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 - A U.S. soldier aims his weapon at a man who a soldier had just shot in the neck as he attempted to flee down a narrow alley in a van, across the street from the scene of Tuesday's intense shootout on a house in Mosul, Iraq on Wednesday, July 23, 2003. The man was shot after failing to stop and later tended to by U.S. forces. Troops were on high alert after the previous day's operation in which Odai and Qusai, the elder sons of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, were killed. (AP Photo/Wally San)