The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990 ended with Iraq`s defeat against a US-led coalition in the Gulf War (1990-91). However, the Iraqi branch of the Ba`aath Party, led by Saddam Hussein, managed to stay in power by harshly suppressing the uprisings of the country`s Kurdish minority and its majority of Shia Arabs. To contain the exodus of Iraqi Kurds, the Allies established a “safe haven” in the predominantly Kurdish areas of northern Iraq, and Allied warplanes patrolled “no-fly zones” in northern and southern Iraq that were closed to Iraqi aircraft. To curb future Iraqi aggression, the United Nations (UN) has imposed economic sanctions on Iraq to impede, among other things, the progress of its deadliest weapons programs, including those for the development of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. (See Weapon of Mass Destruction.) UN inspections in the mid-1990s revealed a variety of weapons and technologies banned throughout Iraq. That country`s continued disregard for the UN weapons ban and its repeated interference in inspections frustrated the international community and prompted US President Bill Clinton to order the bombing of several Iraqi military installations (codenamed Operation Desert Fox) in 1998. However, after the attack, Iraq refused to allow inspectors to return to the country, and in the following years, economic sanctions slowly began to erode as neighboring countries tried to resume trade with Iraq. The U.S. military officially declared the end of the iraq war at a ceremony in Baghdad on December 15, 2011, as U.S. troops prepared to withdraw from the country.

When Saddam refused to leave Iraq, the United States and its allies launched an attack on the morning of March 20; It began when U.S. planes dropped several precision-guided bombs on a bunker complex where the Iraqi president reportedly met with senior officials. A series of airstrikes against government and military facilities followed, and within days, U.S. forces had invaded Iraq from Kuwait in the south (U.S. special forces had already been deployed to Kurdish-controlled areas in the north). Despite fears that Iraqi forces will pursue a scorched earth policy – destroying bridges and dams and setting fire to oil wells in southern Iraq – little damage has been caused by the withdrawal of Iraqi forces; in fact, a large number of Iraqi soldiers simply chose not to resist the advance of coalition forces. In southern Iraq, the greatest resistance to U.S. forces as they advanced northward came from irregular groups of Baʿath Party supporters known as Saddam`s Fedayeen. British forces stationed around the southern city of Basra faced similar resistance from paramilitary and irregular fighters. The war in Iraq, also known as the Second Gulf War, began on March 20, 2003, and in 2002 the new U.S. President George W. Bush argued that the U.S.

vulnerability after the September 11, 2001 attacks, coupled with Iraq`s alleged possession and production of weapons of mass destruction (a charge that later turned out to be false) and its support for terrorist groups — which the Bush administration said included al-Qaeda, the perpetrators of the September 11 attacks — made Iraq`s disarmament a renewed priority. UN Security Council Resolution 1441 of 8 November 2002 called on Iraq to take over the inspectors and comply with all previous resolutions. Iraq appeared to be abiding by the resolution, but in early 2003, President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair said that Iraq did indeed continue to obstruct UN inspections and that it still retained banned weapons. Other world leaders, such as the French Pres. Jacques Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, citing what they believed to be increased Iraqi cooperation, tried to expand the inspections and give Iraq more time to comply. But on March 17, Bush, who no longer sought UN resolutions and considered the Security Council`s additional diplomatic efforts to be in vain, declared that diplomacy was over and gave Saddam an ultimatum that gave the Iraqi president 48 hours to leave Iraq. The leaders of France, Germany, Russia and other countries rejected this construction in the direction of war. U.S. President George W. Bush argued that the vulnerability of the United States after the 11th. September 2001, combined with Iraq`s alleged possession and production of weapons of mass destruction and its support for terrorist groups, including al-Qaeda, justified the U.S. war with Iraq.

US President George W. Bush has advocated a military attack on Iraq. On March 17, 2003, Bush declared the end of diplomacy and issued an ultimatum to Saddam Hussein, giving the Iraqi president 48 hours to leave Iraq. Saddam refused and the United States attacked on March 20. On the same day, Basra was finally secured by British troops who had invaded the city a few days earlier. .