The war in Iraq started with the United States-led military invasion during March 20, 2003. The primary rationale that was stated for invading Iraq was that, Iraq was producing various military weapons that were potential mass devastators and could be used for mass destruction.

This rationale was stated by the U.S President, George. W. Bush, the former Prime Minister of UK, Tony Blair as well as their supporters both locally as well as from outside the continent. These weapons, according to them were potential threats to the United States and its allies. The United States President had also announced in the U.S Senate that it was not possible to wait for such potential threats posed by the then Iraqi leader, Saddam Hussein to become imminent. Hence a war was declared then by the United States and its allies against Iraq. This war is also famous by different names, The Second Gulf War, The Iraq War, Operation of Iraqi Freedom or Occupation of Iraq.

The actual war started on March 20, 2003. The invasion was largely led by the U.S and U.K military forces. They were also supported by small contingents from Australia, Poland and Denmark. The invaders soon tasted victory and the forces of Iraq led by Saddam Hussein were defeated.

The invaders occupied Iraq and tried restoring law and order in the country. They also attempted to establish a democratic government in Iraq. Their attempts were to a large extent a failure, and led to a civil war between Iraq’s two Muslim sects, the Shias and Sunnis. This resulted actually in an asymmetric warfare within the country. All this has resulted in withdrawal of forces from Iraq by many of the allies, and till date the results are being quite controversial.

The actual foundation to this war started way-back in 1991, after the famous Gulf War. The United Nations Security Council passed a resolution that ordered to destroy all chemical, biological and weapons program of Iraq to be totally halted.

The resolution also included destruction of existing weapons to be destroyed under the control of a special United Nations Commission. This was again a failure due to non-co-operation from the Iraqi government. This was followed by the U.S and its allies engaging in low-level conflicts with the then Iraqi military under Saddam Hussein.

Many areas in Iraq were declared no-fly zones. There was information spreading about a possible connection between Saddam Hussein and the Al-Qaeda, which was responsible for the September, 11, 2001 attack on the Twin Towers in New York, U.S. This however till date has not been proved. The U.S then changed its military strategy towards Iraq with the launch of its "Operation Southern Focus".

In the initial half of 2003, the U.S lead coalition forces proposed the so-called "eighteenth resolution" that ordered Iraq to comply with all previous resolutions posed to it. However, this too did not gain much support from the NATO members of the United Nations. Ultimately, all these "no-result" strategies led to the current Iraqi war, through which the U.S and its allies propose to find a solution to the so-called "Iraqi crisis situation".