Post-invasion Iraq, 2003–2006

Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq Jumhūriyyat al-‘Irāq, is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of... the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert. Iraq borders Syria to the northwest, Turkey to the north, Iran to the east, Jordan to the southwest and Kuwait and Saudi Arabia to the south. Iraq has a narrow section of coastline measuring 58 km on the northern Persian Gulf. The capital city, Baghdad is in the center-east of the country. Two major rivers, the Tigris and Euphrates, run through the center of Iraq, flowing from northwest to southeast. These provide Iraq with agriculturally capable land and contrast with the steppe and desert landscape that covers most of Western Asia. Historically, Iraq was the center of the Abbasid Arabic Islamic Empire. Iraq has been known to the west by the Greek toponym 'Mesopotamia' and has been home to continuous successive civilizations since the 6th millennium BC.
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The Iraq War, or the War in Iraq , was a conflict that occurred in Iraq from March 20, 2003 to December 15, 2011, though sectarian violence continues... since and has caused hundreds of fatalities. Prior to the war, the governments of the United States and the United Kingdom claimed that Iraq's alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction posed a threat to their security and that of their coalition/regional allies. In 2002, the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 1441 which called for Iraq to completely cooperate with UN weapon inspectors to verify that Iraq was not in possession of WMD and cruise missiles. The United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission found no evidence of WMD, but could not verify the accuracy of Iraq's declarations regarding what weapons it possessed. Lead weapons inspector Hans Blix advised the UN Security Council that while Iraq was cooperating in terms of access, Iraq's declarations with regards to WMD still could not be verified.
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Operation Red Dawn was the U.S. military operation conducted on 13 December 2003 in the town of ad-Dawr, Iraq, near Tikrit, that captured Iraq... President Saddam Hussein. The operation was named after the 1984 film Red Dawn. The mission was assigned to the 1st Brigade Combat Team of the 4th Infantry Division, commanded by Major. Gen Raymond Odierno and led by Col. James Hickey of the 4th Infantry Division, with joint operations Task Force 121 - an elite and covert joint special operations team. They searched two sites, "Wolverine 1" and "Wolverine 2," outside the town of ad-Dawr, but did not find Saddam Hussein. A continued search between the two sites discovered him in a "spider hole" hide out at 20:30hrs local Iraqi time. Despite being armed with a pistol and an AK-47 assault rifle, and provisioned with US$750,000 in cash, Saddam did not resist capture. The capture was dramatized in the final episode of House of Saddam. The operation was named after the 1984 film of the same name starring Patrick Swayze.
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