The Iraq War
An invasion justified by weapons that did not exist.
- When
- —
- Duration
- 8.7 years
- Era
- Contemporary, Holocene
A US-led coalition invades in March 2003, citing weapons of mass destruction and links to al-Qaeda; neither claim survived scrutiny, and the UK's Chilcot inquiry later found the case was presented with unjustified certainty. Saddam Hussein falls within weeks, followed by insurgency, sectarian civil war and the conditions from which Islamic State emerged. Iraqi deaths are estimated in the hundreds of thousands.