually set off smoke bombs to screen them from attackers. #

Chris Hondros / Getty

Anti-war protesters demonstrate on March 19, 2006, in Portland, Oregon. The third anniversary of the U.S.-led war in Iraq drew tens of thousands of protesters around the globe, from hurricane-ravaged Louisiana to Australia, with chants of "stop the war" and calls for the withdrawal of troops. #

Rick Bowmer / AP

Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein argues with prosecutors while testifying during cross-examination at his trial in Baghdad's Green Zone on April 5, 2006. Hussein returned to court and made remarks likely to inflame sectarian tensions, accusing the Iraqi Interior Ministry of killing and torturing thousands of Iraqis. #

David Furst / Reuters

Iraqi oil workers stand near a burning oil pipeline in the Kirkuk area of Iraq on October 20, 2005. Insurgents using explosives set fire to the main oil pipeline in northern Iraq, officials said. The pipeline links an oil field in the northern city of Kirkuk to Iraq's largest oil refinery in Beiji. #

Yahya Ahmed / AP

A U.S. soldier displays the picture of the dead Al-Qaeda leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, during a news conference at the fortified Green Zone in Baghdad on June 8, 2006. #

Ceerwan Aziz / Reuters

Some members of a group of 50 suspected insurgents lie face down on the ground with their hands bound behind their backs after they were arrested during a raid in a village near Baquba, northeast of Baghdad, on June 26, 2006. #

Reuters

Marine Sergeant Kevin Downs, 21, is pictured catching his breath after going through his exercise routine at the BAMC rehabilitation gym on August 23, 2006, in San Antonio, Texas. Downs suffered severe third and fourth-degree burns and lost his legs below the knee when his vehicle was hit by five IED devices in Iraq in August of 2005. He is a rehabilitation patient at Brooke Army Medical Center. Brooke Army Medical Center is one of the most advanced facilities in the world for the healing and rehabilitation of amputees and severe burn victims. #

Brent Stirton / Getty

Footage from Al Iraqiya television shows masked executioners putting a noose around former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's neck moments before his hanging for crimes against humanity in Baghdad on December 30, 2006. #

Al Iraqiya / Reuters

U.S. Army soldiers fight a blaze, which started after a mortar round fired by insurgents ignited a fuel truck at their operating base, in Baiji on December 26, 2007. There were no injuries in the incident. #

Bob Strong / Reuters

A girl is searched by a female soldier from Alpha Company, 2nd Battalion, 7th Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division as they search a home for a man they suspect is affiliated with Al-Qaeda in Mosul, Iraq, on May 3, 2007. #

Maya Alleruzzo / AP

Mary McHugh mourns her slain fiance, Sgt. James Regan, at "Section 60" of Arlington National Cemetery on May 27, 2007. Regan, a U.S. Army Ranger, was killed by an IED explosion in Iraq in February of 2007, and this was the first time McHugh had visited the grave since the funeral. Section 60, the newest portion of the vast national cemetery on the outskirts of Washington D.C., contains the bodies of hundreds of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. #

John Moore / Getty

A grieving woman takes her dead six-year-old son into her arms. The boy, Dhiya Thamer, was killed when their family car came under fire by unknown gunmen in Baqouba, northeast of Baghdad, Iraq, on September 16, 2007. The boy's 10-year old brother, Qusay, was injured in the attack as the family returned from enrolling the children in school, where Dhiya was to begin his first year. #

Adem Hadei / AP

Desiree Fairooz from Texas jumps up in front of U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice before Rice testifies before the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., on October 24, 2007. Fairooz, an anti-war protester, waved blood-colored hands in Rice's face at the congressional hearing on Wednesday and shouted "war criminal," but was pushed away and detained by police. At right is the committee Chairman Rep. Tom Lantos (D-CA). #

Larry Downing / Reuters

An Iraqi woman holds on to a truck while waiting for food supplies to be distributed by Iraqi soldiers among the residents of the Shiite enclave of Sadr City in Baghdad, Iraq, on May 8, 2008. #

Petr David Josek / AP

Two people walk past tombs at the Wadi al-Salaam cemetery in the Shiite holy city of Najaf, Iraq, on November 14, 2007. Wadi al-Salaam, or the Valley of Peace, is one of the largest cemeteries in the world, containing millions of graves. All Shiite believers in Iraq request that they be buried in Wadi al-Salaam because of its proximity to the Shrine of Imam Ali, where Imam Ali ibn Abi Talib, the first Shiite imam, was buried. #

Alaa al-Marjani / AP

An injured Iraqi child is treated by medics from the 1st Battalion, 30th Infantry Regiment at Patrol Base Murray, near Baghdad, after a mortar strike injured two girls in the town of Arab Jabour, south of Baghdad, on December 11, 2007. The girls were evacuated by helicopter to the 86th Combat Support Hospital in Baghdad. #

Maya Alleruzzo / AP

Sgt. Kyle Hale of Yukon, Oklahoma, 1-6 battalion, 2nd brigade, 1st Armored Division, hits a man as he contains an unruly crowd to protect another man who was nearly trampled, outside the Al Rasheed Bank in the Jamilah market in the Shiite enclave of Sadr City, Baghdad, on June 10, 2008. #

Petros Giannakouris / AP

A gunner from 15 Squadron RAF Regiment, a force protection unit stationed at the Contingency Operating Base located at Basra International Airport, is greeted by a small boy during one of their last combat operations, a counter-insurgency patrol as part of Operation Dagger, in the village of Al Houta on April 28, 2009. After six years, British forces were close to ending all combat operations in southern Iraq, handing them over to the American military in the following weeks. #

Matt Cardy / Getty

U.S. soldiers stand at attention during a mass re-enlistment ceremony in Baghdad on July 4, 2008. More than 1,200 soldiers were re-enlisted in the U.S. military on Friday as part of a U.S. Independence Day celebration at al-Faw palace in Camp Victory. #

Erik de Castro / Reuters

A graduate faces the camera during a graduation ceremony in Baghdad, Iraq, on July 15, 2008. A group of 400 students was graduating from Al-Nahrain University in Baghdad. #

Hadi Mizban / AP

Iraqi journalist Muntadhar al-Zaidi throws a shoe at President George W. Bush during a news conference with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on December 14, 2008, in Baghdad. He threw both of his shoes at Bush, shouting "this is a goodbye kiss from the Iraqi people, dog," and "this is for the widows and orphans and all those killed in Iraq," before being wrestled to the ground and removed by security. President Bush managed to dodge both shoes. Muntadhar al-Zaidi was convicted of assaulting a foreign head of state and sentenced to three years in prison, later reduced to one year, of which he only served nine months. #

Evan Vucci / AP

U.S. Army soldiers stroll past two bronze busts of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in the Green Zone in Baghdad on March 20, 2009. #

Hadi Mizban / AP

Iraqi army soldiers parade past the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in central Baghdad on January 6, 2010, during their Army Day celebrations. #

Ahmad Al-Rubaye / AFP / Getty

Iraqi explosives experts help a comrade gear up into a special suit for bomb-disposal operations during a training session organized by their U.S. counterparts at the Warhorse military base near the restive city of Baquba on August 17, 2010. #

Ahmad Al-Rubaye / AFP / Getty

An Iraqi soldier inspects the scene of a suicide attack in Radwaniya, southwest of Baghdad, Iraq, on July 18, 2010. Twin suicide bombings killed scores of people, including dozens from a government-backed anti-al-Qaeda militia lining up to collect their paychecks near the military base southwest of Baghdad, Iraqi officials said. #

Khalid Mohammed / AP

An Iraqi security-forces member displays a pistol discovered in a house after a raid led to five suspected militants being arrested and weapons and explosive materials confiscated in Baghdad's Zayouna district on September 26, 2010. #

Saad Shalash / Reuters

The United States Forces-Iraq flag is displayed before being retired during a casing ceremony, signifying the departure of United States troops from Iraq, at the former Sather Air Base on December 15, 2011, in Baghdad, Iraq. United States forces were scheduled to entirely depart Iraq by December 31. #

Mario Tama / Getty

U.S. Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles drive through Camp Adder before departing what is now known as Imam Ali Base near Nasiriyah, Iraq, on December 16, 2011. The last convoy of U.S. soldiers pulled out of Iraq on Sunday, ending their withdrawal after nearly nine years of war and military intervention. #

Mario Tama / Reuters

Iraqi soldiers watch residents gather in a celebration of the U.S. troop pullout in Fallujah on December 14, 2011. Hundreds of demonstrators chanted anti-U.S. slogans in the city that was a former stronghold for militants and a scene for fierce battles against the U.S. troops after 2003. #

Mohanned Faisal / Reuters

U.S. Army Staff Sergeant Myles James from the 2-82 Field Artillery, 3rd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, is greeted as he arrives at his home base of Fort Hood, Texas, after being part of one of the last American combat units to exit from Iraq on December 16, 2011. #

Joe Raedle / Getty

A woman carries a child past a blast wall on December 9, 2011, in Baghdad, Iraq. While violence dropped dramatically in Baghdad since the peak of the conflict in 2006-2007, around 60,000 blast-wall sections remained in the city at the end of the war. #

Mario Tama / Getty

An Iraqi boy is taken away from a suspected militant, who was accused of killing his father at the height of the sectarian slaughter in 2006 through 2007, during a presentation to the media at the Interior Ministry in Baghdad on November 21, 2011. A total of 22 suspected militants were presented to the media as they awaited their trials, according to the police. #

Saad Shalash / Reuters

Widow Wafaa Shahab (center) holds a photo of her deceased husband, Bassim Muhammed, while posing with her sons Nooreldin Bassim (left) and Ahmed Bassim on December 12, 2011, in Baghdad. Muhammed was said to have been executed by Al-Qaeda militants in front of his house, forcing Shahab and her three children to flee to Syria and northern Iraq for three years. Nooreldin and Ahmed witnessed the killing. A study by Relief International concluded that around 10 percent of the approximately 15 million women living in Iraq in 2011 were widows. A United Nations report estimated that nearly 100 women were widowed daily at the height of the sectarian violence in 2006. #

Mario Tama / Getty

Khitam Hamad, 12, whose face and body were burned after a car bomb exploded in the Iraqi city of Fallujah, poses in a hallway at a program operated by Doctors Without Borders / Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) on November 28, 2011, in Amman, Jordan. MSF has been running a reconstructive-surgery program for war-wounded Iraqis since August 2006. The program, which helps Iraqis irrespective of age or ethnic or religious background, was treating roughly 120 cases at the time. MSF was forced to pull out of Iraq in 2004 due to the escalating violence in the country. #

Mario Tama / Getty