The War
Early March 20, 2003, soon after the deadline set by President Bush's ultimatum, the United States launched the first aerial strikes of the war. (Dates given in this account are based on local Iraqi time.) Later that day, British marines carried out an amphibious assault on the Al Faw peninsula to secure oil fields, and U.S. Marines attacked the strategic port of Umm Qasr. United States and British ground forces began to move rapidly into Iraq, primarily from the south and southeast across the border with Kuwait. United States forces included the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force and units of the U.S. Army's 3rd Infantry Division and 101st Airborne Division. British forces struck toward Basra. United States troops advanced northwestward toward Baghdad, following two main invasion routes: the 1st Marines took a route generally east of the Euphrates River, and the army units took a route to the west of it.
During the first days of the war, which the Pentagon code-named Operation Iraqi Freedom, United States and British forces carried out intensive bombardment of targets in Baghdad and other cities. On the second day of the war alone, the coalition launched 600 cruise missiles and flew more than 1,000 sorties. The early, intensive air strikes were made in an effort to kill or incapacitate Iraq's highest political leadership and to weaken the resolve of the Iraqi military command through an overwhelming display of military power. Heavy attacks were also directed at troops of the Republican Guard, many thousands of whom were killed in aerial attacks.
The coalition war plan combined traditional flanking attack strategies with an inside-out strategycoordinated attacks mounted inside the country by Special Operations forces forming commando units. During the war, the United States and British military maintained preparations for a possible chemical or biological weapons attack from Iraq, but none occurred.
Within a short time of the beginning of the conflict, President Hussein spoke on national television to rally the Iraqi people to defend their nation. It was the first of several such appearances. In southern Iraq, resistance to the invading forces proved to be greater than United States planners had anticipated. The British encountered particularly stiff resistance in Nasiriya. Suicide bombings and attacks by members of the Fedayeen, civilian irregulars loyal to President Hussein, also took their toll on coalition forces.
Total dominance of Iraqi airspace by coalition aircraft, together with satellite technology, provided coalition generals with a great advantage on the battlefield. U.S. army and marine units maneuvered to avoid frontal confrontations with the heaviest Iraqi forces and advanced rapidly toward the capital on paved highways and over clear desert terrain. The speed of the advance led to sporadic supply problems, especially when the supply lines came under attack by Fedayeen. Troops from the U.S. 82nd Airborne were moved in to help protect the supply lines.
U.S. paratroopers were dropped into northern Iraq on March 27, opening a new front in the war. They were joined by thousands of Kurdish fighters in attacking Iraqi units around the northern cities of Kirkuk and Mosul.
Republican Guard units, under heavy bombardment, streamed south to defend Baghdad. By now, however, the U.S. 3rd Infantry had moved into central Iraq. On April 4, the 3rd Infantry gained control of Baghdad's airport on the outskirts of the city. Within the next few days United States forces began making incursions into Baghdad. By this time British forces had begun taking control of Basra. Kurdish and coalition forces captured Kirkuk and Mosul, and the entire Iraqi army's 5th Army Corps surrendered en masse. By April 14, United States forces had subdued Tikrit, and they were in effective control of Baghdad. Without police and civil authority, however, lawlessness prevailed in Baghdad and other cities, and widespread looting marred the coalition victory.
The United States hosted a meeting on April 15 of Iraqi exiles and representatives of various political factions in Iraq to discuss a postwar political order. However, the main Shiite religious faction refused to participate and several days later thousands of Iraqis marched in the streets to protest the military occupation.
On May 1, President Bush declared that all major United States combat operations had come to an end. As of that day, United States casualties included 138 dead; British casualties, 33 dead; and more than 500 coalition troops had been wounded in action. The number of Iraqis killed in combat was unknown but was believed to be in the thousands. Estimates of Iraqi civilian deaths ranged from a low of 3,200 to a high of 7,800 or more.
