The Iraq war began on March 20, 2003, to rid Iraq of a dictator and eliminate his weapons of mass destruction. The images remain fresh even as the memories fade - the blinding flash of "shock and awe" bombing, the square-jawed confidence of an American president leading his people into war, the cowering prisoner trembling on the ground in the face of a small piece of American power.
(FILE - U.S. President George W. Bush gives a thumbs up as he visits the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln off the California coast on Thursday, May 1, 2003. Later in the day, he declared that major combat in Iraq was finished. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File))
